Rasmussen: Party Affiliation in October

 

If, by chance, you think that Mitt Romney is going to lose tomorrow, let me suggest that you take a look at the data collected by Rasmussen on partisan identification over the last eight years. In October, 2008, he found that the Democrats had a 7.1 point advantage. In October, 2010, he found that the Democrats had a 2.9 point advantage. This October, however, he found that the Republicans had a 5.8 point advantage. If this is accurate, there will be a blow-out tomorrow. Barack Obama is the gift that keeps on giving. Take a close look at Rasmussen’s data. In this millennium, the Republicans have never been in better shape.

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  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Spin

    Also you’ll note the percentage of “other”goes from 27 to 26 ’08 to ’12.  This tells me that the movement is largely from democrat to republican.  Is this a valid assessment, do you think?

    • #1
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    @MichaelHornback

    Of all the data points, this one (along with Gallup’s numbers) gives me the most hope.  This aligns with anecdotal stories, turnouts to Romney rallies, and even early vote totals from various states.  The only question I have is why this isn’t showing up in Rasmussen’s (or Gallup’s, for that matter) tracking poll?  Four years ago, they adjusted their poll to turnout model.  They don’t seem to be doing that today.  What’s up with that?

    That said, this is getting quite silly, all this speculation on my part.  In just over 24 hours, we’ll see what’s really going on when vote totals come in from VA, FL, and NH (& PA?).  

    Keep HOPE alive!

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    @PaulARahe
    Ken Owsley: Also you’ll note the percentage of “other”goes from 27 to 26 ’08 to ’12.  This tells me that the movement is largely from democrat to republican.  Is this a valid assessment, do you think? · 17 minutes ago

    Yes, I think so. Think of what Obama has done to the Democratic Party in West Virginia. and then extrapolate.

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    @dittoheadadt

    I would say the tea leaves are even better than your statistics suggest. In 2008 the Dems enjoyed a 7.1% Party-ID advantage…AND their candidate was drawing plenty of support from non-Dems, like Noonan and Buckley and scads more.  In 2012 not only does the GOP enjoy a 5.8% Party-ID edge, but far more Dems are likely to vote GOP or not at all this year compared to 2008, and relatively few GOP voters who went Dem in 2008 will make the same mistake this time.

    • #4
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    @Fress

    From here in Australia it’s too frightening, I only read Paul so I can come out of hiding.

    • #5
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    @Casey

    Huh…

    • #6
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    @MichaelHornback

    The one hesitation I have about the number itself is the fact that the number of people who exclusively use cell phones have doubled since 08 (I’m in that number). Rasmussen doesn’t call cell phones  And those people are disproportionately Democrat (though I’m not one of those!). Are these numbers accounting for these people?  Rasmussen’s numbers were quite accurate in the previous elections, but will that be the same case now that fewer and fewer have home phones?

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    @Gretchen
    Michael Hornback: The one hesitation I have about the number itself is the fact that the number of people who exclusively use cell phones have doubled since 08 (I’m in that number). Rasmussen doesn’t call cell phones  And those people are disproportionately Democrat (though I’m not one of those!). Are these numbers accounting for these people?  Rasmussen’s numbers were quite accurate in the previous elections, but will that be the same case now that fewer and fewer have home phones? · in 1 minute

    Been wondering about that too.

    • #8
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    @GojirasHejira

    Oh Good!  Then I don’t need to vote.

    • #9
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    @CoolHand
    Michael Hornback: The only question I have is why this isn’t showing up in Rasmussen’s (or Gallup’s, for that matter) tracking poll?

    I think it’s a matter of Tea Party people and Republicans in general being so entirely fed up with the whole corrupt process that they flatly refuse to participate in polls and/or they lie to the pollsters to screw with them.

    Plus, conservatives by and large are not at home during the day to answer the pollsters in the first place.

    Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible for polling houses to properly “control” for the differences in attitude and disposition between liberal and conservative people.

    The gulf in that regard is very wide, and getting wider, to the point that it seems that polling has become almost useless as a predictor of outcome.

    • #10
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    @Mickerbob
    Michael Hornback: The one hesitation I have about the number itself is the fact that the number of people who exclusively use cell phones have doubled since 08 (I’m in that number). Rasmussen doesn’t call cell phones  And those people are disproportionately Democrat (though I’m not one of those!). Are these numbers accounting for these people?  Rasmussen’s numbers were quite accurate in the previous elections, but will that be the same case now that fewer and fewer have home phones? · 1 minute ago

    I’m not aware of the disproportionate number of Democrats using cell phones, (however, I can surmise based on young v. old using cellphones). Could you provide additional data?

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    @Douglas

    There are few things I would dearly love more than more than this headline on Wednesday: “After GOP wave, pollsters try to defend themselves”.

    • #12
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    @Douglas
    Mickerbob

    I’m not aware of the disproportionate number of Democrats using cell phones, (however, I can surmise based on young v. old using cellphones). Could you provide additional data? · 2 minutes ago

    I saw some figures earlier today. Exclusive cell users, according to the story, tend to be younger, poorer, and overwhelmingly Democrat. But the offset is that the young vote less, and a consideration here is that pollsters can’t mass call them the way they can landlines because of the law. It’s against the law to robocall a cell-phone number (because the end user has to pay for it, where land line phones do not). Polling orgs really hate this, because it means that if they want to do mass surveys of cell users, they have to pay humans to physically dial the number and ask the questions, which is very expensive.

    The conclusion of the article was the the cell-surge isn’t making traditional polling inaccurate yet, but the more cell phones, the more the results will be off.

    • #13
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    @MikeH

    I wrote a post on this earlier today. It seems to have been largely missed though.

    Biggest Republican Blowout Since 1984? Who to Believe, Rasmussen or Rasmussen?
    • #14
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    @

    Paul,

    You have been right from day 1 about Obama waking the Sleeping Giant , why would anyone doubt you now ?

    • #15
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    @Cutlass

    I wonder if primary cell phone users (I am also one) are also less likely to turn out because campaigns also have less access to them for GOTV efforts.

    • #16
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    @MichaelHornback
    CoolHand

    Michael Hornback: The only question I have is why this isn’t showing up in Rasmussen’s (or Gallup’s, for that matter) tracking poll?

    I think it’s a matter of Tea Party people and Republicans in general being so entirely fed up with the whole corrupt process that they flatly refuse to participate in polls and/or they lie to the pollsters to screw with them.

    Plus, conservatives by and large are not at home during the day to answer the pollsters in the first place.

    Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible for polling houses to properly “control” for the differences in attitude and disposition between liberal and conservative people.

    The gulf in that regard is very wide, and getting wider, to the point that it seems that polling has become almost useless as a predictor of outcome. · 42 minutes ago

    I’m not sure I agree with this analysis.  In the height of the tea party anger in 2010, the polls accurately predicted a big Republican takeover of the House.  Check out RCP!  The averages were predictive of the winner almost every single time.  

    • #17
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    @ChrisL

    I’m wondering if the 39% mark for Republicans is accurate; The highest previous mark was 37% so it seems possible that it could be an anomaly.  On the other hand, the Democrats had a high water mark in 2008 of about 40%, and with the anecdotal number of “Democrats for Romney” we see in commercials, this could indicate a true switch of parties.   

    The only other way to make sense of this variance is that discouraged Democrats become independents, while certain right leaning independents become Republicans…  That is ideology remained the same, only party affiliation switched.  I suppose we will get some, if not all, of these questions answered tomorrow.

    • #18
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    @billy

    It’s sad that it is this close.

    • #19
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    @Mickerbob
    Douglas

    Mickerbob

    I’m not aware of the disproportionate number of Democrats using cell phones, (however, I can surmise based on young v. old using cellphones). Could you provide additional data? · 2 minutes ago

    I saw some figures earlier today. Exclusive cell users, according to the story, tend to be younger, poorer, and overwhelmingly Democrat. But the offset is that the young vote less, and a consideration here is that pollsters can’t mass call them the way they can landlines because of the law. It’s against the law to robocall a cell-phone number (because the end user has to pay for it, where land line phones do not). Polling orgs really hate this, because it means that if they want to do mass surveys of cell users, they have to pay humans to physically dial the number and ask the questions, which is very expensive.

    The conclusion of the article was the the cell-surge isn’t making traditional polling inaccurate yet, but the more cell phones, the more the results will be off. · 1 hour ago

    Thank you for the flesh out.

    • #20
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    @AnnaS

    Now I am scared again, Mr. Hornback. If RCP was very accurate in 2010, then we are losing. They say Obama is ahead! Bummer!

    • #21
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    @JamesOfEngland

    It does seem hard to believe that a: enthusiasm is greater on our side, b: voter registration is on our side and c: early voting is turning out as it is.

    We appear to be winning in Florida, but not because we have more registered Republicans voting; we have enough of an edge on polled crossovers that our 4% registration deficit in early votes is not decisive.

    We also appear to be 2% ahead by voter registration in Colorado, but down 5% in Oklahoma. 

    In Iowa, which should also be a bellwether state, we’re down 10%. In Oregon, down 9.5%. In Maine, (as goes the nation), we’re down 11%. We’re down by more than that in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Maryland (down by 43%!).

    There is no reporting state in which we’re up by 5.8%. Our best state, bizarrely, is Pennsylvania, where we’re up 4.9%. This is surprising, since we know that there are a ton more registered Democrats than Republicans there, and generally the Philly machine is pretty effective at turning ’em out.

    • #22
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    @MikeH

    @James of England

    Rasmussen is measuring what people respond when asked what party they feel they associate themselves with currently. This is very elastic and has nothing to do with actual registration. There could be registered Democrats that show up in Rasmussen as a Republican. I am very curious why Rasmussen was so quiet about releasing this data. Does he not want to explain why it looks so much different than his other polling? It doesn’t square with the even split on his Generic Ballot either. Of course, that is partly due to the Sandy bump Obama received last week. Hopefully that has evaporated completely by tomorrow.

    • #23
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    @JamesOfEngland
    Michael Hinton: @James of England

    Rasmussen is measuring what people respond when asked what party they feel they associate themselves with currently. This is very elastic and has nothing to do with actual registration. There could be registered Democrats that show up in Rasmussen as a Republican. I am very curious why Rasmussen was so quiet about releasing this data. Does he not want to explain why it looks so much different than his other polling? It doesn’t square with the even split on his Generic Ballot either. Of course, that is partly due to the Sandy bump Obama received last week. Hopefully that has evaporated completely by tomorrow. · in 1 minute

    I’d have guessed that partisan ID and enthusiasm were correlated with the early vote party ID, though, and the move there just is in the opposite direction from 2010; we’re roughly half way between 2008 and 2010, not way better off than in 2010.

    Also, just to note, apparently Pennsylvania always tilts our way in early voting, even in 2008. Man, but psephology is hard.

    • #24
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    @DuaneOyen

    Read this, and you don’t get a warm feeling that Romney’s people believe the numbers right now indicate that they have made the sale in Ohio.  Essentially, the Pennsylvania Ploy is a long shot desperate attempt to recover, looking for straws to grasp.  If this is right, an awful lot on the Right (Baroine, Will, VodkaPundit, etc.) will have egg on their faces.

    I wish I drank alcohol…..

    • #25
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    @JamesOfEngland
    Duane Oyen: Read this, and you don’t get a warm feeling that Romney’s people believe the numbers right now indicate that they have made the sale in Ohio.  Essentially, the Pennsylvania Ploy is a long shot desperate attempt to recover, looking for straws to grasp.  If this is right, an awful lot on the Right (Baroine, Will, VodkaPundit, etc.) will have egg on their faces.

    I wish I drank alcohol….. · 2 minutes ago

    I don’t think that this tells us anything we didn’t know a week ago, except that there’s going to be more of an effort in Pennsylvania than we thought and less of an effort in Colorado, Iowa, and Nevada. It’s entirely consistent with Barone’s analysis.

    • #26
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    @StevenJones

    Thanks for the Rahe of sunshine. My mood has been manic today, with all the published polls saying it’s close, or giving Obama an edge. If the vote is close enough in key states, they’ll steal it.

    • #27
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    @MichaelHornback

    Four years ago, Rasmussen weighted his poll sample according to the party affiliation he was getting. (See towards end of this tracking poll article 4 years ago http://tinyurl.com/avmhcop)  He doesn’t discuss doing that anymore. Why not?  Does he weight for party affiliation?  If so, why are the numbers so close?  If not, why doesn’t he?  It worked out well for him in the 08 election. Also, why does he measure party affiliation if he doesn’t use it?

     We need Scott to join Ricochet so we can ask him these questions!

    • #28
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    @Douglas
    Duane Oyen: Read this, and you don’t get a warm feeling that Romney’s people believe the numbers right now indicate that they have made the sale in Ohio.  Essentially, the Pennsylvania Ploy is a long shot desperate attempt to recover, looking for straws to grasp.  If this is right, an awful lot on the Right (Baroine, Will, VodkaPundit, etc.) will have egg on their faces.

    I wish I drank alcohol….. · 1 hour ago

    I think Romney wins Wisconsin. If he wins Whisky AND New Hampshire… assuming he takes Virginia (which looks like he will), then he doesn’t need Ohio. And that would give me an almost perverse pleasure if that happens: all the union guys thinking they’re throwing the election to Obama, and none of it matters.

    • #29
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    @JamesOfEngland
    Michael Hornback: Four years ago, Rasmussen weighted his poll sample according to the party affiliation he was getting. (See towards end of this tracking poll article 4 years ago http://tinyurl.com/avmhcop)  He doesn’t discuss doing that anymore. Why not?  Does he weight for party affiliation?  If so, why are the numbers so close?  If not, why doesn’t he?  It worked out well for him in the 08 election. Also, why does he measure party affiliation if he doesn’t use it?

     We need Scott to join Ricochet so we can ask him these questions! · 34 minutes ago

    Edited 33 minutes ago

    He does weigh for party affiliation. I don’t know why the numbers are so close (I suspect that the answer is dispiriting).

    Still, we should be focused on these numbers now, more than the polls. Combine them with these numbers, and you have a close election, and a good position from which to review the early counting.

    • #30
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