Polling History: A Lesson for 2004(for all you hysterics out there)

[Zynx]

http://gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=1255 Use this link. Here are the graphs if they work:










These are all the elections where an incumbant was being challenged. We are currently in the strongest position since 1976 for any challenger if you line up these graphs with the beginning of April. Swings in the race are to be expected. Bush will have his good weeks and we will have ours. That is the normal cycle of things. With all of that taken into account, we are in VERY good shape.

[redqueen]

1. GD ANDERSON VOTERS!

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Zynx]

3. Yeah. He fucked over Carter pretty good.

His numbers came right out of Carter.

[redqueen]

6. Sorry to hijack the thread but DAMN!

Just IMAGINE how different this country would be if not for the soul-blackening mass of corruption that was the reagan admin.

[ButterflyBlood]

11. Reagan would've won anyway

Carter would've won a few more states without Anderson but Reagan would've won either way.

[Zynx]

12. If Anderson hadn't been sucking from Carter and diverting attention, it

may have been different.

[redqueen]

14. I'm not 100% sure either way

But I know they sure didn't help one bit. And the results are ... well we all know what they are... generations of Americans raised to believe greed & waste are good... I can't put into words how much I detest everything reagan stood for.

[WI_DEM]

33. you're correct

Reagan would have still won even if every Anderson voter had gone for Carter. but the electoral vote would have looked a bit better for the incumbent as Carter would probably have carried:
New York
Massachusetts (lost by only a few thousand votes--Anderson won 400,000)
Maine
Vermont
Delaware
Wisconsin
Tennessee
Arkansas
South Carolina (maybe)
Kentucky (maybe)
Alabama

and he would have carried the states he did win by much larger margins: Minnesota, Maryland, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Georgia, West Virginia and DC.

Carter may have had a much closer popular vote loss and had at least 170 electoral votes instead of 49--not enough to win but it would have been a much closer loss.

[placton]

2. Perhaps you are right

The only good thing that may happen for Bush is "capture" of Bin Laden, between now and the election.
There will still be no jobs, no peace, less freedom, etc.

[Zynx]

7. I would say that if Bin Laden were captured, Bush would get ten points.

However, those would fall away quickly because people would develop a "Whew. That's over. What are you doing for us now?" attitude. They did it to the Democrats in 1946 even though the Democrats won WWII.

[ronnykmarshall]

4. Thanks, Zynx !

If have pass out one more of these




I'm gonna scream.

[Zynx]

9. You're welcome.

Indeed. The people around here panic with the slightest shake.

[wryter2000]

15. I understand the panic

Even though I see your point, I understand the panic. There's so much as stake. I don't think our country can survive another four years of Whistle Ass.

[Nazgul35]

19. if you accept their definition of people raising

concern over the recent poll trends as panic....

people from the other view point could claim those who don't want to discuss this as having their head in the sand (or some other place)....

I am from the school of open discussion, others seem to not want to engage in a civil discussion of the campaign strategy....

Sit at your computer and shut up....everything is under control.....dont feel free to engage in discussion, to do so means you are out of control....

What some fail to understand is that to beat Bush is not going to be easy, and there is not alot of room for error....and looking at polls from elections that bare no resemblance to the current situation doesn't bode well for our ability to see and react to this election's current circumstances....

[Zynx]

21. You seem to be wanting to paint a pessimistic picture.

In order to beat Bush, we must be optimistic about our chances. My presentation of this data simply proves that we are in good shape. It is no call to coast until the election. If we believe that we are in serious trouble like you seem to be trying to say among others, turnout will be depressed and donors will be less inclined to give. We must believe we have a great chance of beating Bush, currently around 50-50 odds which is good in order to actually do so. No party ever won by looking for every bad thing that was going on and bitching about it.

[sangh0]

30. Evidence of people panicking

would include the daily threads which say something like "Kerry MUST do X NOW!!! or else he will lose!"

There are several of these daily.

[HFishbine]

5. The lesson

is that any incumbent polling below 50% is in dire straights.

[redqueen]

8. Cool, they're one of my favorite bands

I thought they broke up though. :shrug:

[Brotherjohn]

10. I agree. Bush being dead even with Kerry now is very bad for him.

[Brotherjohn]

16. Related: Anyone know what happened to Pollkatz?

The Professor Pollkatz site hasn't been updated since 12/29/03. (http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/)

Pollkatz always had the best compilation of poll data out there. The picture below was a daily pick-me-up when I was down. It cuts right through the crap of the temporary "bounces" we're always seeing, and makes Bush's inexorable downward trend plain to see. Even after Iraq, it continued. Recent data have shown it to continue after the capture of Hussein as well (the data stops right after that, with Bush getting a little, short-lived bounce). This week's Gallup Poll doesn't even register as a blip in the big picture.

Whither, Pollkatz? (sigh)

[wryter2000]

13. Exactly

Bush may have inched up a bit in the last few days, but his numbers are nothing for him to be happy about.

[Democat]

17. Whichever candidate is ahead in July will win?

Looking at those graphs makes Kerry's March vacaction seem even more foolish.

Once voters make up their mind, they don't seem to change it much, except in the case of Clinton, who you could argue most people had never heard of before he took the lead.

[Nazgul35]

18. So what's your point?

You show us polling data from different times where the context looks nothing like the electorate today and we are supposed to draw the inference that the same results are to be expected?

1) The electorate is about as evenly divided as it has ever been
2) With a small window of error, there is a third party candidate
3) The incumbent has an almost 10-1 advatage in money...

So you want to provide some data, try examining the underlying reasons that drive the polls....go find an election where:

The incumbent Presidential candidate has a 10-1 money advantage, there is a third party candidate polling at 6% and there are 18 swing states. Oh, yeah, don't forget to add national security concerns as well....

And when you come back I'll explain the importance of small N observations and why your polls mean nothing to the current situation...you are not measuring the question being raised by those concerned by the newest polls and the apparant money affect....

Try and get your science straight before you run off and call people "hysterics" for simply wanting to discuss the current situation as it exists today

That might be a start.......

[Zynx]

20. You are just being a fear-mongerer.

My point is that we are in the strongest position in terms of challenging an incumbant since Carter. Before that, you have to go back much further. The demographics you talk about have virtually nothing to do with this and for us to be panicking about being TIED with the incumbant before the challenger's(our) convention is ridiculous. In modern electoral politics, the convention is all important. You are busy trying to scare people in other threads and trying to pretend that our poll numbers are bad when they are not. The current circumstances that you cite about a third party and the 18 swing states are only small variations on long term trends. Nader is not going to get six percent even if he stays in the race, which is increasingly unlikely and there have ALWAYS been swing states. Back in 1892 they were Indiana, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York among many others. In 1960, they were Missouri, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Texas, Wisconsin, and Ohio among others. They have always been there.

[Nazgul35]

26. this is out of line...

but I wouldn't expect you to know this...based upon your responses...

My original thread, to which you have seem to have gone on a jihad about...is that Kerry needs cash badly and needs to get his policy out, not just the emphasis he has been running to date....the evidence seems to suggest that Bush's money advantage did in fact have an effect....something to be concerned about, considering how much he has...

How you can work that into an attack on Kerry boggles the mind...I did raise a concern about the message in the commercials run so far but did not suggest that they were the cause...

Since I have posted, I have seen that Kerry is in fact running a commercial here in Michigan that addresses some of my concern...

If this in reaction to all the nastiness being flung about today...and tempers are high, target those who are causing your grief...don't take an uzi and spray the whole neighborhood to get the guy you're really mad at...

Just a suggestion...

[Zynx]

27. I will not be insulted like that and I will not be talked down to.

Your thread was not the one that I went on a "jihad" about. It was more a general feeling that I saw with many DUers panicking at the first sight of trouble and saying "OH MY GOD! We need to completely rework our strategy and throw our selves into a frenzy!". That does not help at all and would only cause errosion in Kerry's numbers.

You say "How you can work that into an attack on Kerry boggles the mind...I did raise a concern about the message in the commercials run so far but did not suggest that they were the cause...
" I NEVER said, in the above post that you are responding to, that you are attacking Kerry.
What I am attacking is the fact in your topic post, and yours wasn't the only one, you ignorantly use the exact phrases( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x487111 ):
"Not good news!" and
"If this is not stopped, by the time of the convention, we could be in real trouble...."
also the less panicky phrase "And remember that this was with the 507s spending money, or Bush would be up even higher....Bush has been the recipient of 3 years of propoganda...it is going to take alot of money and time to undercut his support.." and
"This is after Bush has only spent a minor fraction of his money...wait until he unloads with a major broadside against Kerry...
"
You also falsely state that the incumbant has "a 10:1" money edge. That is blatantly false. Kerry has raised easily $30 million since the last report and Bush has spent nearly $40 million. He has at best a 3:1 edge that is rapidly diminishing. Would it hurt to look at the positive side for once?

Those only spread defeatism in our ranks when it is certainly not warranted. I happen to know, as it is common knowledge, that Kerry is raising significant sums of money and we have not even gotten to the convention yet where we will enjoy a significant bounce. In addition, Kerry simply selecting an appropriate VP will make significant increases in his poll numbers, which by historical standards are strong.

[Zynx]

22. Kick for the truth.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

23. note clinton 1992 beat bush WITHOUT perot!

June through sept. by an even wider marginthan win perot got back in arounf oct.) all perot did was tighten up the race between bill and george.

the idea that clinton would never have been president w/o perot taking bush's votes is GOP hogwash designed to delegitimize a democratic win.

[GOPBasher]

25. Excellent point.

It pisses me off that people think this. Perot was socially liberal and fiscally moderate. He even wanted to raise taxes on the rich to balence the budget. He took more votes from Clinton than Bush; without him it would've been a bigger landslide for Clinton, as you stated.

[notbush]

28. I think you're confusing the poll numbers

with the election numbers.
Clinton got 43% of the vote . That would leave Perot/Bush 57%.

[GOPBasher]

29. But more Perot voters would've gone to Clinton.

Perot was socially liberal and fiscally moderate (wanted to raise the top marginal tax rate). So, without Perot, Clinton would've won by more than he did. The polls showed this, but the right wing keeps saying that Clinton only won because of Perot. It's bullshit. So, I'd put it this way: Bush 37%, Clinton/Perot 63%.

[Zynx]

32. I always thought they would split for Bush by 52/48 with Clinton winning

[DemPopulist]

38. No

Not online unless you have a Nexis pass but this is from the Associated Press the day after the ''92 election:

Perot's Voters Would Have Split In a Two-Way Race

Exit polls suggest Ross Perot hurt George Bush and Bill Clinton about equally.

The Voter Research and Surveys poll, a joint project of the four major television networks, found 38 percent of Perot voters would have voted for Clinton and 37 percent would have voted for Bush if Perot had not been on the ballot. Fifteen percent said they would not have voted, and 6 percent listed other candidates.

Those numbers would've produced a 53/47 Clinton win without Perot. But even if the Perot vote split 52/48 for Bush, the election would've still been 52/47 Clinton. Bush would've needed something like 65% of the Perot vote to actually overtake Clinton, and with a 30% approval rating, he was never going to get that.

[Nicholas_J]

24. Kerry is doing remarkably well

Against and incumbent, this early in the campaign, as that little bit of polling history indicates. Kerry was doing remarkably well after all of the attention and surprises of the primary process up to three weeks ago, but after Bush got formally into running, the resluts shaking out to a closer race, or even one in which Kerry ran behind should have been expected, rather than the one that is currently occuring, in which Kerry and Bush are virtually in a dead heat. Notice in the past, polls showed the incumben for the most part being statistically ahead of their opponent clear up until the Democratic Convention, and in some cases even after that until the Republican Convention.

What is clear from this history is that Bush is doing much worse than most incumbents.

Even in Carters case, at this point in the cycle, he was aheard of Reagan by far more than the margin od errors for any polls.

Kerry is doing just fine at this point, being neck and neck with Bush and holding that position very well. In fact, this campaign resembles most closely the Carter loss to Reagan, and the situations are very similar, with Carters Middle Eastern problems being the primary cause of his his incumbency floundering. Last week, Bush was clearly gaining ground on Kerry, but this week that clear lead has fallen well below the statistical MoE for the polls and Kerry is as closer to Bush than he has been in national polls since Janury.

THe state polls show a differnt story entirely with Kerry being even closer, or ahead of Bush in the 17 states that will be heavily contested. Right now Kerry carries the states with the largest number of electoral votes out of those close states, and is taking off well ahead of Bush in a number of other states like COnnecticut and Washington State, where Kerry is way ahead.


Right now, Bush carries 12 states with 129 electoral votes

There are 10 states too close to call with 138 electoral votes and out of these Kerry has been ahead in Florida (27 EV), Minnesota (10 EV), Ohio (20 EV), Michigan(17 EV), Pennsylvania (21 EV), Wisconsin (10 EV).This alone gives Kerry 105 electoral votes out of the 138 available in states too close to call. Kerry is tied with Bush in West Virginia (10 EV), There are no recent polls for New Jersey (15 EV) Bush is ahead in ahead of Kerry in New Hampshire (4 EV)and Bush is ahead in Colorado (9 EV) So right now Kerry is doing better than Bush in the states tooclose to tell

That leaves 106 Electoral votes for Montana (3 EV) Wyoming (3 EV)
North Dakota( 3 EV), South Dakota (3 EV), Nebraska (5 EV), New Mexico (5 EV) , Oklahoma (7 EV) Arkansas (6 EV), Louisiana (9 EV),
Mississippi (6 EV), Georgia (15 EV), South Carolina (8 EV), and Virginia (13 EV) Delaware (3 EV), Vermont (3 EV), Maine (4 EV),Alaska (3 EV) Hawaii (4 EV).

DOnt even want to hazard a guess on these states, Except for New Mexico going for Kerry. I would guess Kerry could get Louisiana, South Dakota, Possibly Georgia (I live on the Georgia border, and while things went awry in 2002, they look to be turning a bit there)
Possibly Arkansas and South Carolina and Hawaii.

Nebraska is hard to tell, particularly with people like Chuck Hagel coming out in defenses of Kerry.

Vermont is problematic. Does Dean bring the state over to the Democratic vote. OR does it move further into republican territory which it has been doing for the last few years. If so Vermont, with the other states listed above gives Kerry more than half of the electoral votes needed in states where no polling has been done yet.

[VOX]

31. Kerry hasn't even taken off the gloves yet; wait until he does!

He's laid up now with shoulder surgery, but when he's back on the trail and in the hunt, watch his numbers rise.

[zorkpolitics]

34. They're all different

Looking over the graphs I conclude all the campaigns were different and they don't predict waht will happen in 2004

[Zynx]

37. Yes they are all different, but they show consistently that March numbers

don't matter and that we are the closest to being able to take on the incumbant since Jimmy Carter and before that there is no good comparison.

[shoopnyc123]

35. Very informative, and thank you...

I admit I do have weird involuntary responses to EACH AND EVERY POLL. It helps when I'm in a group of non-DU types, when I have to articulate my thoughts and positions without the benefit of them knowing everything already. Sometimes too much information can be a bad thing in my case. What are the sayings, "moderation in all things" and "know thyself"? I try to apply that now...

[John_H]

36. Great post. And here's another point.

These popular vote polls have little to do with the margin of electoral victory. '76 was razor close, right? Take a look at the elecotral results.