US-2012 President: 51% Obama (D), 41% Romney (R) (Pew 7/16-7/26)

Pew Research Center
7/16-7/26/12: 2,508 adults, 2.8% margin of error
1,956 registered voters, 3.2% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
Pew release

National

2012 President
51% Obama (D), 41% Romney (R) (chart)

Favorable / Unfavorable
Barack Obama: 51/42 (chart)
Mitt Romney: 34/50 (chart)

Comments

[A New Jersey Farmer]

11:29 AM on 08/06/2012

Latest Rasmussen tracking poll has Obama +2 after being behind last week by 3 or more.

[Field Marshall]

12:02 PM on 08/05/2012

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/08/05/can_obama_keep_clinton_dems_in_2012_115006.html

"In 2004, Clinton loyalists, distraught over Kerry's defeat, hunkered down and planned for the next presidential election. They fortified themselves with a few thoughts: Hillary would be the nominee in 2008, and Obama's 2004 convention speech proved the party had a bright centrist future because both Hillary and Obama were pragmatists.

They didn't plan on Howard Dean supporters (including the "Netroots" and ideological progressives) believing that Kerry lost because he wasn't liberal enough. They also didn't plan on this faction starting a revolution in the party. With Dean in charge of the Democratic National Committee, progressives worked to convince rank-and-file Democrats that victory required pursuing a 50-state strategy and dismissing people in "fly-over" states as not knowing what was good for them.

They believed that government led by coastal (elitist) Democrats would be a force for good for those people; educating them on environmental issues and help the "guns- and God-clinging" crowd to vote on economic self-interest, not on cultural issues.

Moderates always have been skeptical of such arguments. They believed in trying to bridge cultural differences between the coastal and the interior Democrats.

Angry Clinton Democrats not only lost the 2008 nomination, but Obama did not become the president they had expected based on his 2004 convention speech. They felt their party betrayed them by installing the progressive wing and kicking out the centrists."

[runrunrun4fun]

10:23 AM on 08/06/2012

290 to 191. Keep posting those articles. As you can see, it is having a positive affect for Ham Sandwich's election.

[dpearl]

11:55 AM on 08/05/2012

I talked to a representative of the BLS earlier this week and learned something interesting about how things work that I thought I’d share.

It turns out that the policy about embargoing the unemployment report until 8:30 a.m. on Friday is actually baked into law. Even the Federal Reserve does not have access to the data before 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning (the woman I talked to was actually one of the few people in the world that see the unemployment report on Thursday before the release date).

Anyways – it always bothered me that the revisions of previous months’ jobs report can be quite large and are due to some businesses getting their data in late. Why not publish something about what type of businesses are late so economists can accurately predict the size of the upcoming revisions? (just like every other survey is weighted by knowing characteristics of who responds versus who doesn’t). Well, it turns out that the law prevents them from publishing anything about the characteristics of the late responders – even though they would be happy to do so. I can’t imagine any justification for that. Why create added uncertainty about the true employment situation when the fix is so obvious?

[Field Marshall]

12:09 PM on 08/05/2012

More and more analysts are starting to favor the ADP report due to its higher transparency.

http://adpemploymentreport.com/PDF/REVISED_METHODOLOGY_DEC_2008.pdf

[StatsNo1fan]

06:01 PM on 08/04/2012

To add to my point about enthusiasm and RV vs LV polls below, I did a little exercise. I took all the polls on RCP for the 2010 generic ballot, from July 1 to election. 96 total polls, 36 RV's, 58 LV's.

In RV polls, GOP led by 2.4%, 45.6 to 43.2.

In LV polls GOP led by 8.1%, 48.7 to 40.6.

Difference between RV and LV was 5.7% advantage GOP.

Since I did not track the polls chronologically, and just took the average of all polls from July to Nov, this is not a perfect comparison, but it still gives a pretty good idea how RV and LV polls differ. And I just do not see much change in sentiment between 2010 and 2012. It's seems almost identical.

[funkeepickle]

02:32 AM on 08/05/2012

Your analysis is muddied by the fact that the RV and LV polls are coming from different pollsters. For example, Rasmussen makes up about 30% of your LV sample and they had a 5-6% Republican house effect in 2010. So if you factor that in right there and your 5.7% number suddenly becomes around 4.0%.

Regardless, the difference between RVs and LVs in 2010 WAS around a 6-point GOP advantage. However, that gap fluctuates much more in midterm elections. For the past couple decades, the RV-LV gap in presidential years has very consistently been a 1-2 point GOP advantage.

You read way too much into enthusiasm, especially in a presidential year. In 2008 Democrats had a massive enthusiasm advantage yet the RV-LV gap stuck to its rigid historical average. To think that the gap will suddenly be 5-6+ points this year is....wishful thinking, to say the least.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/does-romney-have-an-edge-from-likely-voter-polls/

[StatsNo1fan]

02:02 PM on 08/05/2012

Those are fair points, since I am the one who brought up the RV versus LV comparisons, but more importantly, the difference between RV polls and actual election outcomes has a greater GOP lean than the difference between RV and LV polls, and is more volatile cycle to cycle. Silver had a write up on that point as well, but I can't find it right now.

As far as 2008 goes, I think Dem enthusiasm advantage does not yield as many votes as GOP advantage. It's a function of types of voters that make up the two parties. For example, young voters had a huge enthusiasm advantage over older voters in 2008, and even though they voted at a much higher rate than their normal participation, it was still a much lower rate than the unenthusiastic older voters.

I estimate that a point of enthusiasm advantage results in about 0.6 points of actual vote for GOP and about 0.2/0.3 votes for Dems.

[dpearl]

12:48 PM on 08/05/2012

The reason most pollsters do not use an LV screen at this stage of the game is that they feel it would be less accurate to do so. For example, it is well known that young voters are more likely to make up their mind about voting (and who to vote for) much later than older voters. Thus, an LV screen applied too early will show bias toward candidates and issues favored by the old and not by the young.

[stillow1]

01:06 PM on 08/05/2012

How do you factor in the fact that young people notoriously vote in smaller #'s.....with just a small handful of exceptions. I think the LV vs RV goes a little deeper than just young people being undecided.

[jstanavgguy]

04:38 PM on 08/04/2012

This poll is a joke.

The polling sample has a 44% advantage for Democrats, and 23% advantage for independents.

Based on 2010 exit polling, does anyone really believe that this is going to be the case?

Sorry, this is a push poll.

[dpearl]

01:03 PM on 08/05/2012

jstanavgguy,

I am not sure what you mean by "23% advantage for independents". This poll shows former Governor Romney leading President Obama by 2% amongst independents (45% to 43%).

Also, in my very first post on Pollster.com I complained about a poll I felt was clearly biased and called it a "push poll". Turns out, at the time, I didn't understand the definition of that term and periodically I see the same error by other commentators. For a description, have a look at the Wikipedia article on the topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll

Bottom line: a "push poll" is not really a poll at all - its questions and responses are never released to the public at large. A "push poll" is simply a way of disseminating propaganda to the people who answer the phone.

[jstanavgguy]

04:54 PM on 08/05/2012

What I mean is that there were 23% more independent polled than Republicans.

Your definition of push poll, while accurate, is not the ONLY definition.

A push poll is also one that is designed to get a specific result.

Like when you over sample one group, in the hopes of getting a result that is in line with what you want.

For example, it would be like taking a poll on if poeple prefer McDonalds to, say, a salad place.

And you poll 44% more meat eaters than vegetarians.

[funkeepickle]

02:20 AM on 08/04/2012

As the three musketeers preach doom and gloom for Obama, today Nate Silver has Obama at a 71.1% favorite, his best odds yet.

[StatsNo1fan]

01:53 PM on 08/04/2012

Pfft. You think Silver's word is gospel? Look, Silver is a smart guy, he tries to be fair and accurate, but this is a brand new experimental model, and I guarantee you, there is a major flaw in it.

For one, it predicts B0 winning the popular vote today, in now-cast, and I've seen enough polls over the years, know the pollsters and their idiosyncrasies to be sure that as of today Mitt wins the popular vote by a comfortable margin. In fact, Silver's own past analysis goes against his current model forecast for the popular vote.

[funkeepickle]

02:21 PM on 08/04/2012

Come on back to reality Stats. Even the most right leaning pollster, Ras, only has Mitt up 2. I'm wondering how you come to the conclusion that Romney's up by a comfortable margin without claiming that every single pollster has a significant Dem-leaning house effect.

[Field Marshall]

06:50 PM on 08/03/2012

This is too funny. What a ma roon!!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chick-fil-a-protests--have-they-gone-too-far-.html

[rockym92]

08:29 PM on 08/03/2012

I like Smith's values of berating a young, minimum wage earning fast food employee for the opinions of her boss.

Bloomberg had it right with his statements on the issue: "it is not appropriate for government to look at somebody's political views and decide whether or not they can live in the city, or operate a business in the city, or work for somebody in the city."

[runrunrun4fun]

12:33 PM on 08/04/2012

Kind of like the "mosque" near Ground Zero. Did you advocate for the mosque?

[StatsNo1fan]

06:17 PM on 08/03/2012

GOP suppresses the felon and the illegal_alien vote.

B0B0 suppresses our nation's heros vote in Ohio.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2012/08/ap-military-groups-oppose-obama-suit-ohio-080212/

[Xenobion]

06:28 PM on 08/03/2012

Quite a stretch there. I'd blame the voter ID laws to begin with. The sad part of precedents is the law that set them.

[Field Marshall]

06:41 PM on 08/03/2012

So you're attempting to to conflate voter ID laws with the intent on preventing fraud with preventing military members from voting?

[Field Marshall]

05:28 PM on 08/03/2012

Thomas Mangano: "It really is a stupid arguement that the president is making. What good comes of raising taxes in an economy that already sucks? I mean he's GOT to be smarter than that. There's no question he's playing to his base...which for whatever reason gets joy out of successful people's taxes going even further lopsided burden they already shoulder.
If Obama were really concerned with the state of the nation, he would be doing serious things to address the deficit. Not just this speicious tax arguement. You have to hand it to him though, it looks as if he's cobbling together just enough jealous and spiteful people out there to drag his incometent derierre over the finish line "

Beautifully said.

[funkeepickle]

06:30 PM on 08/03/2012

I love how conservatives whine like the world's going to end if we change the tax code so that people bringing in 8-figures would pay more than 13.9%.

[axt113]

11:58 PM on 08/03/2012

Higher taxes means more revenue available for Infrastructure (real job creation)

[StatsNo1fan]

05:16 PM on 08/03/2012

B0B0 is starting to lose another of his core constituencies - the_pornographers..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/03/jenna-jameson-mitt-romney-endorsement_n_1737769.html

[Xenobion]

06:30 PM on 08/03/2012

I'm not surprised. They both know how to fire people that have provided bad service to them.

[funkeepickle]

06:51 PM on 08/03/2012

Republicans only care about the wealthy? Thank you for that piece of common sense, Jenna.

[Xenobion]

04:33 PM on 08/03/2012

Maybe future President Romney is hoping to pardon his tax evasion once he gets the ability to? All I know is that the only things on TV are Romney's tax problems and the Olympics. #NoNarrativeRomney

[stillow1]

04:41 PM on 08/03/2012

I have an anonymous source that say X blogs from a mental health clinic.......

[Xenobion]

06:13 PM on 08/03/2012

I have a blog?

[StatsNo1fan]

04:18 PM on 08/03/2012

"Let me also say categorically: I have paid taxes every year. A lot of taxes. A lot of taxes," the presumptive GOP presidential nominee told reporters at a press availability after an event in Nevada.

[Xenobion]

04:26 PM on 08/03/2012

Oh how I miss the Straight Talk Express. I think we got the Secret Mormon Bicycle to replace it.

[stillow1]

04:38 PM on 08/03/2012

X - I have a totally anonymous source that assures me you steal candy from babies. Please provide recepts for all candy purchases for the past 10 years. Yes my source is anonymous, but you must trust me that its legitimate.

I have to say, Fridays are always the best around here.

[11thGenerationAmerican]

04:57 PM on 08/03/2012

Romney two days from now: "I never said I paid taxes every year. I never said I paid a lot of taxes. Where are you getting that from? Really, I never said that."

[Field Marshall]

03:15 PM on 08/03/2012

It appears to me reading far-left sites like the DailyKKKos or Huffpo that the US has two root causes to our problems.

1) Americans' taxes are too low.

2) Romney's tax returns

[StatsNo1fan]

03:33 PM on 08/03/2012

Yeah, once the House Baggers stop their selfish obstructionism, and the top bracket goes back to it's fair and rightful 39.6%, the world will be restored to its prior state of harmony again..

...and this would not be happening.

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/obama-job-approval#!

[runrunrun4fun]

03:43 PM on 08/03/2012

Well, that's because you don't read very well. The first is most definitely A problem within the larger scheme of structural change that is necessary in this country.

It appears to me that the GOP love to deal with extremes (i.e. see Stats post above regarding going back to a 39.6% tax rate). It's a great way to set the stage so you really never have to have a conversation.

[Field Marshall]

03:53 PM on 08/03/2012

All will be right with the world with that extra $60B (at most) in tax collections.

[Alan Snipes]

02:49 PM on 08/03/2012

Just like the sun coming up in the east, conservative reaction to this poll is about as predicted. I never said I thought it was accurate, but losers complain that the polls are wrong and winners just march on to victory. It's getting late for Romney to turn this around. The Obama campaign is starting to define him.

[Field Marshall]

02:22 PM on 08/03/2012

How about the Obama economic advisor going on TV and saying that the real unemployment rate is 8.254%? What a dolt.

[Xenobion]

02:31 PM on 08/03/2012

Does rounding get you alll hot and bothered?

[StatsNo1fan]

02:40 PM on 08/03/2012

It got Kreuger hot and bothered, apparently..

[runrunrun4fun]

03:44 PM on 08/03/2012

How about acknowleding what the real unemployment rate would be if the GOP didn't advocate so recklessly about cutting thousands of government jobs.