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Forums - Politics Discussion - 2012 Election Center: The Main Event - Obama Wins

 

Of the two main candidates for president, who will win?

Barack Obama 245 75.85%
 
Mitt Romney 73 22.60%
 
Total:318
GameOver22 on 06 November 2012
the2real4mafol said:
Kasz216 said:


Believe it or not, low turnout numbers would probably be good for Obama.

As he's winning Democrats, but losing Independents and Republicans. 

 

That said... voter turnout is actually a lot higher then you would think.  It's just calculated stupidly.

It's calculated by counting the number of votes vs the number of people of voting age that appeared on the census... ignoring

 

A)  felons can't vote

B) People with visas and other legal aliens can't vote.

C) Illegal aliens can't vote.

 

All three are counted in the US Census.

oh ok but what sort of turnout do you get in these sort of elections? In British general elections every 5 years, we get 60% to 65% turnout

mid 50%-low 60% for a presidential election

A nice graph-the VEP(voting eligible population) is what you want to look at



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Kasz216 on 06 November 2012
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
gergroy said:
gallops last poll came out today, romney 49, obama 48

interesting

I was actually more interested in the fact that Gallup had it that close. Prior to Sandy hitting (after which they suspended their polls), all their polls were generally showing Romney up by 4-6 points. I was almost thinking that Obama's mini-surge was just a product of Gallup exiting the polls.

That's actually pretty common for Gallup.


Last presidential election they were tied with Rasmussen when Rasmussen for "Most accurate final number"  hoever were horrible when it came to consistency in their poll numbers.

They likely have an oversampling of undecideds/people who change their mind.

 

On the one hand... I think Obama will win.  On the otherhand it's hard to discount Rasmussen whose sample has been in 1st place when figuring out who will be President.  It's why there is a very real chance of a popular vote/electoral vote split.

Interesting. I never really payed much attention to gallup in particular. I just saw their numbers shoot up to around +7 at one point and hover around that area, so it caught my attention. We were discussing it in one of my classes, and one suggestion was that their likely voter model might be suspect. I guess they don't make their screening process public. Personally, I don't know much about it, but the poll numbers were odd.

Actually, i double checked that and I was wrong...

it was Pew that was like that last tine.   Sorry.

In 08, Gallup just like the majority of polls over estimated Obama's poll numbers.   (Gallup by +2%.)

Which is really the warning that may come to bear.  Polling tends to skew democrat... it's just rarely close enough to matter.

Still, it makes me think their problem is largely in overepresenting undecideds.

 

 

Either way, if you were to base elections based on previous accuracy,  You'd use a mix of Rasmussen, Ruerters and GWU,  and maybe Pew though their consistency is questionable.

I don't know. It seems like the national polls from 2008 were pretty accurate. On average, they overestimated Obama's share by 0.3% points.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

First off... the most obviouis... that list only shows 15 pollsters... not the full 23 mentioned in the accuracy reports.



the2real4mafol on 06 November 2012
GameOver22 said:
the2real4mafol said:
Kasz216 said:


Believe it or not, low turnout numbers would probably be good for Obama.

As he's winning Democrats, but losing Independents and Republicans. 

 

That said... voter turnout is actually a lot higher then you would think.  It's just calculated stupidly.

It's calculated by counting the number of votes vs the number of people of voting age that appeared on the census... ignoring

 

A)  felons can't vote

B) People with visas and other legal aliens can't vote.

C) Illegal aliens can't vote.

 

All three are counted in the US Census.

oh ok but what sort of turnout do you get in these sort of elections? In British general elections every 5 years, we get 60% to 65% turnout

mid 50%-low 60% for a presidential election

A nice graph-the VEP(voting eligible population) is what you want to look at

Simply doesn't compare to the turnout of the French or Venuezuelan Elections this year at 80% turnout each lol



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GameOver22 on 06 November 2012
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
gergroy said:
gallops last poll came out today, romney 49, obama 48

interesting

I was actually more interested in the fact that Gallup had it that close. Prior to Sandy hitting (after which they suspended their polls), all their polls were generally showing Romney up by 4-6 points. I was almost thinking that Obama's mini-surge was just a product of Gallup exiting the polls.

That's actually pretty common for Gallup.


Last presidential election they were tied with Rasmussen when Rasmussen for "Most accurate final number"  hoever were horrible when it came to consistency in their poll numbers.

They likely have an oversampling of undecideds/people who change their mind.

 

On the one hand... I think Obama will win.  On the otherhand it's hard to discount Rasmussen whose sample has been in 1st place when figuring out who will be President.  It's why there is a very real chance of a popular vote/electoral vote split.

Interesting. I never really payed much attention to gallup in particular. I just saw their numbers shoot up to around +7 at one point and hover around that area, so it caught my attention. We were discussing it in one of my classes, and one suggestion was that their likely voter model might be suspect. I guess they don't make their screening process public. Personally, I don't know much about it, but the poll numbers were odd.

Actually, i double checked that and I was wrong...

it was Pew that was like that last tine.   Sorry.

In 08, Gallup just like the majority of polls over estimated Obama's poll numbers.   (Gallup by +2%.)

Which is really the warning that may come to bear.  Polling tends to skew democrat... it's just rarely close enough to matter.

Still, it makes me think their problem is largely in overepresenting undecideds.

 

 

Either way, if you were to base elections based on previous accuracy,  You'd use a mix of Rasmussen, Ruerters and GWU,  and maybe Pew though their consistency is questionable.

I don't know. It seems like the national polls from 2008 were pretty accurate. On average, they overestimated Obama's share by 0.3% points.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

First off... the most obviouis... that list only shows 15 pollsters... not the full 23 mentioned in the accuracy reports.

Where's the accuracy report?



GameOver22 on 06 November 2012
the2real4mafol said:

Simply doesn't compare to the turnout of the French or Venuezuelan Elections this year at 80% turnout each lol

Yeah, we just can't match that level of enthusiasm : )



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Kasz216 on 06 November 2012
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
 

A

I don't know. It seems like the national polls from 2008 were pretty accurate. On average, they overestimated Obama's share by 0.3% points.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

First off... the most obviouis... that list only shows 15 pollsters... not the full 23 mentioned in the accuracy reports.

Where's the accuracy report?

All i can find at the moment is the barebones one

http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf

Well that and this one in regards to total accuracy

http://electoralmap.net/2012/2008_election.php

 

And I'd also note... the RCP averages don't actually match up with if you were to average the RCP numbers.  Not sure if they weight polls differently with MOE, or something else or what.



GameOver22 on 06 November 2012
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
 

A

I don't know. It seems like the national polls from 2008 were pretty accurate. On average, they overestimated Obama's share by 0.3% points.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

First off... the most obviouis... that list only shows 15 pollsters... not the full 23 mentioned in the accuracy reports.

Where's the accuracy report?

All i can find at the moment is the barebones one

http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf

Well that and this one in regards to total accuracy

http://electoralmap.net/2012/2008_election.php

 

And I'd also note... the RCP averages don't actually match up with if you were to average the RCP numbers.

The problem is that those links have Obama's margin of victory at +6.15 and +6.5 when his actual margin of victory was +7.2. They actually updated the analysis later when the true election results were known.

Accuracy Report- pages 4 and 5 (or 899/900 depending on how you look at it)

Edit: As for RCP, it might be because they keep a rolling average. I don't know how far back their numbers go when they calculate an average.



Kasz216 on 06 November 2012
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:
 

A

I don't know. It seems like the national polls from 2008 were pretty accurate. On average, they overestimated Obama's share by 0.3% points.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

First off... the most obviouis... that list only shows 15 pollsters... not the full 23 mentioned in the accuracy reports.

Where's the accuracy report?

All i can find at the moment is the barebones one

http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf

Well that and this one in regards to total accuracy

http://electoralmap.net/2012/2008_election.php

 

And I'd also note... the RCP averages don't actually match up with if you were to average the RCP numbers.

The problem is that those links have Obama's margin of victory at +6.15 and +6.5 when his actual margin of victory was +7.2. They actually updated the analysis later when the true election results were known.

Accuracy Report- pages 4 and 5 (or 899/900 depending on how you look at it)

Edit: As for RCP, it might be because they keep a rolling average. I don't know how far back their numbers go when they calculate an average.

Reading that suggests that every election but 2008 had significant democratic bias... and 2008 was only slightly not biased.

So i think the point still remains.



GameOver22 on 06 November 2012
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:

The problem is that those links have Obama's margin of victory at +6.15 and +6.5 when his actual margin of victory was +7.2. They actually updated the analysis later when the true election results were known.

Accuracy Report- pages 4 and 5 (or 899/900 depending on how you look at it)

Edit: As for RCP, it might be because they keep a rolling average. I don't know how far back their numbers go when they calculate an average.

Reading that suggests that every election but 2008 had significant democratic bias... and 2008 was only slightly not biased.

So i think the point still remains.

Except 2000. They only looked at four elections. 1996 had democratic bias. 2000 had republican bias. 2004 had democratic bias. 2008 had no statistically significant bias. I hardly call that a trend of democratic bias.



Kasz216 on 06 November 2012
GameOver22 said:
Kasz216 said:
GameOver22 said:

The problem is that those links have Obama's margin of victory at +6.15 and +6.5 when his actual margin of victory was +7.2. They actually updated the analysis later when the true election results were known.

Accuracy Report- pages 4 and 5 (or 899/900 depending on how you look at it)

Edit: As for RCP, it might be because they keep a rolling average. I don't know how far back their numbers go when they calculate an average.

Reading that suggests that every election but 2008 had significant democratic bias... and 2008 was only slightly not biased.

So i think the point still remains.

Except 2000. They only looked at four elections. 1996 had democratic bias. 2000 had republican bias. 2004 had democratic bias. 2008 had no statistically significant bias. I hardly call that a trend of democratic bias.

Missed that...

Which i also find confusing because well...

from everything i remember.   Gore was favored to win in all of the polls.

It's part of why everybody was so pissed.

I remember Gore having like a 10% poll advantage a month or so before the election then somehow losing.

 

Maybe i'm thinking of exit polling at the end I dunno.