Friday, October 31, 2008

Big Picture on Last Night's Polls

We were so busy crunching the numbers last night that there wasn't a lot of time to look at the big picture. Here's what I thought was important in those polls:

-Barack Obama is doing better with Republicans than John McCain is doing with Democrats in every state we released last night except West Virginia:

State

Obama Republican %

McCain Democratic %

Colorado

13

10

Michigan

13

8

Minnesota

12

6

New Mexico

17

16

Oregon

11

9


So much for the Democrats' party unity problem. Who would have expected that one three or four months ago? The party is clearly behind its nominee, and McCain's degree of party unity actually even seems to be declining a little bit relative to the summer.

-Utter domination with independents. I'll just let the numbers speak for themseves:

State

Independents

Colorado

Obama 60-36

Michigan

Obama 53-40

Minnesota

Obama 55-37

New Mexico

Obama 66-28

Oregon

Obama 53-41


When you're putting up those kinds of numbers with voters in the middle you're going to win.

-Banking a lead. Early voting is obviously more important in places like Colorado and New Mexico where a significant chunk of votes are cast through that medium but even in states like Michigan where those who have already voted probably just did it through an absentee ballot, Obama is doing much better among votes that are already in the can than McCain is:

State

Already Voted

Colorado

Obama 58-41

Michigan

Obama 60-40

Minnesota

Obama 59-39

New Mexico

Obama 64-36

Oregon

Obama 64-35


We have a pretty tight likely voter screen and I do think that John McCain is going to do a lot better with the votes still to come, but it's always better to have acutal votes than speculative votes.

One last point: I've been pretty skeptical of the Arizona polling all week but Obama's remarkable performance in New Mexico makes me think there might be something to it. If Barack actually goes there before the conclusion of the campaign we *may* try to sneak in one extra poll.

2 comments:

  1. Tom is this a good enough reason to poll AZ? McCain will be campaigning in AZ on Monday! News just broke.

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  2. How do you deal with the early vote data out there already? Do you just perform your normal polling and then check its consistency with the EV numbers or does it affect your analysis? I'm thinking particularly a place like NC where you can get such a wealth of information it could be useful.

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