Wednesday, October 31, 2012

National Journal Poll - October 31, 2012


Likely Voter, 713 sample, Obama leads 50-45, 5% undecided.

I really hate these guys.  They post an article about a poll, provide no internals, then RCP includes them in their average.  I don't feel right leaving this poll out of the average, this late in the election, but they are giving me very little work with.  Consider the following quote from the article (bolding added by me):

In its likely-voter model, the Congressional Connection Poll projected that the 2012 electorate will be virtually unchanged from 2008, with Democrats holding an 8 percentage-point advantage among voters (compared with 7 points last time) and whites representing 73 percent of voters (compared to 74 percent last time).

Other recent polls, such as the Pew Research Center survey released on Monday showing a tied race, have found a narrower, or nonexistent, Democratic identification advantage for 2012. Romney’s prospects, obviously, will increase the more the partisan gap declines. The biggest message from the survey is that even small changes in the electorate’s composition next week could have huge ramifications in a campaign that is dividing the nation so closely.
Way to hedge your bets there, guys.

With this set of clues, I am going on the assumption that they are still very close to their last D/R/I of 36/29/30.  I am using 37/29/30.  I am also assuming that Independents still favor Romney by 8 points, like they did a month ago.  It's probably higher since the last poll was taken before the first debate.

Which is an important point. This last poll was released on October 2nd, the day before the first debate.  We are supposed to believe that there has been a 5 point move toward Obama since before Denver?  How does that make any sense what so ever?

The turnout models give the following results:

O+5 - Current result
O+3.0 - 2008 turnout
R+0.1 - D+3 turnout
R+2.4 - 2010 turnout
R+2.5 - 2004 turnout
R+4.3 - Rasmussen Party ID

Obviously, this poll shifted strongly toward Obama by about 3 points in all models.  If turnout is D+3 then this poll is showing a tie.  In all other models, Romney leads comfortably.

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