Why we got the election wrong
Our final daily presidential tracking poll showed Romney at 49% and Obama at 48%. Instead, the president got 50% of the vote and Romney 48%. We were disappointed that our final results were not as close to the final result as they had been in preceding elections. There was a similar pattern in the state polls. For example, in Ohio we projected a tie at 49% but the president reached 50% of the vote and the challenger got just 48%. Although every individual result in the battleground states was within the margin of error, the numbers we projected were consistently a bit more favorable for Romney than the actual results.
A preliminary review indicates that one reason for this is that we underestimated the minority share of the electorate. In 2008, 26% of voters were non-white. We expected that to remain relatively constant. However, in 2012, 28% of voters were non-white. That was exactly the share projected by the Obama campaign. It is not clear at the moment whether minority turnout increased nationally, white turnout decreased, or if it was a combination of both. The increase in minority turnout has a significant impact on the final projections since Romney won nearly 60% of white votes while Obama won an even larger share of the minority vote.
Another factor may be related to the generation gap. It is interesting to note that the share of seniors who showed up to vote was down slightly from 2008 while the number of young voters was up slightly. Pre-election data suggested that voters over 65 were more enthusiastic about voting than they had been four years earlier so the decline bears further examination.
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The legacy media’s war on Conservative voters worked. Many of those who get their news from them stayed home…
d1carter on November 12, 2012 at 12:25 PM
Are you denying the absolutely massive voter and vote fraud that took place in Chicago in the 1960 Presidential election? Hundreds of Democrat operatives were later formally charged with criminal actions, but the vast majority of them were later magically pardoned by Activist Democrat Judges.
As for back-county sheriffs, you conveniently seem to forget that Blue States have them too. In fact, that’s one way Democrat Lyndon Johnson (who was also in bed with the Halliburton subsidiary KBR for decades) helped Steal Texas for JFK in that very same election.
Del Dolemonte on November 12, 2012 at 12:32 PM
Oh and BTW, it is not just the liberal media which is guilty. The main tool they use is the idea of “inevitability”. They drive down the vote of those who oppose them by suggesting it’s clear it is not worth the effort to do anything. This is a common theme even on Conservative/republican web sites. For how long now have “moderates” told everyone how “gay marriage” is inevitable?
Rocks on November 12, 2012 at 12:34 PM
Send it to Drudge, send it to all the conservative media, send it to Karl Rove or Donald Trump {whether you like them or not} – anyone with the resources to investigate and the voice to make it heard.
JA on November 12, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Thank you. I didn’t realize CA wasn’t included. Do you have a link. I think my point is still valid because of those who would have switched their votes from Obama to Romney. And how does an R+3 party identification turn into a D+6 election without Republicans not showing up or the party identification numbers being wrong?
Basilsbest on November 12, 2012 at 12:39 PM
I say what the law is…obviously no voter fraud in Philly…!
d1carter on November 12, 2012 at 12:49 PM
What are these people blind!!!
DanaSmiles on November 12, 2012 at 12:56 PM
If you’re going to commit voter fraud, you don’t do it by deleting every single Romney vote from a precinct. That’s too easy to detect. All it takes is one voter to come out of the woodwork and say “I voted for Romney from that precinct” and you have a big problem.
What should terrify us as Americans is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of precincts in this country where literally 100% of the people vote for Obama. That lock-step commitment to one political party is a threat to the future of the country far more than any ballot-stuffing or voter fraud might be.
Outlander on November 12, 2012 at 1:00 PM
If you read the link, Ras says the R+3 id numbers were wrong. There are no missing white voters, once all the votes are counted. D+6 is right and the moochers have control of the country for now.
sauldalinsky on November 12, 2012 at 1:01 PM
Owebama won 108% of the registered voters in Ohio County!
DanaSmiles on November 12, 2012 at 1:02 PM
One more theing…There are not 10 people that can agree on any given topic much less 108% of them!
DanaSmiles on November 12, 2012 at 1:04 PM
I get a kick out of the ahole Jay Lenno mocking Florida’s voting process when California is so far from done. I guess he doesn’t want to risk the building permit for his new 200-car garage.
slickwillie2001 on November 12, 2012 at 1:06 PM
Rasmussen probably forgot to take into account all those counties with 104% to 140% turnout. Silly them.
Smoothies on November 12, 2012 at 1:12 PM
For someone purporting to be a “math person,” you don’t seem to understand the purpose of an MOE. All of Ras’s numbers were within the MOE. There’s nothing innately wrong with their methodology.
Good Solid B-Plus on November 12, 2012 at 1:12 PM
It’s pretty clear that Hot Air needs to do an election fraud investigation…
JA on November 12, 2012 at 1:13 PM
That article is just dead wrong. Here are the results reported by Wood County (the county in question). Wood County had 108,014 registered voters. Obama won the county with 31,596 votes to Romney’s 28,997 votes. Add that up and you are barely at 60% turnout, not 108%.
It does none of us any good to blame this loss on fantasies about fraud. I hate voter fraud and know it goes on, but not to this degree. We need to understand the root causes of why Romney lost, and the more time we spend spinning yarns about voter fraud, the longer it’s going to take us to figure out what happened and to come up with an action plan to turn the party around.
Outlander on November 12, 2012 at 1:16 PM
The brothers turned out. They were not going to let the first black POTUS get tossed out of office, and their motivation was highly underestimated. That and the 3 million stay at homes = 4 more years. However we can still make 2014 look like 2010. Maybe take back the senate.
Red Creek on November 12, 2012 at 1:17 PM
Yes,there are. Rasmussen wouldn’t even utter something like this:
if he didn’t know already that the vote count was down. And it is down. We are almost a week out from election day. There aren’t millions of votes still outstanding any more.All of these pollsters were expecting the turnout to drop to somewhere between 2004 and 2008. The question was by how much and whom. No one expected votes to drop all the way to 2004 levels which is what seemed happened. The true shocker is that it was Obama which received Bush’s 2004 total and Romney got Kerry’s. Everyone expecting Romney to do better than McCain, at least marginally. He didn’t. But everyone also knows he should have. Why didn’t he?
Rocks on November 12, 2012 at 1:18 PM
They weren’t off by that much…still MOE. Of course, he forgot to account for the pull that free “stuff” has, or the strength of the cult of personality.
changer1701 on November 12, 2012 at 1:19 PM
There is something wrong when all their numbers miss in the same direction.
red_herring on November 12, 2012 at 1:23 PM
Fox just announced a report on people starting to question the election numbers. Not sure what they will say, but if we have to vote again and this time with people in every precinct watching the machines with random checks on how the votes are being registered, I am all for it.
All someone would have to do is simply have the computer that registers the vote not read maybe 2 out of every 5 votes. That is all that would have to be done and no one would notice if they wouldn’t be randomly checked maybe 10 times every day the votes are being counted.
Voter from WA State on November 12, 2012 at 2:34 PM
Well, Fox didn’t really add much. This fraud is just going to be swept under the rug.
The Dems will get away with the fraud that they have committed this election. They probably got away with some fraud in 2008, got away with it and so they doubled down this election. The fraud will grow so much that by the time teens of today reach my age there will be no reason for elections.
Voter from WA State on November 12, 2012 at 2:43 PM
Hannity will be looking into PA and West’s recount problems tonight.
slickwillie2001 on November 12, 2012 at 3:54 PM
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