Now that the General Election season is in full swing, it’s time to look at some polls. There are four new national polls out, from CBS News/NYT, NPR, FOX News, and Rasmussen. Taken at face value, their results are as follows:
CBS News: Obama 46%, Romney 47%
NPR: Obama 47%, Romney 45%
http://www.npr.org/news/polls/npr.pdf
FOX News: Obama 45%, Romney 41%
Rasmussen: Obama 46%, Romney 47%
The polls all show a close race within the margin of error. But there’s an interesting point of methodology here. Here are the political demographic weights of those polls:
CBS News: Democrats 32.14%, Republicans 25.16%, Independents 42.70% (Registered Voters)
NPR: Democrats 36%, Republicans 29%, Independents 31% (Likely Voters)
FOX News: Democrats 42%, Republicans 38%, Independents 18% (Likely Voters)
Rasmussen: Democrats 36%, Republicans 31%, Independents 33% (Likely Voters)
Compare that to voter turnout by party in past presidential elections:
2008: Democrats 39%, Republicans 32%, Independents 29%
2004: Democrats 37%, Republicans 37%, Independents 26%
2000: Democrats 39%, Republicans 35%, Independents 26%
1996: Democrats 40%, Republicans 35%, Independents 22%
If the poll data is backed out and re-weighted by party turnout from past elections, here are the results based on those turnouts:
2008: Obama 47%, Romney 46%
2004: Obama 46%, Romney 50%
2000: Obama 47%, Romney 49%
1996: Obama 46%, Romney 47%
So, if turnout this year is like 1996 or 2008, Obama has a close lead, but Romney may be in better shape than the polls indicate, if turnout is more like that of 2000 or 2004.
