*September 8, 2004 *
*/Does Bush Really Have a 7 Point Lead?/*
I've certainly made no secret of my skepticism. Now consider this excellent analysis along the same lines by Professor Alan Abramowitz <http://www.polisci.emory.edu/about/abramowitz.html>of Emory University, one of the leading academic analysts of American politiics. (He sent this to me in an email and graciously agreed to allow me to share it with readers of this blog.)
1. The latest Gallup Poll has Bush ahead of Kerry by 52-45 percent
among likely voters but by only 49-48 percent among registered
voters. Based on the numbers of registered and likely voters in
their sample, this means that Gallup is projecting that 89 percent
of Bush supporters will vote but only 79 percent of Kerry supporters
will vote. That seems unrealistic. It is way out of line with data
from the American National Election Studies on turnout among
registered Dems and Republicans in recent elections. For the past
three presidential elections, the turnout gap between Republicans
and Democrats has averaged 3 percentage points and was never larger
than 4 percentage points. The smallest gap was in 1992 (1 point),
the election with the highest overall turnout. Assuming that 2004
will be another relatively high turnout election, we should probably
expect a relatively small turnout gap, similar to 1992.
2. Among registered voters, Gallup shows Bush leading by one point
overall, with Kerry leading 90-7 among Democrats, Bush leading 90-7
among Republicans, and Kerry leading 49-46 among independents. This
means that Gallup's sample of registered voters includes more
Republican identifiers than Democratic identifiers. But in 2000,
according to the VNS national exit poll (which hits the overall
percentages for Bush and Gore right on the nose), Democrats made up
40.3 percent of the electorate while Republicans made up only 36.5
percent of the electorate. If you apply Gallup's trial heat results
among Democrats, independents, and Republicans to the VNS 2000
electorate, Kerry comes out with with a four point lead: 50.3
percent to Bush's 46.4 percent.
Food for thought, eh?
also
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/000645.php
*September 9, 2004 *
*/Guess They Skipped the Apples-to-Apples Thing in Gallup Training School/*
This is really unbelievable. Gallup posted an analysis on their site yesterday about estimating election probabilities based on labor day poll data <http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=12970>that is almost completely worthless. The reason is that they focus on Kerry's 7 point deficit among LVs on labor day (can he overcome it?), /while basing their analysis almost entirely on data about RVs on labor day/.
How do I know their labor day poll data is almost entirely (prior to 1996) based on RVs? Because they published these data, clearly marked as being from RVs prior to that date, in an analysis on their own site just 6 days ago (September 3)!
Don't they read their own stuff? Clearly it makes no sense to analyze a lead among LVs this labor day, and its possible relation to the final outcome this year, on the basis of historical data about RV leads on labor day and how much they changed by election day.
Thus, the question Gallup /should/ have been asking is: can Kerry overcome his 1 point deficit among RVs by election day, based on historical patterns? Turns out the answer to /this /question--really, the only question that their data can properly answer--looks pretty darn good for Kerry.
In 17 of 17 cases, going back to 1936, the labor day margin between the candidates changed enough for Kerry to tie or surpass Bush in the popular vote and, in 12 of 17 of those cases, the change was in Kerry's direction (i.e., that is, in the direction of the candidate who was behind among RVs on labor day).
Moreover, if you compare Bush's position to the position of incumbent presidents who won their campaigns for re-election, it doesn't look auspicious. In 9 cases, going back to 1936, winning incumbent presidents on labor day had an average lead of 12 points and a median lead of 11 points among RVs. The only winning incumbent president who was in a worse position than Bush is this year was Harry Truman in 1948.
Maybe I'm biased, but I have a really hard time seeing George W. Bush as Harry Truman.