Get yer polls, bets, numbers & pretty graphs! Elections 2008

This article was pretty hum-drum:

Quote:

Is Race Slowing Obama's Momentum?

ABC News
Apr. 24, 2008

Except for this one excerpt:

Quote:

Then there's the reason cited by one retired Indiana trucker, Bill Came, who supports Obama.

"Race is kind of -- just kind of quiet and laying out there," he said.

Echoing the results from another industrial state Clinton won -- Ohio -- exit polls from the Keystone state indicated that 13 percent of white Democratic voters said race was an important factor in their decision, and three-quarters of them voted for Clinton.

Of those white voters who said race was important, if Obama is the nominee, only 54 percent say they would vote for him. Twenty-seven percent said they'll defect to McCain, a small number but possibly enough to turn a red state, blue.

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Time for some good news: Americans wizening up in ever larger numbers.

President Bush now has the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll. I mean, dude. Damn.

"The disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt. The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952."

"By 69%-27%, those polled say Bush's tenure in general has been a failure, not a success."

Here's the story:

Quote:

Disapproval of Bush breaks record

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What if Clinton overtakes Obama in North Carolina? Not saying it will happen, but one poll indicates the distinct possibility still exists, with Clinton now holding a 2% lead there in one poll. This would be nothing short of one huge monumental collapse of Obama, and would it fuel the fires of the party having to conclude that an Obama candidacy in November is possibly doomed?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/05/01/insideradvantage_clinton_passes_obama_in_north_carolina.html

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It would certainly mean serious trouble.

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nimh wrote:

Time for some good news: Americans wizening up in ever larger numbers.

President Bush now has the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll. I mean, dude. Damn.

"The disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt. The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952."

"By 69%-27%, those polled say Bush's tenure in general has been a failure, not a success."

Interesting that no one has noted that Bush's competitors in this race were Roosevelt and Truman, both of whom have since been recognized by historians as among the best presidents ever and the best of the 20th century. What does this correlation indicate Nimh?

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georgeob1 wrote:

Interesting that no one has noted that Bush's competitors in this race were Roosevelt and Truman, both of whom have since been recognized by historians as among the best presidents ever and the best of the 20th century. What does this correlation indicate Nimh?

I think you misread the text of the article here.

Truman, of course, did indeed suffer notoriously high disapproval ratings, and it is his record that GWB now broke.

Roosevelt, however, is only mentioned here because it was only during his Presidency that Gallup started measuring presidential approval ratings. Not because he himself suffered similar high disapproval ratings.

As the article says at the beginning, Bush now has "the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll"; the poll started in 1938, under Roosevelt. That's the only link there is to him.

Nice try though. Cool

But here's a counterthought, George: while Truman had held the record of lowest approval ratings ever, he had been closely followed by Nixon and Carter. So instead of Bush enjoying the historical company of Truman and Roosevelt on this count, it's in fact Truman, Nixon and Carter that were his historical peers.

What does that correlation indicate, George? :wink:

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Are you saying that from 1938 when the poll started until 1945 when Roosevelt died there were no polls taken to m,easure presidential disapproval ratings?

Nixon was a visionary president who boldly opened the door to China, profoundly altering the alignment of forces in the Cold War, and oversaw the creation of the Environmental Protection program of our government. Memories of the two bit break ins will fade and hardly be noticed by historians - despite the persistent hyperventilation of contemporary pundits. Apart from the authoritatian bumbler Carter, I would say that Bush is in fairly good company.

Finally, I would say that both you and I will be long gone before any of these historical judgements are made.

Relax Nimh. It isn't a contest and I am not keeping score. Smile a little. Smile

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I haven't seen any Guam polls -- anyone know what's up there?

(They're voting tomorrow! A grand total of 9 delegates, but still, an Obama win before NC/ IN would be nice...)

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Evidently it's a caucus...

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...4 delegates, not 9... (I'll keep reading and stop staccato-ing)

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georgeob1 wrote:

Are you saying that from 1938 when the poll started until 1945 when Roosevelt died there were no polls taken to m,easure presidential disapproval ratings?

What? <puzzled>

No? (Where did that come from?)

What I pointed out was a misunderstanding in your previous post. You seemed to take from the article that both Roosevelt and Truman had recorded similarly low approval ratings as Bush now. Hence your observation that hey, that's not bad company to be in, in historical retrospect.

But you are incorrect. Roosevelt never had comparably low ratings.

I am guessing that you misunderstood the part where the article says: "[Bush's] disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt." Maybe you took from this that Roosevelt had the last disapproval rating that high. This is incorrect. The reason that it says that Bush's disapproval ratings are the highest "since Franklin Roosevelt" is that that's when Gallup started polling. See where the paragraph before mentions "the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll". Gallup started polling in 1938 (no, 1937), under Roosevelt, and Bush has the highest disapproval rating since then. I.e., the highest ever.

Roosevelt doesnt rank anywhere near the lowest disapproval ratings. In fact, his approval rating only once ever dropped below 50%, and then just by two percent. Aside from JFK's short-lived presidency, he and Ike were actually the only presidents who remained popular throughout. (He was also one of those rare presidents whose approval ratings rose over time - something only Clinton achieved otherwise, if obviously at a lower level).

The worst performers on the other hand are Bush Jr.; Truman; Nixon; Carter; and Bush Sr. I'd say Truman is the exception here when it comes to how history has judged these presidents. There's a neat graphical overview here at Political Arithmetik.

georgeob1 wrote:

Relax Nimh. It isn't a contest and I am not keeping score. Smile a little.

OK OK, fair enough but, argh - can you start reading before answering and answering to what I wrote? OK that sounds too harsh, sorry. But the "brownshirts" hysteria on the Obama thread was enough misreading for me for a while, if you dont mind...

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Obama vs Hillary: Divisions by race and class are hardening

A couple of months ago we had an on- and off-debate about the reasons why Obama was performing badly among lower-income and lower-education voters. Was it because those are low-information voters, who only catch on with the Obama effect once the primary race really heats up? After all, for a long time it seemed that as soon as the campaign starts rolling, Obama catches up a lot of ground. Or was it a deficit in Obama's appeal, or rather, were there limits to Obama's appeal that prevented him from extending his coalition decisively beyond college graduates and blacks? After all, primary after primary showed up the same class split in the exit polls.

The Potomac primaries, followed by Wisconsin, seemed to buttress the first interpretation. The Ohio and Texas primaries on the other hand appeared to reinforce the idea of clear limits to Obama's appeal along class and race borders.

In Pennsylvania, Obama did do better than in Ohio among older voters, white Democrats, those who are pessimistic about the economy and - notably, considering all the attention the media paid to his remarks about bitter small town people, among rural and small town residents. In fact, compared to Ohio his biggest setback was arguably the lower turnout among some of his own core constituencies: voters younger than 45, and perhaps black women.

But he was also set back among Catholics, weekly churchgoers and union members; he may have improved among older voters, white Democrats and rural and small town residents but was still comfortably beaten in those categories by Hillary, and there was little movement at all in the crucial categories by income and education. Fundamentally, the class divide in the Democratic race remained real and very sturdy. Moreover, this time round he made practically no advances in the last three weeks of the campaign.

This is where some new polling data flagged by Marc Ambinder comes in. According to Pew's latest survey, he writes, noting that it was taken before Wright's press conference at the National Press Club, the race and class divides are just becoming bigger now:

Quote:

Notably, since March, Clinton has lost about 50% of her black support (22% down to 11%), a sign that the racial polarization within the party is hardening. Clinton has improved her lot among white voters across the board, gaining in every income and educational category. Clinton now leads Obama among white males by 10 points, leading Pew to conclude that race and class are driving the shift in preferences.

He also flags how Gallup has aggregated its daily tracking for the six days between April 21-27 - i.e., mostly after the Pennsylvania primaries but before Wright's Press Club performance - and looking at how the two Democrats perform in match-ups against McCain, arrived at related conclusions:

Quote:

[T]he general election coalitions of McCain and Clinton are typical: Clinton wins among women, African Americans, young voters, Americans with lower socioeconomic statuses, Catholics, seculars, Hispanics and unmarried adults.

Clinton is particularly strong among women [..] but she takes less than 80% of the black vote, which can be interpreted in two ways: one, that's bad for a Democrat. Two, that's surprisingly good for Clinton given the hardened polarization that has characterized the Democratic race.

Obama's coalition is mostly like your average Democratic presidential candidate's, but with a few tweaks: he does better with black voters than Clinton, less well with Hispanics, less well with women and Catholics and self-ID'd Democrats. He does better with independents and better with richer Americans.

The table below summarizes the split.

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On a closely related note:

Analysing favourability ratings: how Obama's differ from Clinton's

ABC and WaPo had a new national poll out about two weeks ago. WaPo's Behind the Numbers blog picked up on the candidates' favourability numbers, specifically. All the three remaining candidates, McCain as well as Clinton and Obama, are seeing their favourability numbers slip, it turns out:

Quote:

As the 2008 presidential nomination battle makes its final stop in the Northeast today, opinions about the major players in the race have begun to head south.

As the Post has noted, the percentage rating each of the three presidential candidates unfavorably has climbed since voting began in January according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. But much of the increase has occurred among those who express strongly unfavorable views of each candidate, and for some, there are worrisome demographic trends behind sinking overall ratings.

You can read more about that in the link - among other things, Hillary has seen her numbers drop precipitously among Independents and blacks, while Obama has gained significantly more strong detractors among those without college degrees and those in households with incomes of less than $50,000 per year.

But what I found most striking is how the breakdown of (un)favourability numbers for Obama and Clinton compare - at least among Democrats, specifically. It's not quite like I expected.

For one, Hillary's numbers are surprisingly evenly spread. White or black, less or more prosperous, college degree or no, and whatever age -- her favourability rating is within a nine-point range at 70-78%, and her unfavourability ratings are within a narrow 21-29% band. The percentage of those who look upon her strongly unfavourably ranges from 9-16%.

Obama's approval ratings, on the other hand, diverge far more sharply by group. The sum total makes for a positive comparison: Obama's overall approval rating is just 2% lower than Hillary's among whites, and 20% higher among blacks. But how he compares strongly depends on whom you're asking. And the biggest gap is not by race or age, but by income and education.

Among households earning over $50,000 a year and college graduates, Obama's favourability rating is in the 80s - some ten points higher than Hillary's. But among households earning less than $50,000 and those without college degree, his approval rating is in the low 60s - or 10-16 points lower than Hillary's.

Same with the unfavourables. Just about one in twenty people with higher income or education has a strongly unfavourable opinion of Obama, while about a sizable quarter of those with lower income or education does. For Hillary, the number is 10-12% in all groups.

I'll reproduce the table here, though you might as well click the link for a better looking version:

Q: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of:

Hillary Clinton, Among Democrats:

Code:



                                       Strongly   Str. Unfav.

                        Fav.   Unfav.   Unfav.      Change*



White                    74      24       12          +7

Black                    70      29       16         +13



Income among whites:



Less than $50,000        77      23       11          +7

$50,000 or more          73      25       12          +7



Education among whites:



No college degree        75      24       12          +5

College graduate         73      25       10          +9



Age:



18-34                    73      27       11          +6

35-54                    78      21        9          +4

55+                      72      25       15         +11

Barack Obama, Among Democrats:

Code:



                                       Strongly   Str. Unfav.

                        Fav.   Unfav.   Unfav.      Change*



White                    72      24       16          +6

Black                    90       9        7          +3



Income among whites:



Less than $50,000        61      37       29         +15

$50,000 or more          80      14        6          -2



Education among whites:



No college degree        65      30       23         +10

College graduate         84      13        4          -1



Age:



18-34                    84      14        9          +6

35-54                    74      23       11           0

55+                      71      23       17          +5



*Change is from Washington Post-ABC News January survey.

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You know what I would love to see asked in these polls? Whether the respondent has regular internet access. I have a feeling that it coincides with the income range, but would still like to see it.

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Interesting question in a recent poll (April 17-20), commissioned by Cook Political Report and RT Strategies:

On a 0-10 scale, with 0 being "not at all likely" and 10 being "extremely likely," how likely is it that you would recommend voting for [name of candidate] in the upcoming presidential election to a friend or colleague?
I created the table and graph below to present the results.

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/1105/whomwouldyourecommtablefq9.png

Looking at the table, Barack Obama seems to lead the overall ranking here. Hillary Clinton and John McCain follow, with the March poll showing no difference at all between them while the April poll shows an advantage for McCain.

But it's also worth noting that the differences are rather small. Overall, Obama has about 25% promoters and 60% detractors, while both McCain and Clinton have somewhat more detractors (60-65%), and somewhat less promoters (around 20%). All really quite similar.

The differences there are, however, show up a little more clearly in this chart for the April results:

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4599/whomwouldyourecommendfofo0.png

Obama, unsurprisingly, has the lead in strong supporters (who answer a 9 or 10), with Hillary outdoing McCain marginally for second place.
When you count moderate supporters (6-9), however, McCain is in second place behind Obama, with Hillary behind.
If you consider scores 4-6 as a relatively neutral bloc, it's striking that McCain has the highest number of "neutral" observers (this was even more true in March). He just hasnt been defined (or defined himself) in the same way the Democratic frontrunners have in this gruelling primary.
Hillary has clearly the most strong detractors (0-1 or 0-2). Obama and McCain are roughly even on that score.
In short, Obama has a relatively high number of strong supporters and relatively few strong detractors; McCain has relatively few strong supporters or detractors; and Hillary scores in between on supporters and has relatively many strong detractors.

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Ninh,

FWIW the poll you posted here...

Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 17:19 Post: 3220841 -

Gives Hillary a +74 if you do the math compared to Obama.
I dont know if that really means anything, but it is interesting.

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nimh wrote:

Obama in trouble?
Clinton ahead in both tracking polls for first time since March 7

Regarding the daily tracking polls, nothing much has changed since Hillary achieved a number of milestones the day before yesterday. The Gallup poll has reduced her 4-point lead to a tie, but the Rasmussen poll has increased her 2-point lead to a 3-point one.

Here's the updated graphs:

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/7938/galluprasmusdems16de0.png

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/2649/galluprasmusdemslead14ie4.png

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mysteryman wrote:

Ninh,

FWIW the poll you posted here...

Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 17:19 Post: 3220841 -

Gives Hillary a +74 if you do the math compared to Obama.
I dont know if that really means anything, but it is interesting.

Hey Mysteryman,

I think that's mostly a function of the subgroups they chose to define/analyse. There are a significant number of these subcategories where Hillary clearly does better, so it's interesting to analyse those like Gallup did. But if you look at the total numbers for this period in time, the difference between how Obama does and how Hillary does is really very small.

You can read about it here on the Gallup site: overall, it turns out, if you count everyone and not just this or that group separately, Hillary did just 2% better than Obama. She led McCain by 47% to 45% over this week-long period, while Obama and McCain were tied at 45% each. A marginal difference really.

I think what that means is that while there are clearly a number of subgroups where she does significantly better, and this list identifies many of them, there must be a roughly comparable number of subgroups where he does better, and this list includes only a couple of those. For example, this list doesn't include college graduates, or people from the West or Midwest (only the South and East), whereas I would guess those are all good groups for Obama.

That does make you wish that they would have picked a set of demographic subgroups that would be more representative of the total outcome. But I think their point wasn't to provide a comprehensive overview, but mostly to point out that Obama needs a new kind of coalition of voters to win. He does relatively weakly among a number of groups in the traditional Democratic coalition, scoring worse than Hillary among lower-income voters, Hispanics, women and unmarried people for example; so he needs to make up for that among groups that normally are less inclined to vote Dem, like higher-income people and Westerners, and to really win over the swing groups like independents.

So far he's been doing that quite well, mind you, as the small difference between him and her among all voters shows. But it underscores what the difference between a Hillary campaign and an Obama campaign would be. Hillary would appeal to the same set of voters the Dems usually pulls in, and do it well. A safe option, but also one that is unlikely to get the party more than 50%+1, so to say. Obama has a greater potential to appeal to all kinds of new voters and score a bigger win; but if he fails to do that, he could also lose by larger numbers than Hillary, because he can count less on the disciplined support of traditional Dem voting blocks. So he's more of a promise, but also more of a risk.

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Brian Schaffner at the CCPS is crunching the data on early voters in North Carolina and has some interesting findings:

Almost 400,000 votes have already been cast in the Democratic primary in NC. How much is that? Well, consider this: in 2004, the full total of people who voted for John Kerry in the general election was 1.5 million. It sure looks like this time, at least that many people will vote in the Democratic primaries. Not bad.
Blacks make up 40% of early voters. Schaffner: "It is important to note that most of the polls being conducted in North Carolina are assuming African-American turnout of about one-third; if it is closer to 40%, then this clearly will advantage Obama."
Women make up 61% of early voters. Divided by race, white women make up 33% of early voters and white men 23%, which means black women make up 28%, and black men 16%.
Schaffner's speculative assessment: "If we assume that Obama wins 85% of the African-American vote, just 30% of white women and 40% of white men and then we split the remaining 6% of the early voters [..] evenly between Obama and Clinton [..] Obama is currently leading Clinton among early voters by a margin of 56-44%. In terms of raw numbers, that would give Obama a lead of somewhere close to 50k votes.

Note of caution: Obama had a significant lead among early voters in Texas, I believe, and yet that early lead in votes was very quickly undone once the primary day votes started being counted.

******

On the other hand, you may have seen the AP story notes Nick Beaudrot: "But, those counties account for roughly 23.2% of the state's population. Those counties are actually underperforming at the moment! Unless Obama can get Bloomington, Indianapolis, and Gary to account for almost thirty percent of the statewide vote, it's going to be very difficult for him to win."

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Last Thursday, for the first time I used JPB's suggestions on how to format trendlines for both of the Democrats' polling numbers.

I used graphs that only show the two candidates' polling since February 16, when Obama's upward surge levelled off and the race stabilised, and I used linear trendlines - a straight line from one point to the other to reveal the overall upward or downward trend.

Well, as of last night, when yesterday's Gallup and Rasmussen numbers were in, the Hillary Clinton graph was quite the miracle.

Here it is:

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/563/clintonlinear3oi8.png

Yep, you saw that right. There we are: two and a half gruelling months of campaigning on, millions of dollars raised and spent, hundreds of hours of punditing commentary babbled full, and here we are - to the exact point right where we were back then.

When it comes to Hillary Clinton's polling, both the Gallup and Rasmussen trendlines are perfectly even lines, with not the slightest or subtlest trend upward or downward - not the smallest tick in the line.

Nothing. Changed.

Surely that's some kind of record. Depressing really. Makes you wonder why anyone bothered to do something in the first place?

In comparison, at least Obama's trendline shows a slightly upward bent, if a rather subtle one, as the number of undecideds eroded:

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/61/obamalinear3sv1.png

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Get yer polls, bets, numbers & pretty graphs! Elections 2008

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