The GOP polling debacle
Across the party’s campaigns, committees and super PACs, internal polling gave an overly optimistic read on the electorate. The Romney campaign entered the last week of the election convinced that Colorado, Florida and Virginia were all but won, that the race in Ohio was neck and neck and that the Republican nominee had a legitimate shot in Pennsylvania.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee consistently had a more upbeat assessment of races in North Dakota and Montana, among others, than their Democratic counterparts. One GOP poll even showed Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock holding even with his opponent, even as public polls showed the embattled Republican hemorrhaging support. A Republican poll taken by Susquehanna Polling and Research showed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith leading Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by 2 points a few weeks before the election; Casey won by 9 points…
“On the Republican side, this was the worst cycle ever for polling and there’s nothing that even comes close to it,” said GOP strategist Curt Anderson, who helms the media and polling firm OnMessage. “It was a colossal disaster and it wasn’t confined to the presidential campaign.”…
By assuming that only the most enthusiastic voters would actually show up, Republicans greatly overestimated their national position. Operatives and activists rejected public polling data that showed substantially more voters identifying themselves as Democrats in states like Ohio and Virginia, giving Republicans an unwarranted sense of confidence that crumbled last Tuesday.
Democratic pollster Jef Pollock said it was incomprehensible to him how strategists on the other side so dramatically missed the mark in so many races — especially, he said, since “many of the polls that were in the public domain were proven to be right.”
Blowback
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Susquehanna hardest hit.
forest on November 11, 2012 at 3:59 PM
Sooo…how come they got it more or less right in 2010? And why, after two more years of suffering under Obama, did the electorate shift sharply Dem?
Does not compute.
S. Weasel on November 11, 2012 at 4:02 PM
I don’t really see what the big deal is. If they believed the polls, what difference would that have made? They still would have claimed they were going to win. That’s sort of how it works.
As for how it happened, that’s no mystery either. All pollsters weigh for demographics (though almost never for party, because that’s part of the response). They assumed that the demographics would not look like 2008 and weighted accordingly.
HitNRun on November 11, 2012 at 4:04 PM
Not listening or watching too any of them anymore….FOX,Shawn,Carl etc. can bite my AZZ
dangitt on November 11, 2012 at 4:05 PM
Well that’s it for me. No need to ever vote again. It’s rigged.
bgibbs1000 on November 11, 2012 at 4:06 PM
With Facebook, young people and single women are now reliable voters.
Rove’s ads don’t reach them. Tivo/fast forward.
Obama was the only one speaking to them.
faraway on November 11, 2012 at 4:06 PM
Denmark smells like one huge rotten fish.
Schadenfreude on November 11, 2012 at 4:07 PM
They considered the alternative.
Stoic Patriot on November 11, 2012 at 4:08 PM
I guess RINOism doesn’t work.
faraway on November 11, 2012 at 4:11 PM
One POS poll out of many.
Typhoon on November 11, 2012 at 4:15 PM
Or the poll that had:
“Mia Love Up 12 In Utah’s 4th”
just days before the election.
And she lost.
albill on November 11, 2012 at 4:32 PM
No it doesn’t.
More of the big lie.
Do something outrageous..the audacity of hope. Be so brazen in the level of deceit, and people will simply not believe it possible, even if it is staring them in the face..
Mimzey on November 11, 2012 at 4:33 PM
First part yes, but the second part if they didn’t know the real numbers it’s a big screwup.
the_nile on November 11, 2012 at 4:40 PM
No they didn’t get it right in 2010. The dirty little secret is folks like Rasmussen were off in 2010, about 3.5% off, but in that case in just impacted the margin of the 2010 GOP win but the warning signs were there.
NextGen on November 11, 2012 at 4:50 PM
I don’t feel sorry for you guys, but it’s not good for the country (or eventually even the Democrats)to have a non-credible opposition.
I hope you read Fantasyland – Denial has poisoned the GOP and threatens the rest of the country too.
And yes, Peggy Noonan was just awesome.
”
inklake on November 11, 2012 at 5:28 PM
I think the GOP polls were mostly right, then Sandy hit which stopped polling then election. Ras/Gallup both did tighten up to 1pt after that
jp on November 11, 2012 at 5:31 PM
The problem is that there was plenty of data to suggest a massive drop in enthusiasm for Obama and the democratic platform. Even the election day numbers back this up. Nationally Obama lost ground in all but a small handful of demographics, and earned far fewer votes over his first election in 2008. Additionally, no pollster I know of predicted a party ID of D+6. Yes, many pollsters claimed they just, “happened,” to dial more democrats than Republicans, but Gallop, Rasmussen, and Pew’s much larger voter ID surveys suggested a tight split between Republicans and Democrats.
The problem, is that Rasmussen, Pew, and Gallop, used traditional models for determining a likely voter. Traditionally, only the most enthused voters get out to vote. Those that aren’t watching the debates, aren’t following the news too closely, haven’t watched the conventions, usually don’t vote and are filtered out of likely voter models.
This year, the electorate didn’t behave this way. Voters that consistently said they were not enthused about voting, showed up anyway. I’m not sure if that is simply the product of the democratic GOTV machine, or if early voting has just made it easy enough to vote to offset lower levels of enthusiasm.
So, no, I think Gallop, Rassmussen, and Pew, would have had fairly accurate models for voterID, in an off year election. I’m not sure if elections have just, changed forever, or if its this year was just a product of it being Barack Obama in the white house, but either way it just wasn’t a typical year.
Also.
I still think Sandy may have juiced turnout for Democrats slightly. If thats so, then the noise generated by the hurricane would have made this difficult to detect.
WolvenOne on November 11, 2012 at 5:31 PM
And PPP winds up as the more accurate pollster of the election?
I dunno, this whole election seemed very strange to me.
You can believe that the Democrats were right in their turnout projections.
And you can also believe that enough Republican votes were destroyed to make it come out that way.
TarheelBen on November 11, 2012 at 5:32 PM
Allen West is out there trying to fight voter fraud in his election. Does anyone think it is only his district?
I’m done with the GOP. They will never see my support again for how they’ve abandoned their voters and West.
kim roy on November 11, 2012 at 5:51 PM
It was the GOTV imbalance. Romney could have won with 333,000 more votes.
Red Creek on November 11, 2012 at 5:59 PM
Money is being filtered towards West to pay for the legal battle. He’s not being left out to dry.
WolvenOne on November 11, 2012 at 6:09 PM
From who?
kim roy on November 11, 2012 at 6:30 PM
You know something, you were right.
inklake on November 11, 2012 at 6:46 PM