Is Obama's Lead In Gallup Polls Stable Or Volatile?

If your heart stops with every dip and bump registered by Gallup's daily tracking poll, here's some welcome news: the race is more stable than you might think.

Emory University Political Science Professor Alan Abramowitz sends along a couple of interesting graphs that each plot Barack Obama's consistent lead over John McCain in the presidential race. In the first graph, each daily tracking poll since the end of the Democratic primary season is charted as a distinct data point, making for what looks like a wild ride:

Having some fun with those who would over-interpret this graph, Abramowitz said: "Look--Obama is surging! OMG, Obama's support is collapsing. No wait, he's surging again! Oh no, he's collapsing again! What happened to that 9 point lead? McCain's strategy must be working. All is lost--the end is near! I knew we should have nominated Hillary!"

Then Abramowitz steps back a bit, averaging the Obama lead from each daily tracking poll into 10-day data points, stretching from June 5 to August 4. Which gives him a rather stable-looking 3-to-4 point lead for Obama:

Explaining the optical illusion, Abramowitz says: "When you group the tracking poll data into ten-day periods it becomes clear that support for the presidential candidates since the end of the primaries has been extremely stable, with Obama maintaining a modest but consistent lead, and that almost all of the day-to-day movement in the data is simply random noise."

Or, in a somewhat shorter version of his attitude toward the ups and downs of the daily graph that gets turned over each day on cable news shows, Abramowitz says: "Never mind."

Comments

[GHENT007]

Thousands of newly registered voters are left out of the polls,so in the end, with the democrats registering new voters at a almost 5 to 1 versus the republicans, we'll win this one rather easily, the beauty of it is all of the republicans being thrown out of the house and the senate, democratic president and a majority in both houses, I THINK I'M IN HEAVEN!!!!

[alphax]

POLLS are useless. Its the ELECTORAL MAP that counts.
WHY AREN'T the MSM talking about the Electoral map!! Everyone showing Obama leading by 70 - 100+

The MSM keep talking about the polls, trying to keep this as a close race.
Just as they did with Hillary!!

The facts showed then, she could not get the delegates and Obama would be closer to the delegate total than her.

[Dustee]

Exactly! There was an article on huffpo about that just recently.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-nickolas/despite-media-narrative-o_b_116906.html

[YellowDogInRedCounty]

As of July 22, Rasmussen shows that the states that are either "Safe Democratic", "Likely Democratic" or "Leaning Democratic" have 273 electoral votes. And that doesn't include states such as Ohio, Virginia, Florida or Nevada which have another 65 electoral votes and which many other polls show as likely Democratic. For those of you who don't know, it only takes 270 electoral votes to win.

I don't believe in tempting fate, but the "national" polls showing a simple popular vote total are meaningless and the state-by-state polls show a lot of reason for Obama supporters to be pretty psyched up!

[Yasmine]

please google POLLOCRACY
Beware of the POWER of the POLL NUMBERs to influence the elections
POLLOCRATS are those pollsters who Have a POLITOCAL AGENDA and design questions in order to influence Discussions trends and analysis of thos stupid empty headed talking heads like ,,,,,

[NotPC]

Whatever makes you dems feel good..........the polls are OK when BO is doing well, but you reject them when he's not.

If he had gotten a huge bounce from his "Magical Mystery Tour" it would be news all day every day, but that isn't what happened.....his numbers have dropped everyday since he arrived back in the states.

I wonder how the polls are going to play out when George Clooney holds his big fund raiser for BO in SWITZERLAND next month? Do you think the American people will look upon that event as a bit elitist? How much energy is going to be expended traveling to and from that event in private jets, etc.?
Couldn't the event be held right here in the US?

It'll be fun to watch the polls after that event! Though I believe they only give us a "snapshot" of what is happening at the moment, I don't put a great deal of stock in them.........but it's fun watching the dems get excited over them.

[robynuva]

fivethiryeight.com is the best site with good information regarding polls and polling. It is comprehensive, wonky, and fun.

[MinuteMan]

So the snake-oil-merchants of the OM are writing stories based on apophenia? The only question—rhetorical actually— is are they stupid or unprincipled or both?

[the964kid]

These polls mean nothing for other reasons too. Most importantly it's the electoral college, not popular vote, that wins. Currently states that are in Obama's likely win column ad up to 216 electoral points and McCain's likely column ad up to only 186 according to stats wizard MSNBC's Chuck Todd. Those are the numbers to be watching. Obama is way ahead, and McCain has to defend too many traditionally red states, like Colorado, Virginia, Iowa and even North Carolina.

[BigLib]

Don't worry.

Hillary! is waiting in the wings...

[rasthedestroyer]

MSM needs this to be a horse race so they only give us the information that fits their agenda.. this is not a close race..DON'T....DON'T.....DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE

[FuzzyLiberal]

Obama will win the popular vote by one of the biggest margins in history. Electoral college will be Obama's by a wide albeit not overwhelming margin. But the biggest story will be the loss of Republican congressional seats concurrent with the loss of the White House.

Polls will continue to be less and less reliable as most people eschew answering phone calls from anyone except known friends and businesses. Until reliable net polling is established, legacy polling methods will become less and less relevant.

[QuicksilverKW]

Any way you look at Obama will have the numbers - just like he had the numbers with Clinton. No matter what she said or her supporters said - when it came right down to it Obama had the numbers. I think we are going to be reading more and more of this angle as time goes by. McCain can say what he wants but in the end he won't have the numbers - and then we can put this tired "Maverick" out to pasture where he belongs.

[lvdragonlady]

I truely believe that ALL of the poll numbers that show up every day are doctored and not a true reflection of what Americans are thinking or feeling. I think that, say people are called or asked on the street but when the finally numbers do not reflect what they pollsters believe they should be, they "tweak" them. I think all polls should be tossed into the trash because they are only 1 groups doctored numbers to reflect their believes.

[NotaBeliever]

I thought we weren't paying attention to the polls here ... that they belong in Huffpollstrology with the cartoons. But never mind, never mind.
I just have my own memories of Election Day 2004 when the exit polls pointed to a win by Kerry ... but the real voting seems to have turned out quite differently.
So a pox on both your houses!
Voting on election day is the only vote that counts.
The polls are bogus.
Thank you for your attention.

[rasthedestroyer]

CAN YOU SAY OHIO!!!! pay attention please, maybe you should start believing again.... WAKE UP

[Roy49]

Here's the thing. The polls only reflect a minor fraction of the population. They are given to only about a 1000 people which is a fraction (less than 1%) of the 100's of millions of people in the United States. And they are done not by mail, internet, or cell phone. They are done by telephone (land line). Now let me ask you good people a question. Who has a telephone in their house these days? And if you do have one, how many of you answer it? How reliable do you think those Gallup Polls really are? They call older folks who"ve had the same number for decades. So, do you really think that Senator Obama and McCain are neck and neck? Please! On Election Day all of the naysayers will have rude awakening! If the polls showed the true reflection of the population, it would show Senator Obama winning by a huge margin "every-single-day!" But then, people wouldn't watch TV and the local news channels if you knew the outcome would they? The ratings would go down and media wouldn"t profit. So reporting that the candidates are neck and neck brings more viewers and pays the bills.

Can anyone say "Landslide"?

God bless America!

Go to Google and type in "How Gallup Polls are conducted" (see for yourself).