October 5, 2012

Obama 49%, Romney 47%, same as yesterday.

On the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
These results are based upon nightly interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, only about one-third of the interviews for today’s update were conducted after the presidential debate. The single night of polling conducted after the debate did show some improvement for Romney, but it remains to be seen whether that will continue or if it was merely statistical noise. Sunday morning’s update will be the first national polling based entirely upon post-debate interviews.
Some improvement... but not enough to round up to a difference in the reported percentages.

74 comments:

Laurie said...

When I read poll results, I'm always curious about how many people are like me and say "No, thank you" and hang up?

Colonel Angus said...

I've never gotten a call from a polling agency.

TosaGuy said...

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

London Girl said...

@Laurie

91%
See http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/09/30/we-are-the-91-only-9-of-americans-cooperate-with-pollsters/

Matt Sablan said...

"When I read poll results, I'm always curious about how many people are like me and say "No, thank you" and hang up?"

Pew did a study a few weeks back. Polls get about a 9% response rate.

Matt said...

I hate polls so, when I get the calls, I lie. I just LOVE the Green Party as far as the pollsters know. I am also a gay, black, disabled woman as far as the pollsters know.

As I am a stay at home dad, I tend to get a hand full of calls from pollsters around election time so I do my small part to mess up their results.

Dante said...

Rasmussen is pretty good at polling. He thinks Romney is behind, but can still pull off a win.

Brian Brown said...

Romney takes the lead in VA and is down 1 in OH.

Matt Sablan said...

The 7.8% unemployment rate update (for all the cooking and shaking it took to get that number) is going to throw a bunch of cold water over the debate results too, so I expect the next few daily tracking polls to not show a lot of movement.

pfennig said...

I don't know how any polling data is valid anymore given the fact that so many people have given up landlines in favor of cell phones.

Colonel Angus said...

I'm becoming somewhat indifferent with respect to the prospect of another Obama term anyway. If the majority of the electorate thinks the country is better off continuing on its present path then what to do but roll with it.

I've accumulated enough diversified wealth that in five or ten years I can uproot and find someplace more amenable to reside once things go to pot here and the government looks to even greater portion of my earnings to pay for its financial negligence. It's painful to say because I love my country but it appears a large segment of it wants a leader who is hell bent on tearing it down.

Matt Sablan said...

PFennig: They control for that by also trying to call cellphones.

john said...

Until about last month or so, I would hang up on pollsters. Now I stick with them and complete the poll. I'm not exactly sure why I changed, but it now seems more important to let them know my opinion.

I don't think people should fear push polls.

GMOW said...

When I read poll results, I'm always curious about how many people are like me and say "No, thank you" and hang up?

Plus, the large number of us who have discontinued using wired telephones in our homes and have gone strictly cellular. How do the pollsters reach us?

They don't.

Brian Brown said...

Romney has 54% favorability ratings in Ohio & Virginia.

garage mahal said...

The 7.8% unemployment rate update (for all the cooking and shaking it took to get that number)

UnskewedBLS.com

garage mahal said...

Romney has 54% favorability ratings in Ohio & Virginia.

Wha? Skewed or unskewed?

Tim said...

I had been hopeful for Romney and America, but my original assessment stands: Obama likely wins because stupid voters are impervious to new information.

Romney can continue to destroy Obama, expose him for the empty suit he is, and it will remain a tight race.

The American electorate now has more in common with the O.J. Simpson jury than it does with past iterations of itself.

Driven by emotion, willfully ignorant of the evidence, suaded by fantasies rather than reality, it would rather double down on failure than make the necessary change.

Romney can still win, obviously, but he'll have to outwork Obama, to prove to the idiots their failed president needs to go, no matter their emotional attachment to him.

That's going to be hard.

Matt Sablan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fprawl said...

ColAngus, i was robopolled by Rasmussen, "Do I watch Major League Baseball?". Like Virginia with Santa Claus, I now Believe that polling exists.

Of course , "If you see it in the Sun, it must be so" is now just a quaint little anachronism. The fact that Romney did well in the debate will be quickly doused by the MSM with job numbers, and when foreign policy comes to town, Romney's response will be touted as worse than Obama's.

I blame Romney for this, because a republican has to be like Chris Christie to the press to break through. Pres. Obama can just look presidential and get by. He has before and he will again.

Last night on PBS, they quoted Romney as saying he would not accept a tax reform bill that gave the rich a break and raised taxes on the middle class, and the reporters still questioned how he can achieve that. A Veto pen comes to mind, but that is not in the MSM playbook to give him any credit.

If Romney wins, Obamacare is in jeopardy, and the MSM will not let that prize be taken away.

Matt Sablan said...

Garage: The pure unemployment rate is a terrible indicator of anything. It doesn't include people have given up looking for work, it counts the underemployed as employed, etc. It has always been a pretty terrible measure of employment. Really, when people losing hope makes the unemployment situation look BETTER, that's a bad thing.

You would know this if you remembered back to about 2005, when this was Common Wisdom, and Bush's "real unemployment" was nefariously high.

campy said...

Are you people beginning to realize that Mittens is doomed?

madAsHell said...

Soooo....Am I to believe that Romney didn't bounce after the debate??

Thinking ahead, can Obama ever "win" a debate? In his last performance, there was a sense of contempt, and the MSM-will-clean-this-up-for-me.

Of course, soon they will un-leash the Biden. I'm pretty sure that he's dumber than an empty chair.

Pettifogger said...

Colonel Angus said: "If the majority of the electorate thinks the country is better off continuing on its present path then what to do but roll with it."

The American people cannot say they do not know what will happen in a second term. Obama has revealed himself as being without commitment to our republican form of government. He will tolerate no impediments to his left-wing agenda. If the American are ready to surrender what we have inherited, then the rest of us are screwed.

"I've accumulated enough diversified wealth that in five or ten years I can uproot and find someplace more amenable to reside once things go to pot here"

You think they'll let you leave with your wealth. Recall the scene in "The Lost City" when the authorities take from Andy Garcia even his father's pocket watch as he escapes Cuba. We're already have the beginnings Third-World currency controls.

Matt Sablan said...

"Soooo....Am I to believe that Romney didn't bounce after the debate??"

-- It only includes one day of polling, so we won't see a bounce until another day or so (it is being held even by the two days of pre-debate polling.) We can't say there was or was not a bounce until later. Well, we could have said there WAS a bounce if Romney's numbers skyrocketed, but that did not happen. So, it may just be taking awhile for people to process/sampling, etc.

garage mahal said...

Nothing is real. Economic data, climate data, voter registrations, Obama birth certificate, job surveys, polling data.

shiloh said...

Althouse continuing Rasmussen fetish aside ...

Gallup Obama Job Approval ~ 10/1 - 10/3 ~ 1500 A ~ ((( 54/42 +12 )))

Unemployment fell to ((( 7.8% ))) today.

>

“It is part of a frantic effort by the Romney campaign to catch President Barack Obama on the ground in Ohio, perhaps the most critical of states and a place where retail politicking still works. While Romney has 36 campaign offices in Ohio, Obama has 96. Romney and the state GOP have an estimated 130 staffers. Obama has what his state communications director said were “hundreds of staff and thousands of volunteers.” Romney started his general election campaigning in May and opened his first Ohio office in early June (he closed the Dublin Street headquarters after he won the primary). Obama for America has been in the state, basically, for five years.”

Mitt Romney Ohio Ground Game: A Frantic Race To Catch Obama

Eagerly awaiting Althouse #1 trained doting seal's robotic/inane reply.

Death, taxes, Althouse #1 trained seal!

blessings

Bryan C said...

"PFennig: They control for that by also trying to call cellphones."

And "trying" is the operative word. I don't give out my cell number, and numbers that aren't in my contacts are almost never answered. And if I do happen to pick up, I'm not participating in an extended conversation. Which is one of many reasons why poll results mostly just bubble around in the background noise.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt Sablan said...

Garage: Not quite. The point is that there is nuance. For example, the unemployment data went down because previously retired people/people who didn't need work (stay at homers, etc.) were economically pressured into taking part time/poor paying jobs. So, that effectively raised the amount of people working without actually lowering the number of people out of work. So, it is a -good- number, but it isn't a magical necklace of proof against Romney.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

That 7.8% number is bull.
The 8.1% is bull.
Real unemployment is 12-15%.
In some areas it's as high as 20%.

fingers.

Matt Sablan said...

Bryan: In the CNN flash poll, they had 362 landline interviews and 68 cell phone interviews. Not great, but getting better. But, yes. The data is always a little circumspect (hence the MOE).

Old RPM Daddy said...

I never answer the landline in our house unless I know who the caller is. My wife will answer from time to time. If it turns out to be a pollster, she suddenly claims not to speak English.

I suggested she try something like what I saw in a "Calvin and Hobbes" comic: When a pollster calls, answer by ordering a pizza.

Hari said...

"Some improvement... but not enough to round up to a difference in the reported percentages."

Though I don't know the numbers, if the prior three-days had been exactly:

Obama 49, Romney 47
Obama 49, Romney 47
Obama 49, Romney 47

And if overnight, the polls shifted to exactly Obama 48, Romney 48,

The three day average would be Obama 48.67, Romney 47.33, which after rounding would indicate no change. However, were these hypothetical numbers to hold, by the second day, the results would be rounded to a tie.

It sum, it's hard to tell after one day.

roesch/voltaire said...

Now that Romney claims what he said about the 47% was completely wrong, I think the general public realizes that he will say anything to get elected, a man with little core, and the number of folks who will support him, for various reasons, will stay about the same. It will be a close election, but Obama will probably hold a slim lead.

Joe Schmoe said...

Matthew Sablan, the unemployment number published by media also does not include people who are unemployed and have run out of unemployment benefits. That seems to be a contributor to this month's drop.

Here's another petard for Obama set by his own cheerleaders, although they'll have selective amnesia if questioned about it now, and no media source allowed close to Obama would bring it up. The first line of the linked article is very telling.

Matt Sablan said...

I think it is interesting that if a politician admits they misspoke, we should assume that means he has no core and is a terrible human being. You know, for having the humility for accepting he made a mistake. Why is that never the lesson we take away when Obama admits to mistakes?

Sloanasaurus said...

Romney should pick up some "undecideds" from the debate. It is doubtful that he pick up those committed already to Obama. It is doubtful that those who are not already committed to Obama will vote for Obama if Romney establishes himself as a legitimate alternative, he will get the undecideds.

In 2004, Kerry was never able to convince undecideds that Kerry was a legitimate alternatve when it came to managing the Iraq and WOT. That is why Kerry lost.

shiloh said...

Again, Bush43 was re-elected fairly easily by (3) million votes w/48% Gallup job approval on Oct. 31, 2004.

Indeed, the power of incumbency and turdblossom's GOTV, even though Kerry won all three debates.

Interesting rhetorical question: Who's a bigger train wreck? Willard or Kerry ...

As always, presidential politics is not that complicated.

blessings

garage mahal said...

When a pollster calls, answer by ordering a pizza.

Or, order a pizza, when the delivery guy shows up and says "pizza delivery for Frank". Answer "Frank? Frank DIED 10 years ago ordering a pizza!"

Brian Brown said...

Unemployment fell to ((( 7.8% ))) today.

Hysterical.

Um, I think you should go about pretending that is some sort of good news.

Really.

kimsch said...

Matthew and April,

We can't believe any numbers coming out of the government. Especially numbers from the famously "non-partisan" Congressional Budget Office. They are told to score bills based on specific criteria given to them by Congress and they can't consider any other criteria that actually might affect the score.

There's always some agenda with numbers from the government. Some attempt at control of the populace. So I don't trust any numbers given by them.

Bryan C said...

garage, reliable statistics are independently verifiable, transparently generated, and honestly reported. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by pretending that you actually believe those unemployment numbers meet those criteria. (They suddenly discovered three months' worth of positive revisions? Really?)

The number exists to generate helpful headlines and will be "unexpectedly" revised downward later.

Joe Schmoe said...

If it's accurate that over 200,000 people enter the job market each month, then 114,000 jobs barely covers half of one month's worth of new job seekers.

The NYT agrees with me, saying April's 115,000 new jobs was disappointing.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Matthew Sablan said...

The data is always a little circumspect (hence the MOE).

Actually, that's not correct. The Margin of Error only takes into account the size of the sample compared to the size of the total population. However, it assumes that the method of choosing that sample does not introduce any systematic bias.

If the method of choosing the sample does introduce a systematic bias ( and it always does ) then that error is in addition to the MOE.

Bryan C said...

"Frank? Frank DIED 10 years ago ordering a pizza!"

I've definitely got to do this. Right after I sneak out and hang a bloody hook from the delivery guy's car door.

shiloh said...

Obama raised a record 150 million $$$ in Sept.

hmm, Obama's plethora of small donors as opposed to Willard's billionaire well which has run dry! In any event, political ads on tv reached diminishing returns a couple mos. ago.

Obama's troops used $$$ early in the campaign to totally define who charlatan Willard is/was.

blessings

Matt Sablan said...

Oh, that's true (and more exact) about the MOE.

Matt Sablan said...

Shiloh: You do know Obama has always raised more money from large donors than small, right? That's one of the most misunderstood "facts" of 2008, and is routinely cited as such.

shiloh said...

So recapping Matt S, Obama continues to be liked by both small and large donors ...

That's the ticket!

hmm, MS deleted his post.

Practice, practice, practice.

Matt Sablan said...

The post I deleted I reposted with a grammar tweak (I was unclear and clarified.)

shiloh said...

MS, blogging can be quite educational ... or not! :)

garage mahal said...

garage, reliable statistics are independently verifiable, transparently generated, and honestly reported. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by pretending that you actually believe those unemployment numbers meet those criteria.

But those numbers were gold, up until today, right? So the conspiracy now is that 700,000 people lied on a survey to help Obama?

Ya'll have lost your damn minds.

john said...

I have found that it's much easier to hang up on a pollster, or just hide from them, and then kvetch about how skewed the poll results are and how unfairly the MSM treats me.

Then by November I am well prepared for the results I have been predicting.

Matt Sablan said...

Garage: No. The rate went down because for every job gained, around three people left the workforce entirely.

bagoh20 said...

It may not change. Statistically, half the nation is above 100 IQ and half below. The only votes up for grabs are the people who don't use their IQ at all, and are waiting to feel their emotions on election day. I suggest last minute ads with lots of puppies and kittens...being eaten or strapped to cars.

bagoh20 said...

You do realize that eventually this method of counting the unemployed will result in full employment, even if every one is home watching Wife Swap.

Tarzan said...

They're going all out now, in every possible direction. This is their last chance to institute the 'dreams of their fathers' for real. Those fathers being Bill Ayers, Howard Zinn and all the other neo-Maoist hipsters.

Stay tuned to see just how much farther the greatest college student prank the world has ever seen will go.

Those Weathermen sure are a hoot! Putting a cop car on the roof or something like that just wasn't big enough for them.

Matt Sablan said...

Remember: The jobs added, per the report, don't even keep up with people simply aging into the workforce. More than 114k, or so, new adults appeared and entered the workforce.

So, how'd we lose so much unemployment?

test said...

shiloh said...
hmm, Obama's plethora of small donors as opposed to Willard's billionaire well which has run dry!


This is why Obama sends out requests for $3 donations, to create a talking point for his rubes. It's quite revealing to watch them try to pass it off as meaningful content. It shows they don't have any actually meaningful content to support their candidate.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Pollsters don't call after 9 p.m. EDT so the polls will not reflect any effects from the debate in a 3-day moving average. You will see movement towards Romney and away from Obama by Monday.

shiloh said...

"It shows they don't have any actually meaningful content to support their candidate." nonsensical deflection notwithstanding ...

It's interesting most cons are only voting for flip/flopping, charlatan RINO Willard 'cause they hate despise Obama.

Hey, it's a reason lol.

Apologies to flip/flopping, charlatan RINO's!

edutcher said...

3 day rolling average. Give it another day.

shiloh said...

Gallup Obama Job Approval ~ 10/1 - 10/3 ~ 1500 A ~ ((( 54/42 +12 )))

Adults. Get real. 3/4 won't show up on election Day.

Unemployment fell to ((( 7.8% ))) today.

Lol, as they say.

Off Breitbart:

Unemployment dropped to 7.8 percent in September and 114,000 jobs were created, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

Much of the drop in the jobless rate was accounted for by revisions to past job numbers, not by new jobs created in September.

As both CNN and MSNBC reported immediately after this morning's release, these numbers fail to keep up with population growth--so the U.S. economy continues to tread water.

Job numbers were revised upward by 86,000 for July and August, providing the main impetus for lowering the overall unemployment rate.


Shell game. Let's see what workforce participation was.

Again, Bush43 was re-elected fairly easily by (3) million votes w/48% Gallup job approval on Oct. 31, 2004.

Adults again? And it wasn't that easy. Unemployment remained stubbornly high through July.

Indeed, the power of incumbency and turdblossom's GOTV, even though Kerry won all three debates.

Try again. Lurch got killed in the last 2.

And the only turd is the one currently in the White House.

While Romney has 36 campaign offices in Ohio, Obama has 96

They're not doing him much good if he has to keep coming back to Akron and Cleveland to shore up his base. We're seeing lots more Romney signs out here than Zero.

And this is Demo country.

Eagerly awaiting Althouse #1 trained doting seal's robotic/inane reply.

BTW, tell us again what a train wreck mittens was in the debate.

You seemed to be in hiding yesterday.

Interesting rhetorical question: Who's a bigger train wreck? Willard or Kerry .

Not interesting, merely pathetic.

Right now, especially from the way the little weasel is trying to misdirect people, I'd say it's little Choomie.

hmm, Obama's plethora of small donors as opposed to Willard's billionaire well which has run dry! In any event, political ads on tv reached diminishing returns a couple mos. ago.

Funny, how they reported the Romster was getting 2 donations a second after the debate.

mittens train wreck Althouse Scotty Ras

lol lol lol

:? "& >.

Much ado about nothing.

PS Wonder how many time shilol's Depends have had to be changed in the last 2 days?

Not Rhetorical.

And even a rhetorical question is ended with a question mark.

shiloh said...

Death, taxes, Althouse #1 trained seal!

edutcher said...

Wow!!!

Come up with that all by yourself?

PS You might want to get a better source than Puffington. Apparently, the Tea Partiers are killing Zero in the early OH voting.

PPS Still waiting to hear what a train wreck mittens was Wednesday night.

Rusty said...

garage mahal said...
Romney has 54% favorability ratings in Ohio & Virginia.

Wha? Skewed or unskewed?



Early voting results by county have Romney ahead in most counties. Ohio doesn't look good for your boss.

test said...

shiloh said...

It's interesting most cons and libertarians are voting for Romney because they understand while he's a moderate Obama's policies will set America on a course of less economic success for the foreseeable future, and that while a 1-3 point difference in growth seems small over a lifetime it generates a difference the magnitude of that between America and the now defunct USSR, and while lefties are happy to condemn our grandchildren to poverty the rest of us consider ourselves stewards of future generations and disrespectfully refuse.

Fixed that for you.

A while back you whined that Meade wouldn't "debate" you. You do know you can't "debate" juvenile insults, right? So you'd first have to make a comment of substance.

Brian Brown said...

1.1 million people have disappeared from the labor force during the past year and shithead is posting U/E rate #'s as if it is good news.

In 2012, employment growth has averaged 146K per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 153K in 2011, and shithead is posting U/E rate #'s as if it is good news.

10.7%: Unemployment rate if labor force participation rate was the same as when Obama took office,and shithead is posting U/E rate #'s as if it is good news.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

But those numbers were gold, up until today, right? So the conspiracy now is that 700,000 people lied on a survey to help Obama?


Yes, moron, that's like totally what is being alleged.

Really, it is.

You are so fucking stupid it is comcial.

mark said...

@garage "Ya'll have lost your damn minds."

No, we can count. You can't. Conservatives have been pointing out that fact for awhile.

If you take Obama's "I've added 4 million jobs (cough cough ... after losing 4.3 million ... cough cough)" at value.

To keep up with population growth we needed AT LEAST 5.5 million jobs created in that time. That is over 1.5 million new people that still need jobs. And it doesn't even consider the 4+ million hole at the start.

And "official" unemployment has hovered at 8%.

Really?

You don't smell the odor coming from the white house on that?

edutcher said...

Since the little weasel is still lurking, a little something to ruin today for him, too.

In OH, R 51, O 48 among those "certain to vote".

Brian Brown said...

if labor force participation had held even since January (when it was 8.3 percent), the jobless rate would be 8.4 percent. If the job participation rate were the same as when Barack Obama took office, the rate would be 10.7 percent. The broader U-6 rate (unemployed plus total employed part time for economic reasons) held steady at 14.7 percent.

McTriumph said...

The stock market ain't buying the drop in unemployment. Traders talk with their money, they call bull shit.

crosspatch said...

Rasmussen is a 3 day average and it has 1 day post debate and 2 days of pre debate data. Obama also gets a weekend bounce for some reason with Rasmussen. So we have to wait until about Wednesday of next week to really see how things are.

Gallup's tracking poll is a 7 day average so we won't see the full impact of the debate until next week, too.