Thoughts on the Lottery

Wednesday night the folks at Powerball drew for a jackpot worth, at most recent estimate, some $588 million.  And as always happens when a lottery jackpot gets really big, the media made sure to give it lots of coverage, all the while chiding folks for buying lottery tickets.  But that hypocrisy can be discussed at some other time.  For this essay, I would like to address the common claim that a lottery is, quote, .a tax for people bad at math’, unquote.  I submit that many rational people would take a different view of eth lottery.

To start, though, let’s discuss taxes.  While most folks speak of taxes in a derogatory manner, most os us recognize that taxes are not always bad.  Consider, for example, taxes used to support fire and police departments, maintain roads and bridges, and keep schools open.  It’s understood by pretty much all rational adults that some taxes are necessary and good.  So, from the start we should reject the idea that calling the lottery a ‘tax’ is automatically a bad thing.  It would only be bad, if we could show that the lottery was a bad tax.

OK, so what would make a tax bad?  To my mind, there are three ways a tax can be bad.   First, the tax could be a heavy burden, hard for the taxpayer to be able to pay and still make a decent living.  Second, the tax could be collected for an immoral purpose, like the taxes raised by nobles in the past for no better reason than to build palaces and provide luxury for themselves.  And third, a tax could be imposed without the consent of the governed, and as such would be punitive.  A lottery is none of those things.  First, no one is compelled to purchase even a single lottery ticket, so the last argument about consent of the taxpayer falls quickly – the lottery is the most fair tax in existence, since only those who approve ever pay it.  Also, the price of a lottery ticket is as little as one dollar, the price depending depending on the game.  But more than that, no one has to spend money they can’t afford on lottery tickets, and there’s even a toll-free number on the back of the scratch-off tickets for those who may be concerned about gambling addiction.  I don’t recall my 1040 form ever offering counseling on how to pay less income tax.

So what is the lottery money used for?  In some cases, education, though admittedly that claim by states has run hard against facts at times.  But where lottery money is not used for education, it goes into the general fund, which at least avoids the stigma of being directly associated with some of government’s more irresponsible ventures. 

Taken as a whole then, lotteries may not seem like good wholesome activities to some people, but you can’t really make an effective argument that lotteries are immoral or wrong.  That leaves skeptics pointing out obvious facts such as the high odds against winning the jackpot, while they ignore the obvious fact that we already know those facts.  We are well aware that in all likelihood buying lottery tickets means we are giving away money that we might otherwise use to productive purpose.

Here’s the way I see it:  I know that in any realistic sense, I am throwing away a few bucks a week playing the lottery.  But I don’t waste money on Starbucks, bottled water, or ‘organic’ anything, so anyone telling me I’m wasting money is a hypocrite in need of a slap in the face.  The thing is, if someone wants to spend five bucks on a cup of coffee, or a loaf of bread, or so on, they get their return in the immediate enjoyment of their product.  So do I, in the anticipation that maybe, just maybe, I will suddenly have enough money that financial considerations will no longer be necessary,  Even the ‘small’ jackpots would be enough to set me up for life, and more to the point, take care of my family and give my daughter a financial foundation – heck, give HER kids a solid financial foundation.  It’s worth a buck or two to imagine that could happen.  And let’s be clear, if you spend your money on a coffee, that’s it – the enjoyment maxes out at however you enjoy what you bought.  I accept that my lottery tickets will probably be worthless paper, but I also know that every so often someone really does win the big money, and if I buy a ticket that might- just might – be me.   Skeptics like to point out that the odds of getting hit by lightning are better than the odds of winning Powerball, but they forget that when the weather gets stormy, you can protect yourself by taking shelter. And if there’s a chance that spending a buck or two might bring in more money than I could make in a hundred salaried jobs, well, a smart man sees the opportunity there.

Play on.

Grand Theft Nation

Last Tuesday night, Mitt Romney conceded the Presidential election to Barack Obama.  Obama, ever the snide, self-serving narcissist he is, was quick to praise himself and promise even more of the policies which nearly bankrupted America in his first term.

This was a strange election.  Not the GOP losing, but the fact that Romney and his supporters were blind-sided.  In 2008, most Republicans saw it coming but this year most Republicans genuinely believed Romney would win.  And there was reason to believe as well, with most national polls showing Romney ahead until the last few days before the election.  Exactly what happened to give Obama a second term will be examined and discussed for quite some time.  Either the national polls were wrong until the very end, literally millions of voters changed their mind in a matter of days for no significant cause, or something else happened that defies easy explanation.  The sneering derision from the Left, that America is leaving the GOP behind, is a malicious lie, but something happened.

One thing that does annoy me, though, is the character of the election.  Obama’s job performance was so abysmal that he certainly could not be honest about his record and win re-election, but there is also no question that Obama lied, pretty much throughout the election campaign, about what Mitt Romney stood for and what he meant to do.  My wife is Asian and some of my friends are Hispanic, and they noted that a lot of TV and radio ads in non-English language which claimed outrageous lies, like Romney wanting to abolish Medicare or defund school programs for at-risk children, that he wanted to deport all immigrants or give billions in tax cuts just to rich people.  There’s no justification for such outrageous behavior, even if Obama wants to hide behind the canard that the PACs putting out those ads did not represent his position.

The United States is healthiest when political debate is lively and substantive.  Demonizing the opinions and beliefs of half a hundred million voters just so you can win an election is not merely unethical, it damages the framework for effective decision-making, and plays all too often into the hands of demagogues.  If President Obama wants to establish a legacy of honor and to build genuine accomplishments, he better back off his hate speech and start listening to other opinions besides his own. 

An Alternative To Nate Silver: Here Are The Real Odds

Back in 2008, a man who established his reputation with Baseball statistics was lionized as a political guru for correctly “predicting” the winner of 49 of the 50 states.  He did this through aggregation of state polls, and a formula which, speaking bluntly, was based heavily on subjective weighting of polls he liked.  On his side, it’s true Silver was accurate in 2008.  Silver, however, doesn’t like anyone bringing up his results in the 2010 mid-term election.  This year, Silver has announced that President Obama has an almost ninety percent chance of winning re-election.  He has also, rather dishonestly, tried to hedge his predictions by saying that turnout will decide the actual odds (hidden well below his bold headline), and admitted that if the state polls used invalid weighting on party participation, then the election results may be very different from his forecast.  His supporters have even gone so far in recent days as to demand that Silver’s system be judged on the process rather than whether his predictions come true.  Leaving all this aside, the question may reasonably be asked, about what the odds really are for Obama and Romney.  There is a reasonable method available for determining those odds.

Whenever a percentage chance is given for something happening, it claims that of a hundred possible outcomes, this one will happen ‘x’ number of times.  So we can figure up the odds by working out what each candidate needs, and how they could get there.

First, President Obama.  By this date, there’s really no doubt that the District of Columbia and the following states will be won by Obama:  California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, most of Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.  That gives Obama DC plus 13 states, for 178 Electoral Votes, meaning he needs another 92 EV to win re-election.

Next, Governor Romney.  There is no doubt that Romney will win the following states:  Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.  That gives Romney 24 states for 220 Electoral Votes, meaning he needs another 50 EV to win the White House.

There are 13 battleground states plus 1 EV in Maine that is contested, for 140 Electoral Votes.  From the start we can see that neither candidate needs to sweep all the battleground states to win. 

Before going on, there is a controversy which will sort itself out tomorrow.  Many state polls have given heavy advantage in weighting to Democrats, even when previous elections show no such disparity in voting by party.  As a result, there is suspicion among conservatives that the state polls are inaccurate in stating actual voter support.  So the question comes down to whether turnout will be like 2008, 2004, or somewhere in between.  For each of the states, therefore, we can look at the actual part weights from 2004 and 2008, then use that to tell us what we might see this year.  Here’s how each state plays out, starting with the highest EV states still contested:

Pennsylvania:  20 EV, polls either even or show Obama slightly ahead

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

Ohio:  18 EV, polls even or show Obama slightly ahead

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix:  Romney

Michigan:  16 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

North Carolina:  15 EV, polls show Romney ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix:  Romney

Virginia:  13 EV, polls show Romney ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix:  Romney

Minnesota:  10 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

Wisconsin:  10 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix:  Romney

Colorado:  9 EV, polls show Romney ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix:  Romney

Oregon:  7 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

Iowa:  6 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

Nevada:  6 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

New Mexico:  5 EV, polls show Obama ahead but close

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

New Hampshire:  4 EV, polls show tie or close either way

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix:  Romney

Maine: 1 EV contested, polls show tie

08:  Obama                  04:  Romney                Mix: Obama

On the weights, assuming each of the three turnouts is equally likely, then on average Obama would win 70.3 of the EV and Romney would win 68.5.  But since Obama needs 92 to win, he has a net 38.2% chance of winning, while Romney (who only needs 50 more EV) has a net 61.8% chance of winning.

That’s the math.   The votes themselves will decide the fact.

Be sure and vote.

One Scenario Which Will Definitely Not Happen

As the election race closes to less than forty hours before Election Day, all kinds of stories have come out.  ‘Inside’ stories about Romney preparing for a loss, Obama planning to move to Hawaii next year because he knows he’s done, so-called experts and gurus who promise perfect knowledge of what will happen … there’s no shortage of noise and media flatulence.  While I have my own ideas about what will happen, I don’t pretend to know it for a fact, and frankly I don’t respect anyone who pretend that they have such knowledge.  However the voters think, however early voting went, the race itself will be decided Tuesday by the actual votes. That’s because opinion polls are not actual votes, and however important early voting is, no one has ever had so commanding a lead in early voting that the Election Day was not necessary.   Nate Silver is lying to you, and so is Karl Rove.  It’s what they are paid to do, actually, but you should keep in mind that spin is pervasive in the media, including a lot of people pretending they are objective reporters.  The race could be razor-close, it could be decisive, and it’s even possible that President Obama could win the Popular Vote but lose the Electoral Vote, as Gore did in 2000.  But I have not been able to work out a way for Mitt Romney to win the Popular Vote without also winning the Electoral Vote.

Here’s how that works out:

Obama has a commanding lead by all accounts in polls in five states (54%+ in New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Washington).  Obama also won handily in D.C.,  Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, and Maine, but there are no polls in the last two weeks for those states.  If you take the poll support where known (use those RCP average that get such press), and apply 2008 numbers for states without polls, when you plug it all in, Barack Obama ends up leading Romney 48.9% to 46.6%. 

First, notice that no national poll , well no serious poll by professionals, give Romney support numbers that low nationally.  And Obama is below those numbers in serious national polls.  I don’t think those state polls are kosher, but for here they create a problem for anyone saying Romney would win the PV but lose the EV, because the only way to create that condition would be to add votes for Romney in battleground states … or create ridiculous scenarios, like saying he takes 90% in Texas and 48% in California.

When you add in the necessary votes to give Romney the PV lead, it always creates a condition where he wins the EV as well.  The closest scenario I could find, allowed the 3^rd party percentages for each state to be copied from 2008, Obama was allowed the poll support and Romney the rest, and I end up with Romney 49.5%, Obama 49.0%, and Romney wins the EV 318-220.  I’m not saying that’s how it ends up, but if Romney wins the Popular Vote this year, he wins the Electoral College as well.

Homers

Heard about the polls?  Sure you have.  Even if you have no interest in the polls, even if you hate them, the news has been full of reports from all sorts of agencies and groups, some of whom you may never had heard of, and some you frankly should ignore.  This is because the news depends on viewers and readers for their revenue, and a tight election – in theory – keeps their attention.  Polls serve the narrative, because you can’t tell if the poll is right or wrong until after the election.  That’s not to say the polling agencies are dishonest, for the most part at least, because polling groups are businesses and need to be reasonably accurate to be able to attract clients.  But polls are not all the same, and even where they share common ground, sometimes you would be wise to be skeptical.

Let’s start with the obvious.  If I put out a poll on the election and asked, say 600 men but only 400 women their opinions, you’d reject my findings as out of balance, because we all know even without checking the history that men and women vote in roughly equal numbers.  So a poll that did not balance men and women would not be reasonable.  Similarly, I could hardly call my poll reasonable for a national election if 80% of the people contacted were in, say, California and New York.  Or if my respondents were all white, or had some mix that was not in-line with census numbers for race. 

You get the idea.  Any poll which is not a reasonable sample of the actual public is not a valid poll.

With that in mind, the fact that a majority of state polls and a fair number of national polls have weighted political affiliation rather heavily in Obama’s favor is odd, to say the least.  Now yes, it is true that in 2008 Democrats represented 37 percent of the voters, seven full points more than the dispirited Republicans of that year.  So, some people will say the polls are simply reflecting the last Presidential election.  However, the polls in 2008 did not weight party affiliation according to the 2004 turnout, nor did the polls in 2004 use 2000 as a baseline for their weighting.  What’s more, the 2010 mid-term elections demonstrated a rather drastic shift in party participation, as Republicans showed up in large numbers and with great energy.  Ignoring that election seems to be, well, short-sighted.  Let’s also not forget the novelty of 2008.  Obama ran as the first black candidate from a major political party, surely worth political capital in 2008 but hardly the same impact now.  The economy is also a problem for Obama, and while his supporters may stand by him in the main, it’s frankly inconceivable that he would gain support on that point.  But what’s even stranger, is that some of these polls are handing Obama an ever greater advantage in party participation than he enjoyed in 2008.  There is absolutely no empirical basis whatsoever for such a weighting.  It’s misleading, it’s deliberate, and frankly the polls doing so risk humiliation if they – as seems likely – are proven wrong.

The question here is just why they would do something so, well, dumb.  The effect of the weighting is obvious; it’s not hard to expect that Democrats will largely vote for Obama while Republicans will largely vote for Romney, so fudging the weights will obviously change the outcome.  The reason it’s dumb is two-fold – first, it’s not hard to observe that if Romney is leading among Independents in a battleground state (which by definition is not automatically Democrat or Republican in the main), then saying Obama is winning is just plain dishonest, an obvious lie, and second, when the election results are known, the lie will not only be obvious, it will be a matter of record. 

Some folks, like our friends over at Pew Research, like to claim that there’s no reason to use party affiliation weighting.  Their explanation is that however folks respond is a fair representation of voter enthusiasm.  Certainly that helps explain the strong pro-Democrat weighting in 2008.  But there’s no evidence that’s always the case, and anyway, we’d laugh at Pew if they ignored other demographic weights on the basis that interest in answering a poll reflected accurate representation in the voter pool.  It’s lazy and intellectually dishonest to pretend so.  Also, Walter Mitofsky, who pioneered political polling as we know it, candidly admitted that Democrats are “chronically” over-sampled in polls.  He suggested it might have to do with the personality of Democrats versus Republicans, but in any case the bias is documented, and every responsible polling group knows it.

Yet, yet, yet.  I still don’t buy into conspiracy theories, not least because it makes no sense for a polling group to pretend someone is winning when they know he is losing.  Especially if doing so produces no financial benefit for the company, and instead would damage their reputation for accuracy and integrity.  And make no mistake, if Romney wins by a big margin, as could very well happen, then those polls which went out of their way to make Obama look stronger than he is, are in for a hard time of it.  They won’t be able to make the excuse that no one saw it coming, or that their hands are clean.  So why be stupid like this?

They’re homers.  That’s why.

I don’t mean the polling groups want Barack Obama to win, exactly.  Rather, these groups are engaging in an unconscious groupthink, based in their own demographics.  Back in 2008, I pointed out a reason for liberal bias in polling.  It has to do with their home ground.  Below, is a list of major polling groups from the 2008 election and their headquarters addresses:

ABC News 77 W 66th St, #13, New York City, New York
CBS News 524 W 57th St, New York City, New York
FOX News 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York
Gallup 901 F St NW, Washington DC
Hotline 88 Pine St, 32nd floor, New York City, New York
IBD 12655 Beatrice St. Los Angeles, California
The Los Angeles Times 202 W 1st St, Los Angeles California
Marist Institute 3399 North Rd, Poughkeepsie, New York
Mason-Dixon 1250 Connecticut Ave #200, Washington DC
Newsweek 251 W 57th St, New York City, New York
The New York Times 1 City Hall, New York City, New York
Pew Research Center 1615 L St NW, #700, Washington DC
Quinnipiac 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden Connecticut
Rasmussen 625 Cookman, #2, Asbury Park, New Jersey
Reuters 3 Times Square, New York City, New York
Survey USA 15 Bloomfield Ave., Verona New Jersey
TIPP 690 Kinderkamack Rd, Oradell, New Jersey
Washington Post 1150 15th St NW, Washington DC
Zogby 901 Broad St, Utica, New York 

See the trend?

Two Left Coast outfits, and the rest well into Blue-State territory.  They live, work, and operate in an environment where balance and critical thinking, at least in political terms, does not exist and is punished when discovered.  Not a single group based in, say, Kansas, Texas, or Wyoming, or in more balanced states like Iowa, Missouri, or Ohio.  The bias is unavoidable, yet these guys never see it, because for them ‘normal’ is what for us means leaning left.

This also explains why many of these polls have not done what they usually do, make a last-week adjustment to get closer to the actual condition: the heavy storm knocked operations for a loop, and they are stuck with their garbage releases.   It’s too late to nudge things back to actual numbers.

So this seems hinky, but it really can be unconscious behavior.  Back when I officiated sports, I noticed how homers think and act, and what struck me early on, was that even the most outrageous homer believed he was reasonable and balanced; he simply did not perceive the other perspective.  Sports fans may not seem like a good model for a media professional, but I ran into the same effect with coaches and school officials.  If you don’t get out and travel, you can end up with a very limited view of what’s really going on. 

The thing that strikes me about polls, and it reinforces this problem, is that the polling is often done by firms hired by these media outlets, but the press release comes from the media guys, and specifically from their head office.  So, it’s very likely to me that these polls are performed professionally at the field level, then massaged at the high level to produce the desired report.  It’s not at all that these people are trying to deceive you.  They just know what results they expect, and make sure the report is in line with those expectations.  Strange as it may sound, they may be just as surprised next Tuesday night as Mr. Axelrod and his crew.

What Past Election Results Tell Us to Expect This Time

There’s no shortage of opinions on how the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election will turnout, and a lot of the disagreement  comes from the different landscapes presented by the National and State polls.  Romney supporters are encouraged by clear and substantial leads in the Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC News/Washington Post, and NPR polls.  Obama supporters point to the CBS News/NY Times and Politico polls, but they also point to the state polls, observing published leads for Obama in Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania.  There’s too many states on Obama’s side, they say, for Obama to lose.  The problem is, the math just does not work.  Either most of the national polls are wrong, or most of the state polls are wrong.  And things just get messy from there.

There’s all kinds of anecdotal stories to read and hear, but there’s also a record we can check.  Generally, there is a relationship between how a candidate does nationally and how he does in a given state.  As his national support rises, his support in each state rises to some degree, not at the same rate of course but the better a candidate does nationally, the states have to reflect it.  So we can look at past state results in relation to national results, to give us an idea of what should happen.  To keep it simple, for here I will just address battleground states.

First, to identify the battleground states.  I disagree a bit with RCP, I don’t think anyone can seriously pretend that Arizona, Missouri, or Oregon are in play this year, but I will take the rest:   Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.  Here’s how each state performed, by party, relative to the national election results for the last four Presidential elections:

Colorado:  Democrat candidates average 2.81 points lower in Colorado than their national support, while Republican candidates average 2.01 points higher in Colorado than their national support. 

Florida:  Democrat candidates average 0.97 points lower in Florida than their national support, while Republican candidates average 1.61 points higher in Florida than their national support.   Also, Republicans ALWAYS produced slightly higher results in Florida than their national support.

Iowa:  Democrat candidates average 0.80 points higher in Iowa than their national support, while Republican candidates average 0.62 points lower in Iowa than their national support.   Also, Democrats ALWAYS produced slightly higher results in Iowa than their national support.

Michigan:  Democrat candidates average 3.20 points higher in Michigan than their national support, while Republican candidates average 2.90 points lower in Michigan than their national support.   Also, Democrats ALWAYS produced slightly higher results in Michigan than their national support. 

Minnesota:  Democrat candidates average 1.35 points higher in Minnesota than their national support, while Republican candidates average 3.26 points lower in Minnesota than their national support.  

Nevada:  Democrat candidates average 1.45 points lower in Nevada than their national support, while Republican candidates average 0.16 points higher in Nevada than their national support. 

New Hampshire:  Democrat candidates average 0.44 points higher in New Hampshire than their national support, while Republican candidates average 1.02 points lower in New Hampshire than their national support.  

North Carolina:  Democrat candidates average 4.56 points lower in North Carolina than their national support, while Republican candidates average 6.31 points higher in North Carolina than their national support.   Also, Republicans ALWAYS produced slightly higher results in North Carolina than their national support.

Ohio:  Democrat candidates average 1.21 points lower in Ohio than their national support, while Republican candidates average 0.92 points higher in Ohio than their national support.   Also, Republicans ALWAYS produced slightly higher results in Ohio than their national support.

Pennsylvania:  Democrat candidates average 1.60 points higher in Pennsylvania than their national support, while Republican candidates average 1.49 points lower in Pennsylvania than their national support.  

Virginia:  Democrat candidates average 2.76 points lower in Virginia than their national support, while Republican candidates average 3.67 points higher in Virginia than their national support.   Also, Republicans ALWAYS produced slightly higher results in Virginia than their national support.

Wisconsin:  Democrat candidates average 0.95 points higher in Wisconsin than their national support, while Republican candidates average 1.80 points lower in Wisconsin than their national support.  

What this tells us, is the likely result of three different conditions in the national popular vote:

If Barack Obama wins the Popular Vote, he will definitely win Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and would likely win Nevada and Ohio .  Romney could still claim Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia but that would not be enough.  Obama would win re-election by 281 EV to 257.

If Romney wins the Popular Vote with 51.5% or more, he could win all of the battleground states but Michigan; that state seems out of reach in any scenario.  That could mean a Romney win by an Electoral  margin of  331 EV to 207.

If the two candidates are essentially tied in the Popular Vote, Obama would claim Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Romney would claim Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.  That would produce a 281-257 Electoral win for Romney.

The actual results will be sure to include some changes from the script, of course.  I think, for example, it’s more likely this year that New Hampshire would go to Romney and Nevada would go to Obama than vice versa, but we shall see.  The point is that the last several elections do give us an idea of how things turn out relative to different levels of polls and voting, and that’s something to keep in mind.    

Last Meme Standing: Why Obama and Romney have Different Strategies

We’re just eleven days away from the Presidential Election, or more accurately, eleven days away from the end of voting.  The news says the race is tight, but you can still find a wide range of outcomes predicted by savants and would-be wizards.  While I have the same expectation for the outcome that I have published since August, I also recognize that a great many things can still happen to change that outcome and decide the margin.  What I find most interesting at this point, is the basic theory behind each candidate’s strategy.

First, the Obama campaign.  After winning the 2008 election fairly easily, the Obama Camp entered this year with understandable confidence.  With no primary competition in the Spring, and generally high likability all year long, President Obama did not appear to expect serious difficulty in earning a second term.  But as the Spring turned into Summer, the race began to tighten, and by October it was clear Obama would have to fight to win a second term.  What started as a relaxed attitude became tense as Obama aides and campaign directors found themselves looking up at Romney in national polls.  The narrative from Obama’s campaign now is simple – stay on message and protect the firewall.  That word, ‘firewall’, shows up a lot.  It’s the idea, also voiced in general over the past couple months, that Obama controls too many states for Romney to win in the Electoral College.  They say that if Obama simply holds what he has now, he wins.  No worry about the national polls, it’s all about the states. 

Next, the Romney campaign.  Romney understood going in that he’d have an uphill fight, but voter displeasure about the economy and Obama’s failed promise of bipartisanship gave him hope that he could win the election.  Romney’s team considered the election as an asymmetric campaign, where Romney first had to establish himself as a viable candidate in voters’ eyes, then prove he was a better choice than the incumbent.  The early summer looked daunting, but Romney remained disciplined and made a number of important decisions which were designed for long-term effect, rather than short-term splash.  This was why Romney enjoyed no bounce from his convention, yet exploded in support after the first debate.  Romney’s strategy worked to first consolidate his electoral base, then build a national appeal to open opportunities. 

With polls in disagreement and less than two weeks to go, these two concepts of the election now run head-on into each other.  If Obama is right, Romney will enjoy some good poll numbers but will lose in just enough swing states to give the incumbent four more years.  If Romney is right, then President Obama will appear to be closer than he really is, right up to Election Night, when the actual results will herald the end of the Obama Administration after this year.  The salient point, in my opinion, to this election, is the fact that no political firewall exists.

There is no shortage of punditry to promise this outcome or that, but in the end the election is numbers-driven  And it’s in the numbers where Mister Obama’s firewall proves illusory.

Let’s start with the national polls.  Rather than go through all of them, let’s look at the most prominent polls with polls in September and October.  To keep it simple, let’s look at Obama’s support last month and now:

Poll                        

Rasmussen:  Sept 16 at 45%, Oct 24 47%, gain of 2

Gallup:  Sept 27 at 49%, Oct 25 at 47%, loss of 2

ABC News/WaPo:  Sept 29 at 49%, Oct 23 at 48%, loss of 1

NBC News/WSJ:  Sept 30 at 49%, Oct 20 at 47%, loss of 2

FOX News:  Sept 26 at 48%, Oct 9 at 45%, loss of 3

Now let’s look at Romney’s support last month and now:

Poll

Rasmussen:  Sept 16 at 47%, Oct 24 50%, gain of 3 

Gallup:  Sept 27 at 45%, Oct 25 at 50%, gain of 5

ABC News/WaPo:  Sept 29 at 47%, Oct 23 at 49%, gain of 2

NBC News/WSJ:  Sept 29 at 46%, Oct 20 at 47%, gain of 1

FOX News: Sept 26 at 43%, Oct 9 at 46%, gain of 3

In every major poll, Romney has gained since last month. Even before the debate, Romney was doing well, and since the first week of October, Romney has taken a clear lead in national polls.   That’s momentum, folks.

So, OK, let’s look at some state polls.  After all, the Obama people tell us that’s where the ‘firewall’ is.

Obama/Virginia:

Rasmussen:  Sept 13 at 49%, Oct 24 at 48%, loss of 1

FOX:  Sept 18 at 50%, Oct 24 at 45%, loss of 5

ARG:  Sept 27 at 49%, Oct 14 at 47%, loss of 2

Romney/Virginia:

Rasmussen:  Sept 13 at 48%, Oct 24 at 50%, gain of 2

FOX:  Sept 18 at 43%, Oct 24 at 47%, gain of 4

ARG:  Sept 27 at 47%, Oct 14 at 48%, gain of 1

Looks like the ‘firewall’ failed, hmm?

Obama/Florida:

Rasmussen:  Sept 12 at 48%, Oct 18 at 46%, loss of 2

Survey USA:  Sept 9 at 48%,  Oct 18 at 47%, loss of 1

AR:  Sept 22 at 50%, Oct 11 at 46%, loss of 4

Romney/Florida:

Rasmussen:  Sept 12 at 46%, Oct 18 at 51%, gain of 5

Survey USA:  Sept 9 at 44%. Oct 18 at 46%, gain of 2

ARG:  Sept 22 at 45%, Oct 11 at 49%, gain of 4

And again.

Obama/Ohio:

Rasmussen:  Sept 12 at 47%, Oct 23 at 48%, gain of 1

CBS/Quinn.:  Sept 24 at 53%, Oct 20 at 50%, loss of 3

PPP:  Sept 30 at 49%, Oct 20 at 49%, no change

Romney/Ohio:

Rasmussen:  Sept 12 at 46%, Oct 23 at 48%, gain of 2

CBS/Quinn:  Sept 24 at 43%, Oct 20 at 45%, gain of 2

PPP:  Sept 30 at 45%, Oct 20 at 48%, gain of 3

Again, Romney has momentum

(Real Clear Politics source for the poll numbers)

The fact is, Romney has been trending up in battleground states, even ones that Obama’s campaign figured they had locked up just a few weeks ago.

Well, there’s a problem with the ‘firewall’ theory.  A physical firewall is there to prevent fire from reaching you, while voters can change their mind … or just stay home and not vote.  For Obama’s firewall theory to work, he has to not only convince voters to stay with him, those voters cannot be impressed by the challenger.  Now, both Republicans and Democrats have a base of loyal voters that their candidates can depend on, but that’s the point – that’s the base, the bottom level that you get whether you work much or not.  If you look at past elections, you can see how much of that base incumbents can lose.  Carter, for example, was in dismal shape in 1980, and so was GHW Bush in 1992.  They stayed competitive in their races, but when it came crunch time, their base level was too low to protect them.  A successful incumbent has to build on their base and gain support, as we saw happen with Bush in 2004, Clinton in 1996, Reagan in 1984, Nixon in 1972, and Eisenhower in 1956.  Actually, that list is much longer, but you get the idea.  The only way to actually have a firewall to use is to build one on top of your base, not hope you can pump up support in a few targeted states. 

There just is no ‘firewall’ for Obama this year. 

But there’s more.  In 2004, John Kerry won twenty states plus DC.  In 2008, Barack Obama claimed 28 states plus DC, meaning he took 8 states that Bush won the previous election.  The thing about that is that there’s no real reason to say those same eight states could not flip back to the Republican.  Some states are certainly loyal to one party or the other, but there’s a reason some states are known as ‘battleground’ or ‘swing’ states – it’s frankly naïve to imagine that an incumbent has those states locked up, and only a little less silly to expect that personal appearances or spending on commercials will automatically win a contested state.   And the Obama camp is finding out that fact just a bit late in the campaign.

One fact that gets lost in all the talk, is that Obama has never run as an incumbent before.  In all of his previous campaigns, Obama was stepping up to the next level, from running for state senator to U.S. Senator to  President of the United States.  So Obama is only now learning that incumbents face a different landscape and conditions than do challengers.

It’s not hard to figure out that the national mood is different this year, from 2008.  That year, the disgust with conditions blamed Republicans as the incumbent (even though Democrats controlled Congress), and Mister Obama promised not only a fresh approach but cooperation with his political opponents.  Since then, the economy has become weaker and the job market absolutely dismal, and the tone of the Obama White House is at turns strident or arrogant.  Even as President Obama explains to voters what he wants to do with the next term, he has never properly explained why he did not accomplish the promised results in his first term. 

Obama could win, of course.  Romney’s recent surge has, at best, given him a narrow lead and the state polls remain very much in doubt.  But the trend is certainly on Romney’s side, as evidenced by the Obama camp’s attempt to denounce poll results and internals.

The Democrats are correct to some degree, in that the states will determine the electors, who in their turn will decide the Presidential election.  At this point, we can consider the states safely locked up for Obama or Romney, where the candidate has 54% or more support in the polls (state polls have about a 4% MOE):

Obama:  9 states (including DC), 122 Electoral Votes

Romney:  11 states, 93 Electoral Votes

That means that 31 states and 323 Electoral Votes are statistically in play.  Let’s next look at additional states where the candidate has a lead greater than the 4-point margin of error plus the undecideds:

Obama: 4 states, 43 Electoral Votes (total now up to 13 states, 165 Electoral Votes)

Romney: 7 states, 59 Electoral Votes (total now up to 17 states, 152 Electoral Votes)

165 to 152 is a lot closer than you hear about in the news, isn’t it?  It means that 21 states remain in play, even this close to the election.  So what about those states?  Without getting into arguments about party weighting on the polls, one fairly undeniable point is how these states come down to how the undecideds break.  That is, Obama’s camp believes they will break to the incumbent while Romney’s team expects them to break for the challenger. 

So, both campaign teams are chasing the undecideds.  Romney has been gradually winning them over, and will continue until he reaches either his ceiling or the election finishes.  But Mister Obama has a different condition.  Here’s why:

Incumbents deal with three kinds of voters.  There are the people who voted for him, whom he keeps as long as he does the job as he promised, voters who dislike him and won’t vote for him no matter what, and voters who did not vote for him but will consider voting for him if they believe he did a good job.  That’s basically why Presidents who win re-election do so with a better percent of the vote than the first time.  Obviously, you can’t add people to your side who are already on your side, so incumbents win the re-election by keeping their base energized, by making their opponents feel they are not able to win, and by convincing the open-minded that they have done a good job.  So, it comes down to the record, not the marketing.

Challengers, on the other hand, start empty and have to win over folks.  It’s true that the challenger in the Presidential general election gets to claim the support of his party once he wins the nomination, but as anyone who ever ran in a primary can tell you, winning that nomination is grueling.  That’s why even a poor candidate is able to stay somewhat close; you don’t get to the general election unless you know how to campaign.  Once he has the nomination of his party, the challenger starts a new race, where he has to win over the nation.  He gets the voters who rejected the incumbent, provided they are mad enough to be sure to vote, but remember, if the incumbent has done a good job, the incumbent already has some of the voters who did not vote for him the first time, so the challenger is at a disadvantage.  This, basically, is why the Obama camp believed that it was too late for Romney to win. 

But the problem is where the new voters come from.  That is, when polls show the incumbent President is enjoying good Job Approval polls, he’s got voters behind him and all he has to do, is not blow it.  But if he falls below 50% in Job Approval polls, history shows he is in trouble, because once voters walk away from an incumbent, they either vote for the challenger or they stay home.  When the challenger knows this, he can target those voters.  This, in short, explains Romney’s debate strategy, and why the polls rewarded him so well in October.

The short version is that the remaining undecided voters will either vote for Romney, or they will stay home. 

  

There just is no ‘firewall’ for Obama this year.  

Polling Fudge

I don’t work for any polling group.  On the one hand, this means I don’t have first-hand knowledge of how a poll determines its methodology, weighting, or resolves conflicts, but on the other it also means I am free from any pressure to excuse or cover-up mistakes or false claims.  One of the boldest of those claims is not stated explicitly, but is allowed to fly unchallenged – that the polls are accurate measures of voter opinion and are reflected by results close to their prediction.  That’s just not so, when you check it out.

Here are some interesting final poll results from Presidential elections:

Gallup 1992:  Clinton 49, Bush 37 (off by 6.4 points)

Gallup 1980:  Reagan 47, Carter 44 (off by 6.8 points)

Harris 1992:  Clinton 49, Bush 37 (off by 6.4 points)  

Harris 1984:  Reagan 56, Mondale 44 (off by 6.4 points)

CBS/NYT 2008:  Obama 51, McCain 42 (off by 6.0 points)

CBS/NYT 2000:  Bush 44, Gore 45 (off by 7.3 points)

CBS/NYT 1996:  Clinton 53, Dole 35 (off by 9.5 points)

CBS 1980: Reagan 44, Carter 43 (off by 8.8 points)

CBS 1976:  Carter 45, Ford 41 (off by 12.2 points)

USA Today 2008:  Obama 50, McCain 42 (off by 7.0 points)

USA Today 1992:  Clinton 49, Bush 37 (off by 6.4 points)

USA Today 1988:  Bush 52, Dukakis 42 (off by 5.1 points)

USA Today 1984:  Reagan 61, Mondale 34 (off by 8.6 points)

NBC/WSJ 2008:  Obama 51, McCain 43 (off by 5.0 points)

NBC 2000:  Bush 47, Gore 44 (off by 5.3 points)

NBC 1980:  Reagan 42, Carter 36 (off by 13.8 points)

Fox 2000:  Bush 43, Gore 43 (off by 10.3 points)

Ipsos 2004:  Bush 46, Kerry 49 (off by 5.4 points)

IBD 2004:  Bush 46.9, Kerry 44.3 (off by 7.8 points)

Rasmussen 2000:  Bush 40, Gore 49 (off by 8.5 points)
Pew 1996:  Clinton 52, Dole 38 (off by 5.5 points)

Marist 2000:  Bush 49, Gore 44 (off by 5.5 points)

Newsweek 2000:  Bush 45, Gore 43 (off by 8.3 points)

LA Times 2008:  Obama 50, McCain 41 (off by 8.0 points)

 What should be noticed in these polls, is not only how far off they ended up, but the fact that polls often over- or under-estimated one candidate’s support .  That, by the way, is also why my review of their errors is different than you will hear from some polls.  Some will simply compare the margin in their final poll to the election margin, while others will take the total variance between their poll and the election result and cut it in half to call it an “average”, but neither is statistically correct.  Polls measure specific levels of support for each candidate, and so their margin of error is actually the total distance between their call and the result for each candidate.  As an example, let’s say PollCo releases a poll saying candidate A will beat candidate B 53% to 45%, but in fact candidate A wins 51% to 48%.  The poll might claim that their margin was +2 for A and -3 for B, so the average margin is 0.5 points off, but in fact the actual margin of error would be 5 points off.  This is often trivial in itself, but let’s say PollCo is usually off between 4 and 5 points, understating one candidate while overstating another.  Shouldn’t you know that history when, say, in another year PollCo says candidate G is leading candidate H 49% to 48%?  In a close race, a poll with a history of missing the mark by a sizable chunk is not really reliable, is it?

Ah, but there’s more.  Only polling nerds like myself would recognize the name Walter Mitofsky, but this gentlemen was a legend in opinion polling.  Having worked for the Census Bureau then CBS News, Mitofsky for all practical purposes created the Exit Poll as we know it.  Mitofsky knew how polls worked, and significantly observed that there is a chronic bias in favor of Democrat candidates in opinion polling, not just once in a while, but all the time. 

http://www.publicopinionpros.norc.org/from_field/2006/jan/lindeman_iii.asp#mitofsky_91

There are exceptions, but in general polls tend to undervalue support for both Republican candidates and challengers.  The implications for this election are rather obvious.

I have said before that polls try to get the results right, but we should be very careful to test their headline claims, which are often driven by the narrative of the moment.  This week it’s amusing to hear the excuses being thrown out by Democrats, that the state polls are correct while the national polls, somehow, are not.  Republicans, in some cases, say the opposite, that the state polls are wrong while the national polls are right.  What I think is something else entirely – a lot of people do not realize what the polls are really telling us, and so assumptions drive emotion to error.

Let’s start with three obvious facts:

1.  In general, poll groups try very hard to publish accurate representations of voter intent.  This point often gets lost in all the emotion, but looking for conspiracies or attempts to mislead voters.  Errors happen but are honest mistakes due to faulty (sometimes common) false assumptions.

2.   All polls have errors and unknowns.  Expecting a poll to be perfect means you expect voters to have no doubts, to never change their mind, and to respond to poll queries in the exact proportions that they will vote, demographically.  To understand a poll, you do not count it as part of an average of polls, you do not assume that the margin held at any date a week or more out will hold through the end, and you do not ignore the internal data.  To understand a poll, you note shifts in trends, momentum, you observe weak and strong demographic groups for each candidate, and you make sure the poll has not changed its methodology or demographic weights since the last poll release.

3.  The state and national polls are inextricably linked.  If there is disagreement in the topline conclusion between state and national polls, either the national polls will correct to be in line with the correct state polls, or state polls will correct to be in line with the national polls.  This does not happen because someone wants to avoid embarrassment, but because math requires it.  Four quarts always make a gallon, sixteen ounces always make up a pound, and the fifty states plus D.C. have to make up the national total.  Resolution is inevitable.

So why is there argument?  For one thing, a lot of otherwise intelligent people do not seem to understand that 2012 is not 2008.  The economy, world condition, social and legal issues, are all different from four years ago.  The candidates are different from four years ago, including Barack Obama.  Mister Obama cannot run as the fresh young challenger this year, he has to run on his record and accept Mister Romney will be on offense this time.  What that means in the polls is that many assumptions have to change to match the new paradigm, especially in demographic terms.  A rather large number of polls were set up on assumptions which are clearly in dispute now.  As a result, state and national polls are sometimes in sharp disagreement about the party participation by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in this election.  Also, Pew reported earlier this year that the response rate by voters to polling groups has plummeted below ten percent, indicating  large portion of voters do not respond to poll queries, which calls poll results into question, especially when sample sizes are low, as is generally the case with state polling.  Also, state polls are performed far less frequently than national polls, and even then by a variety of agencies rather than by the same groups on a regular schedule.  Consequently, if something shifts within the dynamics of a state, the state polls tend to lag behind national polls in observing and reporting the new trend.     

Polling Is a Messy Business

I became interested in polls back when the first George Bush ran for President.  I had noticed how Reagan thumped Carter in 1980 after the polls said he was behind, and noticed how odd the polls looked at various times in subsequent elections.  So I started paying attention to polling agencies and tried to understand how they work.

There’s a certain mystic quality to polls, you know.  While they carefully state that polls are not predictive, polling groups well understand the influence they carry in shaping opinion as well as reporting it.  Human behavior is especially sensitive to Heisenberg’s warning that the act of observation itself changes behavior of the observed.  The idea that you can ask a few people about something and get a detailed report on what everyone is thinking, seems a bit far-fetched.  Which brings us to Statistics and the importance of getting details right.

Statistics is all about numbers, but it’s also about providing information on large amounts of information, kind of like the handle on a suitcase, it gives you a way to get a grip to handle something large.  Opinion polling is based on the very real science of extrapolating large group behavior on known demographics and, well, a certain herd mentality.  Statistics is the reason advertising works, for example.  A company finds out that people pay attention to certain sensory triggers, and they tie their product in to those things.  Credit ratings work the same way, on the empirical record that people behave in ways which are generally predictable.    

Polls enjoy a certain protection from suspicion, as well.  They publish only summaries of their results, on the claim that their details are proprietary.  This is true, except that it also means no one checks the process or integrity of most polls’ methodology.  As a result, a poll could theoretically publish whatever results it wished, manipulating numbers in reverse.   In the case of election opinion polling, the only way to know how well a poll performed is to compare its last release before an election to the actual result, which says nothing about polls released earlier in the campaign.  And boy howdy, sometimes polls earlier in a campaign are very odd. 

Having said this, I pretty much reject it.  Polls are in business to attract clients, and you don’t succeed by publishing results that could blow up on you if your employees revealed sloppy methods.  But it’s also true that sometimes polls change methods and get worse instead of better.  The problem comes down to your business model.  There are well-known polls like Gallup and Rasmussen and Harris, which have been in the business for literally decades, there are some universities and colleges which put out polls somewhat irregularly, and there are a great many small, frankly unknown polling agencies whose purpose in publishing election opinion polls seems to be in hopes of attracting future clients.  There are also the private polling firms the public never hears about, companies who perform polls for the specific and confidential use of their clients.  Both Romney and Obama use private polling firms, which not only focus on selected demographics and battleground states, but also track effectiveness of strategies and tactics.  The candidates do not disclose their internal poll results (although you may hear rumors from time to time from aides), but you can get a sense of their poll results by how confident and ambitious the candidate appears and where they go to make appearances.  This late in the race, candidates will only make appearances in states where they believe their personal appearance will be most effective.

Part of the problem of polling, aside from the small start-ups with no history which pop up every election and pretend to be just as reliable as the established polls, is laziness.  Very few of us are willing to print out and study all of the polls and their internal data to weigh the election race in context.  Most people just want to know who’s winning, so they want a nice easy-to-read scoreboard.  And that has led us to aggregation.  What’s worse, people who really should know better also buy in to aggregated summaries and sell them not only as accurate displays of the election condition, but also in some cases as valid predictors of future behavior.  Frankly, this kind of behavior is dishonest.

Statistics is a science, but since it studies human behavior certain cautions are necessary.  Aggregation bias is a well-known problem in statistical analysis, as you can see in studies by:

The National Institute of Health, regarding aggregation of group level statistics

http://www.niu.edu/rcrportal/publication/mistakes/09mistake-a.htm

The Federal Reserve Bank, regarding aggregation errors in economic behavior

http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2002/2002-024.pdf

The American Statistical Association, regarding covariance analysis and aggregation distortion

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED278678&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED278678

The problem comes from forgetting that polls use very small portions of the voter poll to ascertain opinion and trends.  Aggregation amplifies whatever bias exists in any given poll, and exacerbates error if a common assumption proves faulty.  This is why aggregation is considered an invalid practice in statistical analysis.  As much as I appreciate Real Clear Politics for presenting a one-stop place to compare and consider polling, their RCP Average is invalid as a true indicator of the election condition.

Aggregation is easy to read, though, and a lot of folks like the idea that they understand what’s going on by just reading one website’s release.  Some of these bloggers have enjoyed undeserved praise for piggy-backing off other people’s work, like Nate Silver.  Mister Silver developed a formula which basically takes published poll results, weights them according to his personal preference, aggregates the results and produces an average.  He then assumes the formula is good for a prediction of the election, which he publishes like a weather report.  Silver recently announced that despite setbacks since the start of October, President Obama still has, in his opinion, a seventy percent chance of winning.  Stop and consider that for a moment, in its emotional impact.  If the guy doing the weather on TV said there was a seventy percent chance of rain tomorrow, you’d expect rain, naturally, and possibly a heavy rain.  At the very least, you’d expect to see heavy clouds and some wind.  No one would expect bright sunshine and blue skies.  So Mister Silver’s statement is a clear warning that things are going poorly for the Romney campaign, dire and bleak.  Never mind that most of the well-established national polls (Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC News/Washington Post) not only give Romney a good chance, they actually show him winning right now.  The problem, you see, is that Mister Silver is an Obama partisan, and he allows that to flavor his reports. 

In a way, I think I should like Nate Silver more than I do.  I’m something of a numbers guy in my work, I love polls and politics, and I enjoy reading up on opinion polling in particular and can appreciate the work that goes into an analysis, especially an on-going one through a campaign lasting more than a year.  But I learned in 2008 the hard way about assumptions; after a bit of success in analyzing polls in 2004 for the Bush-Kerry race as a writer for Polipundit, I made the mistake of trusting a similar model in 2008.  I realized after the election that conditions are different for every election, and if you do not adjust for the new conditions you will make mistakes, possibly serious errors.  Silver is doing the same thing now, I think, his formula turned out great in 2008 and he thinks, why change what’s working?  The problem is, the election this year is fundamentally different than the 2008 election, to which I will return in a later post. 

The reader might counter that most polls turn out to be generally accurate (and that aggregators are therefore reliable), but that statement does not hold up to close inspection.  First, consider that the only polls measured for accuracy are the final polls, which generally come out in the last week of the campaign.  Predicting the outcome that late is like predicting the score of a football game in the last minute of the fourth quarter; it’s not really something to brag about.

And polls don’t do all that well, actually, in terms of precision.  If you take the time to go back and look at the polls’ historical error from actual results, the following average comes out:

Gallup (last 10):  3.41 points average error

Harris (Last 10):  3.63 points average error

ABC/WaPo (9 elections):  3.05 points average error

CBS/NYT (9 elections):  6.37 points average error

USA Today (7 elections):  3.86 points average error

NBC/WSJ (6 elections):  5.73 points average error

Zogby (4 elections):  2.70 points average error

Pew (4 elections):  2.40 points average error

Battleground/GWU (4 elections):  5.75 points average error

Rasmussen (3 elections):  3.40 points average error

CNN (3 elections):  2.15 points average error

Newsweek (3 elections):  5.63 points average error

Fox (3 elections):  7.10 points average error

Marist (3 elections):  4.30 points average error

IBD (3 elections):  4.43 points average error

Ipsos (2  elections):  2.70 points average error    

ARG (2 elections):   2.20 points average error

TIME (2 elections):  3.80 points average error

LA Times (2 elections):  5.00 points average error

(final election poll variance from each candidate actual Presidential election result, last ten such elections if available, data collected from online site for each poll, corroborated where possible from RCP and PollingReport.com for election year)

Given that most polls advertise a margin-of-error of about 3.5%, this data shows that of twenty national polls which published final releases before elections, eleven average actual error rates beyond their published margin of error, and two-thirds of all polls which have published final releases in six or more of the last ten Presidential elections had average error rates greater than their published margin of error.   While some polls seem to do much better in accuracy, keep in mind these are the polls with less experience in election polling, and so their perceived accuracy is possibly just a fluke.  And, as I said, these results are how the final poll performs; some of the earlier releases are more than little bit suspect in their claims.

The technical term used for the discovery of this fact, is “oops”.  But you don’t see the polls bring that up in their releases, even when the election is close enough that these actual error margins eclipse the presented results from the poll.

Desperate Ambush Attempt by Obama Fails in New York

As expected, the media is casting the Second Presidential Debate as a win for Barack Obama.  This is no surprise, not only due to the known bias in broadcast media, but also to keeping the drama alive in the election race.  Anyone saying Romney won Tuesday’s debate is essentially saying the election is over.  There’s a lot of advertising money to be made or lost on the question of when and how the election is decided, so two losses into the debate series, the media was nearly as desperate for an Obama win as Mister Obama himself.  In addition to the media environment, the location and structure of the second debate was heavily weighted in Obama’s favor.  While ostensibly designed to provide a forum for ‘undecided’ voters to ask questions from candidates in an open ‘Town Hall’ forum, the facts tell a different story – the location was in New York, a heavily pro-Democrat state, the moderator stated before the debate that she would not agree to the written format for the debate as negotiated by both candidates in advance, the moderator would know all the questions in advance and would select which questions would be asked and when and by whom, and would be in control of how much time each candidate would have to speak, and when. 

In the actual debate, the moderator’s bias was immediately evident, as she allowed Mister Obama additional time, refused to allow Mister Romney the opportunity to counter false claims by Mister Obama, failed to apply follow-up questions evenly, and overall showed an appalling partisanship in favor of Mister Obama.  Mister Obama was alternately arrogant and disingenuous, and oddly spent more time mis-characterizing Mister Romney’s plans than presenting his own.  At several points, Mister Obama ironically bemoaned Romney’s supposed lack of detail, but provided none for his own plans.  In the end, however, the Obama Camp failed for a third straight attempt, which may prove to be fatal to their dwindling re-election hopes.

I will freely admit I am biased in Mister Romney’s favor.  I also recognize that many on Obama’s side will imagine he won last night.  But that’s rather the point.  Solid supporters for each candidate cheered their man on last night, but there was no realistic expectation that those voters could be moved.  The debate was about the undecided voters, and on that focus Mister Romney won the debate.   

First, Mister Obama.  The Obama Camp radically changed their campaign strategy after the first Debate disaster, recognizing that Obama’s apparent apathy was devastating to his support from all demographic groups, and recognizing further that Romney’s credibility was skyrocketing from his Debate One performance.  This led to a much more aggressive posture and a far more negative approach to the debate.  The odd thing about this plan for the second Presidential Debate, is that this was the plan for Mister Biden in the Vice-Presidential Debate last week.  For President Obama to repeat the game plan of his Vice-President can only be taken to mean one or more of the following possibilities:

[]  Enthusiasm by Democrats fell so sharply after the first Presidential Debate, that the new tactic was meant primarily to re-energize Democrats;

[]  The Obama Camp believed in the negative strategy so much that they abandoned the entire summer campaign strategy;

[]  The Obama Camp was so unable to get their candidate on message that they simply let him do what he wants.

The polling consensus prior to the first debate was a narrow Obama lead.  Between the first Presidential Debate and the Vice-Presidential Debate, the consensus shifted to a narrow Romney lead, and after the Vice-Presidential Debate the lead for Romney increased just a little.  As a result, not only did Team Romney win both debates on the matter of voter support, they did so at both the national and battleground state level.  It would seem, then, that the negative tactics employed in the Vice-Presidential  Debate were unpopular with voters, and therefore a strange choice to repeat in the next Presidential Debate.  It is difficult to believe that Mister Obama genuinely thinks he will win using such tactics.

Next, Mister Romney.  Romney was less polished in the Second Presidential Debate, but as noted the moderator’s obvious partisan support for his opponent forced him to handle two opponents in the Debate.  Mister Romney stayed on message, largely avoided negative tactics except to point out the failure of Mister Obama’s first term, and showed credentials worthy of the office he seeks. 

Undecided voters this late in an election are looking for answers on specific issues and questions.  Likeability is a factor, but anyone still undecided just three weeks before the election is basically waiting for a specific answer to a critical question.  Historically, undecided voters weigh the incumbent’s record against the challenger’s qualifications, and discount spin meant to distract from the key data.  That means the undecided voters are not impressed with Mister Obama saying what he wants to do in a second term, and they may not be particularly interested in events perceived as one-off incidents, like the Benghazi attack or the death of Osama bin Laden.  Those just don’t move the needle for most voters in the middle. 

That means the undecided voters will be eager to hear about Romney’s credentials and Mister Obama’s criticism of them.  They already have a good idea how to count Mister Obama’s record for the first term.  They will probably ignore talk they consider a distraction from their key questions, but they will probably pay attention to – and dislike – attempts to smear the other opponent; it makes the attacker look petty and dishonest.  That’s why ‘gotcha’ video clips and sound bites won’t get much traction with undecided voters, unless the target allows them to indicate there is substance to them. 

With this considered, then, the victory by Mister Romney in the Second Presidential Debate becomes obvious.  While Mister Obama may have felt good about his performance (as he said he did after the first debate), and his aggressive style may please his core supporters, the blatant bias by the moderator and the character of some questions (really, what objective voter still wants to know about Bush eight years after his last election?) are sure to have displeased genuinely undecided voters seeking information and a few straight answers.  With Romney having gained the advantage on all major issues through the first two events, the burden last night was squarely on Mister Obama, who failed to meet the challenge.         

Ego and Error

Twelve days ago, the campaign for President of the United States underwent a major change.   Or so it seemed, as Barack Obama appeared every bit as inept and unready as he claimed his opponent to be, while Mitt Romney showed himself calm, assured and competent, clearly the more Presidential.

The subsequent polls showed Romney take the consensus lead in the polls.  Those polls which gave Obama the lead, like the most recent ABC/Washington Post, do so by giving Obama a laughable imbalance in  party affiliation.  All polls taken since the debate with any kind of realistic representation of the salient demographic indicators show Romney in the lead.

But is this a reflection of one impressive debate, or something else?  A hint can be found in last week's Vice-Presidential debate.  The media generally split on that one, but the polls didn't waver.  On the one hand, Romney's lead did not increase but it did not go away, either.  When examined carefully, both debate performances reveal fatal flaws in Obama's re-election strategy.

Let's start with the obvious; the actual performance by Obama is lousy.  Unemployment, foreign conflicts, the National Debt, the ham-handed imposition of Obamacare, any way you count it the record of Barack Obama is a failure.  The funny thing, though, is that failures sometimes get re-elected anyway.  Without running down that road, there were a number of ways Barack Obama could have won himself a second term.  Frankly, I think it's too late for him now, unless Mitt Romney completely destroys his campaign and hands the election to Obama.  There are several reasons why the impetus is too far along, including the Incumbency Effect (an incumbent generally produces election results several points below his October poll numbers, and an incumbent who does not reach 50 percent support in October polls cannot win), the Economic barometer (GDP growth below 2.5 percent in an election year favors the challenger), and the Mid-Term Election effect (Mid-Term results by party are often reflected party support in the subsequent Presidential Election).  But there are additional reasons why Romney is surging just now.

In any campaign, candidates must expect a mix of good and bad news, success and blunders, surges and pitfalls.  But Obama's campaign has not been able to communicate real conditions to the President.  Obama is so much a narcissist that he refuses to listen to bad news, which is why he followed his loss to Romney by blaming style and "being too nice", which resulted in Biden's manic behavior in the Vice-Presidential Debate. It not only failed to address critical mistakes in substance by Obama, it opens the possibility that he could very well compound his error in the next debate.  Romney was able to demonstrate competence and a presidential demeanor.  If Obama fails to recognize this is already in place, his haughty disrespect towards Romney could be seen by Independents as desperate panic or an outright inability to face facts.  If that happens, Romney's lead could become decisive with more than half a month to go to the election.