Obama’s lapdog media is going “balls to the wall” to convince voters that Obama is currently trouncing challenger Mitt Romney. The problem is to get their polling data to support their preferred narrative they have to assume that Democratic voters are even more enamored with Obama than they were in 2008. Of course they won’t tell you that because no rational person would believe that Barack Obama is riding a wave of support greater than is historic 2008 support.
Others are covering how pollsters are reaching wildly different conclusions by over sampling expected turnout of various groups – see the links at the bottom of this post for more on that.
At the most basic level though it’s a numbers game – carry your base and win independents/undecideds. Obama has lost significant subsets of support in independents/undecideds and quantitative and anecdotal observations show that there is clearly not the same level of voter optimism in the man or his message among the Democratic base. This shows up in party affiliation polling.
Examine the Rasmussen survey of party affiliation. I’ve tightened it down to the election periods since 2004. Think of is as a substitute for a generic ballot poll.
Summary of Party Affiliation
|
August 31, 2012 |
|||||
|
Republican |
Democrat |
Other |
R – D |
Quarterly |
|
|
2012 |
|||||
|
Aug |
37.6% |
33.3% |
29.2% |
4.3% |
|
|
Jul |
34.9% |
34.0% |
31.1% |
0.9% |
|
|
Jun |
35.4% |
34.0% |
30.5% |
1.4% |
1.8% |
|
May |
35.7% |
33.8% |
30.5% |
1.9% |
|
|
Apr |
35.1% |
33.1% |
31.8% |
2.0% |
|
|
Mar |
36.4% |
33.4% |
30.2% |
3.0% |
3.3% |
|
Feb |
36.0% |
32.4% |
31.6% |
3.6% |
|
|
Jan |
35.9% |
32.5% |
31.6% |
3.4% |
|
|
2010 |
|||||
|
Dec |
37.0% |
33.7% |
29.3% |
3.3% |
0.6% |
|
Nov |
36.0% |
34.7% |
29.3% |
1.3% |
|
|
Oct |
33.4% |
36.3% |
30.3% |
-2.9% |
|
|
2008 |
|||||
|
Dec |
32.8% |
41.6% |
25.6% |
-8.8% |
-7.8% |
|
Nov |
33.8% |
41.4% |
24.7% |
-7.6% |
|
|
Oct |
33.3% |
40.3% |
26.4% |
-7.1% |
|
|
2006 |
|||||
|
Dec |
31.1% |
38.0% |
30.8% |
-6.9% |
-6.4% |
|
Nov |
31.4% |
37.5% |
31.2% |
-6.1% |
|
|
Oct |
31.5% |
37.7% |
30.7% |
-6.2% |
|
|
2004 |
|||||
|
Dec |
37.1% |
38.8% |
24.1% |
-1.7% |
-1.6% |
|
Nov |
37.1% |
38.6% |
24.3% |
-1.6% |
|
|
Oct |
37.2% |
38.7% |
24.1% |
-1.5% |
|
What you should note is how accurately it predicts what actually happened in the elections in those years.
In 2004 George Bush narrowly defeated John Kerry; in 2006 Democrats retook control of the House and Senate; in 2008 Obama trounced John McCain; and in 2010 Republicans retook the House and made a serious dent in the Senate.
In 2012 Republican affiliation is at record highs, and Mitt Romney is winning Independents usually on the order of 60/40 over Obama. With each candidate taking 90% or more of their parties identified voters, the numbers don’t add up to a big Obama lead, they just don’t.
