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

sozobe wrote:

I'm not sure. I see what you're saying, but I think an argument could be pretty easily made to go the opposite direction. Obama is about change -- things are not right, we need to make them right. Join with me, help me make them right.

Theoretically, yeah. But isnt the proof in the pudding? And so far, its not just in the national polls (in which name rec does indeed play an overwhelming role), but also in all the early primary states (where people were as bombarded with primary campaign stuff as any American has ever been), that Obama's strongest support turns out to be among the young, confident and higher educated, and weakest among the old, insecure and lesser educated.

So, yes, it might also work out the opposite way, but so far it doesnt. And in the case of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, I dont think that a lacking familiarity with Obama's message can be faulted - not a state in the country will be more familiar with it at any time this year than those two are already. So if I were an Obama campaign operative, I'd take those signs seriously and learn the lessons, rather than assuming that it'll just all change when people just get to hear more from/about him.

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It turns out the gender and class divide in support for Obama even plays a role of sorts among black voters. I saw an article in the WSJ, of all places, which had really a lot of information on this that was wholly new to me, I'll go look that up later.

But here's already some interesting, related details from a poll commissioned by Ebony and Jet in South Carolina, which was done on 19-22 Jan.:

Among black men under 45, Obama gets 75%; Clinton gets just 15%. (So that's 5:1.)
Among black women, Obama leads Clinton by 48% to 23%, or about 2:1.
Among single Black mothers, Obama gets 35%, and Clinton 32% (or about 1:1).

Also interesting:

Obama gets 61% of Blacks who attend church occasionally (once a week or less);
whereas he gets 52% of regular churchgoers (those who attend 2 or more times a week).

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Here's that WSJ article:

Quote:

Obama's Bid Turns Focus On Class Split Among Blacks

Wall Street Journal
22 January 2008

I'll excerpt more of it on the Obama thread, and will leave it at only a directly polls-related para or two here:

Quote:

A poll this fall by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank, shows the wide disparity of support for Mr. Obama among blacks. While 75% of blacks who went to college had a favorable or very favorable view of the candidate -- rising to 88% among blacks who went to graduate or professional school -- support dipped to 62% among those with just a high-school degree and to 42% among blacks who haven't finished high school. A similar pattern shows up as income levels fall among blacks. And while 83% of blacks employed full time had a favorable view of Mr. Obama, just 55% of unemployed blacks did.

Fascinating. I had no idea.

Later on there is a bit of context that might be relevant:

Quote:

Mr. Obama's candidacy comes amid an intensifying argument in the black community about what it means to be black in America and how blacks succeed. A survey this past fall by Pew Research found that 60% of blacks say the values of poor and middle-class blacks have grown more dissimilar over the past decade -- with "values" defined as "things that people view as important or their general way of thinking." Almost 40% of blacks say that the values of poor and middle-class blacks have diverged so much that blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. Middle class is commonly defined as households making between $40,000 and $100,000 a year.

And here's an overview of the data that went with the article:

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AK249_OBAMAC_20080121195726.gif

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nimh wrote:

Theoretically, yeah. But isnt the proof in the pudding? And so far, its not just in the national polls (in which name rec does indeed play an overwhelming role), but also in all the early primary states (where people were as bombarded with primary campaign stuff as any American has ever been), that Obama's strongest support turns out to be among the young, confident and higher educated, and weakest among the old, insecure and lesser educated.

So, yes, it might also work out the opposite way, but so far it doesnt.

OK, but what I have been saying is not that "Obama has won them over with his message," but "I don't think it's necessarily accurate that Hillary has won them over with her message and campaign style."

This is what I've been disputing throughout -- whether Hillary is doing well because of what she is saying and doing, or because of who she is. The cause and effect thing -- are people won over by her listening to them at small events, or are they already won over before they ever see her and that predisposition is reflected in their response?

Here's an alternative take on probably a very similar New Hampshire session to the one in the article that started this discussion, from the New Yorker:

Quote:

In the New Hampshire cafeteria, Clinton couldn't quite make an individual connection, even when listening sympathetically to a woman in the crowd who said that she held down two jobs and still had trouble paying for her asthma medicine. When a man declared himself appalled by the Democrats' weak statements about terrorism at a televised debate, Clinton snapped, "I'm sorry you were appalled by it," and moved on. She wouldn't risk the loss of control that it might take to energize the room with humor or anger or argument, or the sort of spontaneous human touch that everyone who spends private time with her notices and likes. A number of people drifted away before she had finished.

Is she really so good at this? Is that really the basis of her appeal for the demographic groups?

That's what I've been trying to tease apart. Yes, I know she's doing better with certain groups right now, that's not disputed. But WHY?

This is important because of where they will go from here. If it's messages and campaign styles that have gotten Hillary and Obama their relative support, and just that, then Obama doesn't have that much room to get better. He's probably not going to significantly change his message or campaign style.

However, if the biggest variable is knowledge of and familiarity with a candidate -- in the sense of that candidate being a very recognizable and well-known public figure for more than 16 years -- then Obama does have room. If he becomes "safer" by gathering more and more steam and seeming

And especially, if it's Hillary's relative safety that is giving her an advantage with that group, there is plenty of reason to think that if Obama does make it -- if he does become the party's nominee -- that people would vote for him willingly as the "safer option," the Democratic candidate vs. the Republican candidate.

Again, I'm not talking about name recognition or even familiarity with Obama's message. That's not the point. I'm talking about familiarity with HIM, on the scale of 16 years.

When I imagine my staff in L.A., for example, I can easily imagine them feeling more comfortable with the known quantity, the person who was in the White House for 8 years, the person they see on the news over and over and over again. She's been around. She must know what she's doing. She's doing well in the primaries. She's the safer choice.

All of this completely independent from her message or campaign style.

Why do you think lessons are not learned by Obama's campaign operatives? They didn't seem to wait to learn lessons -- they went straight to this demographic early on with their beauty-shop and barber-shop campaign in South Carolina, that seems to be going well. They sure don't have 100% of the black vote, as Miller says, but as of right now they seem to have done a pretty good job.

I have little doubt that they're doing other things that are similar in other states, and doing their best to fight Hillary's built-in advantage.

But yes, Hillary has a built-in advantage, and I think that advantage has way more to do with her 16 years in the public eye than her campaign message or style. The advantage is vulnerable, though, and is especially susceptible to an Obama surge. The stronger he looks, the less safe Hillary looks.

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I was interrupted here:

Quote:

However, if the biggest variable is knowledge of and familiarity with a candidate -- in the sense of that candidate being a very recognizable and well-known public figure for more than 16 years -- then Obama does have room. If he becomes "safer" by gathering more and more steam and seeming

I finished the point later though. Along the lines of:

If he becomes "safer" by gathering more and more steam and seeming more and more inevitable, more and more of a powerhouse, ON TOP OF his inspiring, energizing message of hope and taking back our country and making things right, I think he can make significant inroads with those demographics on the way to the nomination... and if he GETS the nomination, I think he can count on their vote in the general election.

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If Obama can ge the nomination, I actually like his chances against McCain. (At least a lot more than I like them against Billary)

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Democrats - South Carolina

And as the number of polls on the South Carolina Democratic primaries keeps mushrooming, my graph keeps becoming larger.. it just wont fit otherwise ;-)

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3194/scdems4jl7.png

Barack Obama seems pretty stable in overall preferences at 37-45% of the vote; the last 11 polls out all have him in that range. Those are 11 polls within a 5-day range.. (21-25 Jan.).

A spate of seven polls that were done in the middle of the month (13-18 Jan.) had him at 38-46%, so that's almost the same, while four of the five polls that were done at the beginning of the month had him at 40-44%. All in all only the slightest sign of weakening in overall support over time.

Hillary Clinton's numbers on the other hand saw a more marked decrease midway through the month. The eight polls that were done in the first half of the month were remarkably consistent at pegging her support at 30-33%. Then, after two ARG polls muddied the water, she suddenly dropped in the days or two before the contentious debate already. Since then, the odd ARG poll or two excepted, she's been fairly stable in the race again, with between 24-30%. Basically, the couple of days around the debate took her down a peg.

John Edwards, on the other hand, clearly benefited from the debate. Up until the 21st, he consistently polled somewhere far behind the two frontrunners, at some 10-16%. But the last six polls out, which have all been conducted entirely after the debate, have him at 19-24%. Both Survey USA and Mason-Dixon have him increasing his support to 1,5x what it was before the debate.

There's been too few days since the debate to say much about whether it was just a one-time hike, or a continuing increase over the days since. Two Survey USA polls since the debate had him at 22% and 24% respectively, while four iterations of Zogby's daily tracking poll (each representing the average of the last three days of polling) had him at 15%, 19%, 21% and 19%.

The answer will decide whether Edwards will come close to Hillary or not. Just the leg-up of the debate itself, though impressive, wasnt enough: Edwards' 19-24% is still entirely underneath Hillary's 24-30%. But if those numbers represent a continuingly upward momentum, he may just stand a chance of passing her.

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John Edwards - The conservative candidate?

Interesting tidbit from the crosstabs of the last Survey USA poll in South Carolina: the distribution by ideology.

Obama's appeal gradually increases the further left you go: from 35% among the one in six likely voters who identify themselves as conservative, to 40% among the majority of moderates, to 42% among the one in six who define themselves as liberal.

Intriguingly, the same holds for Hillary - a little more so, even. Her support ranges from 21% among conservative likely voters in the Dem primaries to 34% among moderates and 37% among liberals.

So what gives? John Edwards is what gives. This champion of progressive causes, substantively the most left-wing of the three candidates, gets just 18% of liberal votes, 24% of moderate votes, and a first-place ranking 39% of conservative votes.

Edwards also does much better among Independents than among Democrats, while both Obama and Hillary do worse - an interesting reversal from Obama's success among independents and Edwards' strength among core Democrats in Iowa and NH. And he comes in first among the one in twenty respondents each who identify immigration and terrorism as the top issue for the next president. He also does better among men (27%) than women (21%).

All of this is enough to pivot back to the discussion that Cycloptichorn and I have been having about identity politics. Cyclo objected to the role that identity politics played in the women's vote for Hillary and, to a lesser extent, the black vote for Obama. But these numbers certainly seem to illustrate a point I tried to make in turn: that each advantage for Hillary among women (or Obama among blacks) is well mirrored in the voting preferences of men (or whites).

The penchant of conservatives, independents, and those who mention immigration or terrorism as top issue for John Edwards, who has substantively little to offer on any of those counts, seems to suggest that many of them purely prefer him because, well, he's a white man.

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nimh wrote:

All of this is enough to pivot back to the discussion that Cycloptichorn and I have been having about identity politics. Cyclo objected to the role that identity politics played in the women's vote for Hillary and, to a lesser extent, the black vote for Obama. But these numbers certainly seem to illustrate a point I tried to make in turn: that each advantage for Hillary among women (or Obama among blacks) is well mirrored in the voting preferences of men (or whites).

Yes, thank you, that was a point I wanted to make too, and forgot.

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nimh, most people know Clinton is far more extreme than her public statements indicate. She is an incementalist, and people know this. People know very little about what Obama stands for, so the safe approach is to vote for Edwards, whose main mantra is health care and giving more money away to the poor. At least he may not be a closet communist. That is why conservatives tend back to Edwards. And Edwards can't win his own state? Whats up with that?

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Quote:

most people know Clinton is far more extreme than her public statements indicate.

Quote:

People know very little about what Obama stands for

amazing what some people know about what other people know or don't know

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Vivekananda's quote
"One who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool.
So shun him.
One who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant.
So teach him.
One who knows and knows not that he knows is sleeping.
So wake him.
One who knows and knows that he knows is perfect.
So follow him."

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Duh observations that should be kept closely in mind anyway: South Carolinans very uncertain about their vote till the last moment

An extremely interesting post by Mark Blumenthal on pollster.com:

Quote:

[..] reader Joshua Bradshaw [asks] "how is it possible to have so widely different poll numbers from the same time period?" There are many important technical reasons for the variation, but they all stem from the same underlying cause: Many South Carolina voters are still uncertain, both about their choices and about whether they will vote [..].

[In] the results of eight different polls released in the last few days. [..], the biggest differences are in the "undecided" percentage, which varies from 1% to 36% [..].

Obviously, the differences in the undecided percentage are about much more than the random sampling variation that gives us the so-called "margin of error," but they are surprisingly common. Differences in question wording, context, survey mode and interviewer technique can explain much of the difference. In fact, variations in the undecided percentage are usually the main sources of "house effect" differences among pollsters.

The key issue is that many voters are less than completely certain about how they will vote and will hesitate when confronted by a pollster's trial heat question. How the pollster handles that hesitation determines the percentage that ultimately get recorded as undecided. [..]

Most pollsters [..] try to word their questions, train their interviewers or structure their automated calls in a way to push voters toward expressing a preference. Most pollsters include an explicit follow-up to those who say they are uncertain, asking which way they "lean." The pollsters that typically report the lowest undecided percentages have probably trained their interviewers to push especially hard for an answer. And SurveyUSA, the pollster with the smallest undecided in South Carolina (1%), typically inserts a pause in their automated script, so that respondents have to wait several seconds before hearing they can "press 9 for undecided."

But it is probably best to focus on the underlying cause of all this variation: South Carolina voters feel a lot of uncertainty about their choice. Four of the pollsters followed up with a question about whether voters might still change their minds, and 18% to 26% said that they might. So many South Carolina Democrats -- like those in Iowa, New Hampshire before them -- are feeling uncertain about their decision. Thus, as reader Russ points out, "the last 24 hours" may count as much in South Carolina as elsewhere.

In short, the lower the percentage of undecideds in a poll, the more you may get a sense of how preferences pan out beyond core supporters - but also the more uncertain and tentative the overall results are. And in SC, the poll results are very tentative.

Another reason for much uncertainty about the result is that it's hard for anyone to guess how high turnout will be - and who will be making up the electorate:

Quote:

Four years ago, the turnout of 289,856 South Carolina Democrats amounted to roughly 9% of the eligible adults in the state. Turnout tomorrow will likely be higher, but how much higher is anyone's guess. Thus, selecting "likely voters" in South Carolina may not be as challenging as the Iowa or Nevada caucuses, but it comes close. [..]

Differences in the likely voter selection methods mean that the South Carolina polls have differences in the kinds of people sampled for each poll. One of the most important characteristics is the percentage of African-Americans. It varies from 42% to 55% among the five pollsters that reported it [..].

Another important difference largely hidden from view is the age composition of each sample. Only three pollsters reported an age breakdown. SurveyUSA reports 50% under the age of 50, compared to 43% on the McClatchy/MSNBC/Mason-Dixon survey. PPP had an older sample, with only 23% under the age of 45.

Those are some huge differences on age! (The reason PPP's overall results are nevertheless in line with the others' is probably because their low sampling of young people is offset by a relatively high sampling of African-Americans, neatly offsetting Obama's strengths and weaknesses.)

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Live interviewers versus "interactive voice response" - polling shows little indication that Bradley/Wilder effect might turn up in the SC primaries?

In the same post, Blumenthal pokes at the so-called Bradley/Wilder effect, which is about the degree to which people will refrain from telling the interviewer in a poll that they will probably vote against the black candidate:

Quote:

Three of the pollsters that released surveys over the last week (SurveyUSA, Rasmussen and PPP) use the IVR method (as does InsiderAdvantage), while the others use live interviewers. One thing to note is that the so-called "Bradley/Wilder effect" (or a the "reverse" Bradley/Wilder effect - via Kaus) assumes that respondents alter or hide their preferences to avoid a sense of "social discomfort" with the interviewer. Without an interviewer, there should be little or no effect.

In this case the difference seems to be mostly about the undecided percentage, which is lower for the IVR surveys. In the most recent surveys, the three IVR pollsters report a smaller undecided percentage (7%) than the live interviewer pollsters (17%). That pattern is typical, although pollsters disagree about the reasons. Some say voters are more willing to cast a "secret ballot" without an interviewer involved, while others argue that those willing to participate in IVR polls tend to be more opinionated.

If the Bradley/Wilder effect is operating, we would expect to see it on surveys that use live interviewers, but in this case, the lack of an interviewer seems to work in Obama's favor. He leads Clinton by an average of 17 points on the IVR polls (44% to 27%, with 19% for Edwards), but by only 9 points on the interviewer surveys (37% to 28%, with 17% for Edwards).

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Democrats - South Carolina

Again, this was what the overall polling results have looked like:

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3194/scdems4jl7.th.png

But arguably, the really interesting part of this race, however, wasnt how the overall numbers developed, but how the breakdown by race developed.

Barack's and Hillary's ratings among black voters and white voters separately have changed over time much more drastically than their overall standing. There, the short explanation is that overall he has gone down among white voters and up among black voters - but note the qualifiers.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/8503/scdems5raceaf2.png

NB: graph now includes the polls that were done in mid-December! (No polls were done over the holiday season.)

Support among African-Americans

Obama came into South Carolina as the "post-racial" candidate, who had proven his cross-racial appeal by his win in Iowa and strong second place in New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, was very popular among South Carolina blacks, and was supported by most of the local establishment, from local councillors to the reverends in the black churches.

Nevertheless, already back in December Obama was leading her among black voters, getting about half of them while Hillary had a third. As the race proceeded, the contest became increasingly racialised, and the gap between them among black voters grew.

A running average of the last four polls out showed Obama boosted to the high 50s in the days after the Iowa caucuses. Going from there, his share of the black votes gradually increased to the mid 60s in the last few days.

That's an impressive, but fairly incremental change, and the more important thing to note here might be that the differences between individual polls were MUCH larger than this gradual increase over time. Individual polls have had African-American support for Obama at anywhere between 53% and 73% just in the last week alone, showing that the uncertainty is especially big among blacks.

Hillary's support among blacks mirrors Obama's. At one-third last month, it was down to about a quarter in mid-January. In the days around the acidic debate, her running average dropped down further from 22% to 16%, and if you dont count the ARG polls that's where it still is now. Edwards, meanwhile, who by mid-January was down to a mere 2% on average among blacks has picked up a modicum of support since , getting 4-9%.

Support among whites

The main story about the development of popular preferences during the campaign among whites has been how Hillary lost a fairly imposing lead on Edwards after the debate, and has now ended up polling neck-and-neck with him.

Back in December, Hillary's support among whites in SC was in the low 40s, while Edwards' was in the high 20s. The same proportions were still in place on the very eve of the debate. But in the four days after, Hillary dropped and Edwards rose so that they are now both in the mid/high 30s.

A direct comparison of polls by the same pollster before and after the debate appears to show a substantive boost for Edwaeds. According to Survey USA, he went from 26% to 34% to 38% within a week. According to Mason-Dixon, he went from 28% to 40%. Only PPP has his support rising more modestly from 30% to 34%.

The other big story here is that Obama, post-racial candidate credentials notwithstanding, did not manage to compete with the two frontrunners except for a few days directly after the Iowa caucuses.

Back in December, his support among whites stood at 14-24%. Directly after his Iowa win, it was boosted to 29-31%, which made him competitive with Edwards and Hillary. But unlike his support among blacks, which kept increasing, his post-Iowa bounce among whites was short-lived. He soon dropped to around 20%, and has remained there since.

With the exception of the Clemson poll with its high number of undecideds and the one Mason-Dixon poll that had him down to 10%, every poll conducted since 10 Jan. for which I could find data for whites had him at 17-24% - and that's 19 different polls.

So here in this Southern state, it seems (awaiting tonight's results) that Obama could not replicate the appeal he exerted on whites in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. And this is mirrored in his apparent failure to attract Independents and cross-over Republicans in this Southern state, where that was his prime strength in Iowa.

Does that suggest that the whole electoral map in this overall region might look very different? Specifically, that down here Obama is basically still reliant on the same alliance between blacks and liberal whites that propelled Jesse Jackson's candidacy, even as he successfully reached (far) beyond that elsewhere?

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NPR is reporting (amongst other things) that 80% of SC voters participating in exit polls claimed that they would be comfortable with either Clinton or Obama as President (MOE: 4%). Various caveats can be raised, of course, but I am sensing that Edwards could be facing a long evening.
Polls close in one hour.

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You can sit on the edge of your seat with the rest of us and watch the results creep in live on the SC Democrat Party's website here:

http://www.scdp.org/primary_results/

BYOP

(Bring Your Own Popcorn)

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Thanks for the link Butrflynet!

Plonking this from an article Soz posted in her blog:

Quote:

she gave me an opening to talk to two guys in the line behind me, one sporting a John Edwards sticker and the other a Barack Obama pin. They both looked to be in their late-50s to early-60s, both white men. And when they opened their mouths, there was no question where they were from either.

"Born and raised right here in South Carolina," the man with the Edwards sticker, Jack, said. "Just like John Edwards."

Jack voted for Edwards here in 2004, when the former North Carolina senator beat John Kerry by taking 45% of the vote. [..]

"Good family man, good all-around guy," Jack continued. "He knows what it's like for the little people. He comes from a working-class family and worked his way through college in our textile plants. He gets us, he's not just swooping in here and asking us, oh, vote for me now so I can move on to the next one."

CBS4

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Thanks for the link. I heard that Orangeburg County could be indicative of something. It is very largely black. It is also rural, meaning, I guess, that the levels of income and education are lower then in the rest of the state. So it might be a good county to watch to see if Nimh's most recent charts are accurate. Badly worded by rjb. I hope you get the gist.

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Obama projected to win South Carolina primary

"by a substantial margin"

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

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