Gary J Carter
2008-09-20 15:52:24 UTC
If you've been on an emotional roller coaster, you might want to
disembark.
There was a lot of talk last week about John McCain's "momentum" --
about the Republican brand rebounding.
And a dark cloud of gloom descended over many of those hoping to bring
an end to the Bush era. "We've seen this before," was a common
sentiment. A reader recently sent me a story, written during the
lead-up to the 2004 election, about Kerry's seemingly indomitable lead
in the polls -- a lead similar to Barack Obama's 8-point (average)
advantage in the horse race a few weeks ago.
Then, this week, the storm clouds parted and the sun shone down on
progressive America as Obama seemingly regained his mojo. Now he has
surged back into the lead!
This emotional roller coaster is bad for one's psychic health and
entirely unwarranted. The bigger picture is this: For about 10 days
during the past 10 months -- after Sarah Palin's introduction to the
country but before Americans got a good look at her beliefs -- McCain
inched ahead of Obama in the national head-to-heads. Now, the tide
appears to be turning back in Obama's favor: As the electorate has
gotten enough of a look at Palin to distrust her, her once-high
approval numbers have taken a nosedive. And McCain continues to say
brilliant things like the economy is fundamentally sound and he won't
meet with the dastardly prime minister of Spain.
More to the point, the significance of those head-to-head polls -- the
yardstick featured in so much political reporting -- is completely
overblown. The reality is that nobody knows what's going to happen in
November. It's an unprecedented election in two ways: a black man is
vying to become the president of the United States; and in the midst
of an economic meltdown, voters are feeling an unprecedented degree of
pessimism about the direction the country is heading.
Clearly, there is reason to believe that the "Bradley effect" -- the
historical fact that some of those who tell pollsters that they're
ready to vote for a person of color won't -- will have an impact on
the election. How big will that impact be? Nobody knows.
Just as clearly, Obama has inspired a massive groundswell of interest,
particularly among younger voters. Will they vote in numbers we've
never seen before? Nobody knows (many have only a cell phone, and cell
phone users are rarely polled).
At the same time, we know that in times of pronounced pessimism,
people tend to vote the ruling party out of office. Yet, John McCain
has spent a career carefully nurturing an image of independence from
his party. Will he overcome the tarnished Republican brand? Nobody
knows.
Those uncertainties are what ultimately make the polls almost
meaningless. Pollsters don't offer us their raw data; they weight
their results in various ways -- by age, party identification, past
voting records, etc., in order to make their samples conform more or
less with past experience. In an election for which we essentially
have no past experience, it all becomes much more art than science.
Consider how they did during the primaries. Through the first five
months of this year, Zogby's polling was off by an average of almost 7
points, Fox News by 4 points and Survey USA by 4.5 points.
Mason-Dixon's average error was more than 8 points, and Rasmussen was
off by more than 7.
Don't get me wrong -- those national polls, taken as a whole, are a
good indication of broad trends in the mood of the electorate and are
not without value. But the reality is that the nationwide polls we see
being released almost every day are a poor indicator of what will
happen come November.
Remember that we don't vote for president in the United States -- we
vote state by state for electors who vote for the president. As I
write, new polls show Obama up by 9 points in Michigan, 5 points in
Pennsylvania and a couple of points in Ohio -- all crucial swing
states.
The problem is that it's costly to poll each and every state, so many
of those electoral college maps one sees in various publications are
based on "trend estimates" -- on statisticians essentially reading the
tea leaves, and often doing so using stale data. Of the 12 states that
are in play this year according to The Politico, only three have had
polls of registered voters within the past week, and all three of them
show Obama in the lead. (There are more recent polls of "likely
voters," but pollsters' "likely voter" models are a source of quite a
bit of controversy and should be taken with more than just a grain of
salt until just before the election.)
The second reason is that modern elections in America are largely
mechanical affairs. It's true that Americans are not as deeply divided
on the issues as they are commonly portrayed in the "red states versus
blue states" narrative, but they are sharply divided in terms of
partisan loyalty, or at least they have been during the past few
elections. That means that winning will often come down to which
campaign can better motivate its respective ground troops in a handful
of swing districts in a handful of swing states. Obama's chief
strategist, David Plouffe, told the Los Angeles Times that he ignores
the national polls almost entirely because the campaign's focus is on
registration and turnout in the 18 states they identified as the
battleground (which is now down to maybe 10). "We stay laser-focused
on these two factors," he told the Times. That may have been a bit of
bravado, but there's no question that the Obama campaign has put an
enormous emphasis on local organizing. As Daniel Nichanian wrote
recently, "It increasingly looks as though this close election may be
determined by investments on the ground, in local precincts across the
country, an area of the campaign that Barack Obama's organization and
supporters have excelled at." Nichanian added: "But this is not the
type of edge pollsters pick up on."
There's quite a bit happening that polls have a hard time tracking,
and much of it should be encouraging for Obama's supporters. The
partisan identification of voters in many swing states (which I should
point out is a less-than-rock-solid indication of voting, but
important nonetheless) is looking very good for the Dems.
Consider this graphic from Brian Schaffner at Pollster.com:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_changing_partisan_landscap.php
Not all states keep track of these data, but in six of the seven
states included in the analysis, Democratic registration is on the
rise, while the number of Republican loyalists appears to be
declining.
But even those numbers don't tell the whole story. As Time Magazine
reported, younger voters -- people under 35 -- a demographic in which
Obama beats the socks off of McCain, are registering in pretty
significant numbers. In 10 of the swing states, more than half of all
new registrants this year are under 35.
Also not necessarily reflected in the partisan breakdowns are new
citizens who will be eligible to vote for the first time. In 2006,
there were 15 million naturalized immigrants who were eligible to
vote. A huge effort on the part of immigrant-rights groups is expected
to raise that number by 10 percent in 2008. If they can pull of the
feat, that would be 1.5 million new voters, many of whom are clustered
in swing states like New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Colorado -- each
of which Bush won by less than 5 points in 2004. Among Latino voters,
40 percent of whom voted for George Dubya in 2004, the key question is
whether McCain can overcome the Republican brand, now seen by many as
a party dominated by nativists. A recent poll of "Hispanic"
preferences in four key battleground states showed that Obama is doing
better among that group than Kerry did in 2004, and by a significant
margin.
The other part of that equation is whether and whose votes are being
counted. There's quite a bit of agreement across the political
spectrum that America's electoral system is deeply flawed, and whether
one believes its biggest problems are hackable voting machines and
Republican voter suppression or Democrats registering people who are
ineligible to vote, the polls aren't going to say whether it will be a
fair contest.
The takeaway from all this is that those inclined to mope when the
polls don't look good -- especially the national polls -- shouldn't.
There's no point, because they mean little. If one wants to see an end
of the Bush era, or a continuation of it, a better use of one's time
is to get involved. Drive an old lady to her polling place. Put in
some hours at a phone bank.
This is an American election, and the party that does a better job
motivating its loyalists -- and perhaps expanding their numbers -- and
protecting their votes will win. You don't need a poll to tell you
that.
disembark.
There was a lot of talk last week about John McCain's "momentum" --
about the Republican brand rebounding.
And a dark cloud of gloom descended over many of those hoping to bring
an end to the Bush era. "We've seen this before," was a common
sentiment. A reader recently sent me a story, written during the
lead-up to the 2004 election, about Kerry's seemingly indomitable lead
in the polls -- a lead similar to Barack Obama's 8-point (average)
advantage in the horse race a few weeks ago.
Then, this week, the storm clouds parted and the sun shone down on
progressive America as Obama seemingly regained his mojo. Now he has
surged back into the lead!
This emotional roller coaster is bad for one's psychic health and
entirely unwarranted. The bigger picture is this: For about 10 days
during the past 10 months -- after Sarah Palin's introduction to the
country but before Americans got a good look at her beliefs -- McCain
inched ahead of Obama in the national head-to-heads. Now, the tide
appears to be turning back in Obama's favor: As the electorate has
gotten enough of a look at Palin to distrust her, her once-high
approval numbers have taken a nosedive. And McCain continues to say
brilliant things like the economy is fundamentally sound and he won't
meet with the dastardly prime minister of Spain.
More to the point, the significance of those head-to-head polls -- the
yardstick featured in so much political reporting -- is completely
overblown. The reality is that nobody knows what's going to happen in
November. It's an unprecedented election in two ways: a black man is
vying to become the president of the United States; and in the midst
of an economic meltdown, voters are feeling an unprecedented degree of
pessimism about the direction the country is heading.
Clearly, there is reason to believe that the "Bradley effect" -- the
historical fact that some of those who tell pollsters that they're
ready to vote for a person of color won't -- will have an impact on
the election. How big will that impact be? Nobody knows.
Just as clearly, Obama has inspired a massive groundswell of interest,
particularly among younger voters. Will they vote in numbers we've
never seen before? Nobody knows (many have only a cell phone, and cell
phone users are rarely polled).
At the same time, we know that in times of pronounced pessimism,
people tend to vote the ruling party out of office. Yet, John McCain
has spent a career carefully nurturing an image of independence from
his party. Will he overcome the tarnished Republican brand? Nobody
knows.
Those uncertainties are what ultimately make the polls almost
meaningless. Pollsters don't offer us their raw data; they weight
their results in various ways -- by age, party identification, past
voting records, etc., in order to make their samples conform more or
less with past experience. In an election for which we essentially
have no past experience, it all becomes much more art than science.
Consider how they did during the primaries. Through the first five
months of this year, Zogby's polling was off by an average of almost 7
points, Fox News by 4 points and Survey USA by 4.5 points.
Mason-Dixon's average error was more than 8 points, and Rasmussen was
off by more than 7.
Don't get me wrong -- those national polls, taken as a whole, are a
good indication of broad trends in the mood of the electorate and are
not without value. But the reality is that the nationwide polls we see
being released almost every day are a poor indicator of what will
happen come November.
Remember that we don't vote for president in the United States -- we
vote state by state for electors who vote for the president. As I
write, new polls show Obama up by 9 points in Michigan, 5 points in
Pennsylvania and a couple of points in Ohio -- all crucial swing
states.
The problem is that it's costly to poll each and every state, so many
of those electoral college maps one sees in various publications are
based on "trend estimates" -- on statisticians essentially reading the
tea leaves, and often doing so using stale data. Of the 12 states that
are in play this year according to The Politico, only three have had
polls of registered voters within the past week, and all three of them
show Obama in the lead. (There are more recent polls of "likely
voters," but pollsters' "likely voter" models are a source of quite a
bit of controversy and should be taken with more than just a grain of
salt until just before the election.)
The second reason is that modern elections in America are largely
mechanical affairs. It's true that Americans are not as deeply divided
on the issues as they are commonly portrayed in the "red states versus
blue states" narrative, but they are sharply divided in terms of
partisan loyalty, or at least they have been during the past few
elections. That means that winning will often come down to which
campaign can better motivate its respective ground troops in a handful
of swing districts in a handful of swing states. Obama's chief
strategist, David Plouffe, told the Los Angeles Times that he ignores
the national polls almost entirely because the campaign's focus is on
registration and turnout in the 18 states they identified as the
battleground (which is now down to maybe 10). "We stay laser-focused
on these two factors," he told the Times. That may have been a bit of
bravado, but there's no question that the Obama campaign has put an
enormous emphasis on local organizing. As Daniel Nichanian wrote
recently, "It increasingly looks as though this close election may be
determined by investments on the ground, in local precincts across the
country, an area of the campaign that Barack Obama's organization and
supporters have excelled at." Nichanian added: "But this is not the
type of edge pollsters pick up on."
There's quite a bit happening that polls have a hard time tracking,
and much of it should be encouraging for Obama's supporters. The
partisan identification of voters in many swing states (which I should
point out is a less-than-rock-solid indication of voting, but
important nonetheless) is looking very good for the Dems.
Consider this graphic from Brian Schaffner at Pollster.com:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_changing_partisan_landscap.php
Not all states keep track of these data, but in six of the seven
states included in the analysis, Democratic registration is on the
rise, while the number of Republican loyalists appears to be
declining.
But even those numbers don't tell the whole story. As Time Magazine
reported, younger voters -- people under 35 -- a demographic in which
Obama beats the socks off of McCain, are registering in pretty
significant numbers. In 10 of the swing states, more than half of all
new registrants this year are under 35.
Also not necessarily reflected in the partisan breakdowns are new
citizens who will be eligible to vote for the first time. In 2006,
there were 15 million naturalized immigrants who were eligible to
vote. A huge effort on the part of immigrant-rights groups is expected
to raise that number by 10 percent in 2008. If they can pull of the
feat, that would be 1.5 million new voters, many of whom are clustered
in swing states like New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Colorado -- each
of which Bush won by less than 5 points in 2004. Among Latino voters,
40 percent of whom voted for George Dubya in 2004, the key question is
whether McCain can overcome the Republican brand, now seen by many as
a party dominated by nativists. A recent poll of "Hispanic"
preferences in four key battleground states showed that Obama is doing
better among that group than Kerry did in 2004, and by a significant
margin.
The other part of that equation is whether and whose votes are being
counted. There's quite a bit of agreement across the political
spectrum that America's electoral system is deeply flawed, and whether
one believes its biggest problems are hackable voting machines and
Republican voter suppression or Democrats registering people who are
ineligible to vote, the polls aren't going to say whether it will be a
fair contest.
The takeaway from all this is that those inclined to mope when the
polls don't look good -- especially the national polls -- shouldn't.
There's no point, because they mean little. If one wants to see an end
of the Bush era, or a continuation of it, a better use of one's time
is to get involved. Drive an old lady to her polling place. Put in
some hours at a phone bank.
This is an American election, and the party that does a better job
motivating its loyalists -- and perhaps expanding their numbers -- and
protecting their votes will win. You don't need a poll to tell you
that.