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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they got it wrong because they forgot to account for voter fraud.
reliapundit on November 12, 2012 at 11:22 AM
We didn’t cheat.
ProfShadow on November 12, 2012 at 11:23 AM
Everything I’ve been hearing indicates white working class voters and rural whites stayed home and that was the primary driver of the Republican collapse.
I certainly could see demographics having a long term effect, but I have a difficult time believing the demographics could change that much in two years after the Tea Party wave election.
Doomberg on November 12, 2012 at 11:25 AM
I read a comment from a poll worker who said that senior citizens were told their names were not on the voter list and they had to fill out provisional ballots, which then weren’t counted.
I also read a comment from someone who did exit polling and was instructed not to poll any white seniors.
Makes you wonder…
JA on November 12, 2012 at 11:25 AM
Ah, the memes and the math ignorance.
Fewer whites voted. This makes the percent of minorities higher by definition.
RINOs don’t know how to gin up the base. It’s as simple as that.
faraway on November 12, 2012 at 11:26 AM
Obama won because he is black and “cool”. End of story.
brewcrew67 on November 12, 2012 at 11:26 AM
So, I guess the difference is that Obama’s pollsters DID know what they were doing.
agirlacamera on November 12, 2012 at 11:26 AM
I would say it is voter fraud. Not their model.
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/11/12/wow-romney-got-zero-votes-in-59-philadelphia-voting-divisions/
Voter from WA State on November 12, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Another freaking assessment that ignores voter fraud.
Republican poll watchers get thrown out by Democrats but that’s not in the assessment.
Democrats get caught on video planning mass fraud… but we’re not going to speculate that mass fraud happened.
Democrats brag on facebook about voting 5 and 6 times… but we lost because of the TEA party.
Military ballots get lost or not even handed out and it’s the Democrats who make news accusing the Republicans of suppressing the black vote.
News of fraud everywhere but we’re just going to pretend it doesn’t happen and it doesn’t matter.
Let me tell you, the freaking Democrat party would not be doing this crap if they thought it didn’t matter!
JellyToast on November 12, 2012 at 11:30 AM
I was just getting ready to post the same thing…that map graphic is astounding.
tastes like chicken on November 12, 2012 at 11:30 AM
Obama got 100% of the economically illiterate vote.
BuckeyeSam on November 12, 2012 at 11:31 AM
Denial, denial, denial….
It’s all about the fraud. And yet, not a single shred of evidence.
The truth? You can’t handle the truth.
urban elitist on November 12, 2012 at 11:35 AM
Who makes the software for these electronic voting machines? Who writes the codes? How easily can they be manipulated? Who and how are the votes counted? Who builds the machines? Who controls the machines? What are the qualifications to watch over the machines? Are there always independent observers from the freaking time the code is written and the software is installed to the time the votes are counted?
We don’t know any of this! Who does?
Oh stupid black helicopter questions. Just shut up, fall in line because ObamaCare is the law of the land.
JellyToast on November 12, 2012 at 11:36 AM
People who cry “FRAUD!” are losers grasping at straws. The fact is Rasmussen didn’t do a very good job and Nate Silver did. Get over it.
RayinVA on November 12, 2012 at 11:37 AM
Why isn’t it evdence of Democrat fraud? Are Democrats so fair and honest that it’s impossible that they massively rigged the ballot boxes?
We really should have looked at everything before accepting this doom.
Buddahpundit on November 12, 2012 at 11:37 AM
the most famous maker of voting machines is Diebold, owned by a major Republican contributor.
urban elitist on November 12, 2012 at 11:38 AM
TROLLCOT!!!
dogsoldier on November 12, 2012 at 11:38 AM
Your candidate scraped by by herding non-voters to the polls at best (ample evidence of that) or fraud at worst (some evidence). The population isn’t really behind him or the Democrats — is that the truth you can’t handle?
Count to 10 on November 12, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Well assuming we’re not looking at voter fraud on a massive scale(which theoretically should be very difficult to hide completely), this means seniors stayed home more than usual which to me is inexcusable. Their Medicare benefits are about to be gutted to fund Obamacare. Social Security is being robbed to fund the payroll tax holiday. And inflation is eating away at their fixed incomes. How in God’s name do you not show up and vote?
Doughboy on November 12, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Why can’t both be true?: Fraud (which IMO, did not make much difference in the end) and Rasmussen was wrong.
Mitsouko on November 12, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Obama won more than 99% of the vote in more than 100 Ohio precincts, but the media’s going to keep on telling us Romney lost because of his crappy ground game…yep, no sign of cheating here!
http://marketdailynews.com/2012/11/12/election-fraud-barack-obama-won-more-than-99-percent-of-the-vote-in-more-than-100-ohio-precincts/
JA on November 12, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Exactly, I hear people( on our side) say voter fraud would not sway an election, they would need too many votes and it would be too hard to pull off…so my question is…if that is true…why in the WORLD would anyone ever even bother committing voter fraud to begin with if it doesn’t mean a thing to an election!! Makes no sense what so ever, risk all that jail time just for kicks?
Its like saying Propaganda doesn’t work….yet politicians and corporations have been using it for decades and have spent billions doing it….but it doesn’t work right?
I have no hope anymore for this country, its doomed, but I do want the people that played a role in corrupting the system to pay for what they have done…
Alinsky on November 12, 2012 at 11:43 AM
Talk is cheap. Proof, please. And not the paranoid ramblings of some right-wing blog poster. Pictures, police actions, actual news stories with names, dates, times, locations…
urban elitist on November 12, 2012 at 11:49 AM
If those numbers are what was really reported, then how did the Dems manage to pull off voter fraud on that massive of a scale? Reprogram the machines to turn Romney votes into Obama votes? You’d think that could be exposed fairly easily. How hard would it be to find just a couple voters in each of those precincts who distinctly remember pulling the lever for Romney?
I’m not saying I don’t think there was voter fraud, but if we’re to believe that the Dems engaged in cheating to this degree and it ever came to light(with an alternative media, it’s easily possible), we’d have a Constitutional crisis on our hands. I’m praying for the survival of this nation that Obama actually did win reelection (mostly)fair in square. We can take another crack and educating the electorate in 2016. We cannot overcome systemic voter fraud that steals Presidential elections.
Doughboy on November 12, 2012 at 11:50 AM
I know it pains you folks to admit that this Kunta Kinte bozo was right, but he was.
RayinVA on November 12, 2012 at 11:51 AM
Turns out the trolls were right about the election. Rather than stick our heads in the sand, it might be more useful to at least listen to and evaluate what they have to say.
DarkCurrent on November 12, 2012 at 11:53 AM
Silver doesn’t do anything but average polls.
Fact is, when you have an election decided by 2% being polled with a margin of error of 3%, it was still within the margin of error. If the difference was actual turnout and not preference, then no polling is going to catch that and it is just a matter of luck if they do.
I am going to guess the turnout was more about the complete breakdown of the GOP GOTV effort on election day. We are only talking a percent or two that would have made the difference in several states.
crosspatch on November 12, 2012 at 11:54 AM
That’s not voter fraud. That’s just a reality that in Ohio, most minorities live in their own neighborhoods. A precinct in Ohio covers roughly a neighborhood-sized chunk of land. There are dozens of neighborhoods throughout Ohio that are uniformly poor and 95-100% black. Those precincts are the ones where you’ll see 400 votes for Obama and 4 for Romney.
There’s no doubt Obama might have managed to get 25,000 dead people, illegal aliens, convicted felons, and identity thieves to the polls. But he won Ohio by 100,000 votes. We lost, fair and square.
Outlander on November 12, 2012 at 11:55 AM
there was no fraud, you are saying ?
runner on November 12, 2012 at 11:55 AM
Here’s an excerpt from the article I linked to:
JA on November 12, 2012 at 11:56 AM
In Ohio, all ballots are Scantron sheets (bubble sheets). Ballots are fed into a scanning machine at the polling place and then locked into a box. The scanning machine’s tabulation is recorded on a memory card which is placed into a sealed envelope and attached to the ballot box. Election night returns are reported using the results on the memory cards. The “official” results include random sampling and testing of ballot boxes, where people will count, by hand, the paper ballots and compare them to the machine-tabulated results. All of this is done under the watchful eye of both Republicans and Democrats. It’s a fairly secure process. Obama didn’t steal 100,000 votes in Ohio.
Outlander on November 12, 2012 at 11:59 AM
That’s statistical proof of voter fraud. You can’t tell me that little Bammie gets 100% of the vote in those districts, that there’s not ONE Herman Cane or Condie Rice-type Republican there, not ONE. That’s just not believable. You can prove fraud if you pile up enough statistical evidence like this.
slickwillie2001 on November 12, 2012 at 11:59 AM
Maybe to you it isn’t. But to everyone else it is. White, middle class voters 30-44 were way down. Who are these people? The Evangelicals? Tea Partiers? Probably some. But these voters are mostly what we would call Reagan Democrats. Not actual Democrats that voted for Reagan, those people are solidly Republican seniors now.
No,Reagan Democrats are believers. People who believe America is great but just not working as it could or should. They voted for Obama in 2008 on faith. They lost faith in him and could not bring themselves to vote for him again. The problem this time was that the Republicans ran Dole/Kemp 2.0. The were very positive about America but gave no positive plan on how we do that.The main reason for that is that for them America is working just fine. They are either rich or in well with those that are rich. If they lose they risk nothing. The Republican party needs a working class hero and they need to get behind him solidly, and fast. No,Paul Ryan doesn’t qualify.He’s working class but a wonk, not a hero.
Romney/Ryan was a fine ticket, but there was no reason to BELIEVE in them.
The Republican party needs to stop running candidates who are the rich,or soon to be rich, children of the rich. Often children of rich politicians. And no, I am not calling for populism and class warfare. It’s not just about what they are saying, but who’s saying it.
Rocks on November 12, 2012 at 12:02 PM
They forgot to account for districts with more votes than registered voters.
The Rogue Tomato on November 12, 2012 at 12:02 PM
That is exactly what ue is saying. There are perfectly logical, acceptable reasons why Republican poll workers were physically removed from Philly precincts on election day that have nothing to do with voter fraud. The judge who ordered that they be allowed back in is clearly racist.
IamDA on November 12, 2012 at 12:08 PM
Before we go all cuckoo, what was the pct in 2008?
faraway on November 12, 2012 at 12:08 PM
Typical lazy liberal. Google it yourself. Then prove it didn’t happen.
Mitsouko on November 12, 2012 at 12:09 PM
This ^.
Sorry, guys. While voter fraud is a problem in my neck of the woods (where it’s almost exclusively a Dem-on-Dem crime), I don’t want to turn into the post-2000 Florida or post-2004 Ohio whiners on the Left without some rock solid proof.
People on this site have extensively documented the problems in the Romney campaign. Maybe we just got beat this time. With better organization and campaign tactics, we really could have won this thing.
JimLennon on November 12, 2012 at 12:10 PM
I would never say there is no fraud (broadly defined)whatsoever. Somewhere a felon voted, or someone went back to their old precinct to vote even though they’ve moved or they voted under their sister’s name.Nor would I suggest that if fraud occurs, it occurs on in Democratic precincts. For all the credit urban machines get, your average back-country red state sheriff usually has a pretty feel for making the results turn out right, for him, as well.
I am saying that there is there is no systematic attempt to “steal” the election and that whatever trivial amounts of “fraud” may turn up, it had no measurable bearing on the outcome.
urban elitist on November 12, 2012 at 12:11 PM
Good grief. Mitt lost because at least 3 million people who voted for McCain didn’t vote for Mitt. I say at least 3 million because some of the 9 million who didn’t vote for Obama this time would have switched their votes to Mitt.
Basilsbest on November 12, 2012 at 12:11 PM
This is undoubtedly true. And fraud happened as well.
IamDA on November 12, 2012 at 12:12 PM
Who would have ever guessed that a moderate couldn’t get out his base?
faraway on November 12, 2012 at 12:14 PM
because Rasmussen are incompetent LOSERS.
nathor on November 12, 2012 at 12:14 PM
As far as voter fraud you would have to be blind to think it is not happening, especially in inner cities.You will never solve it as those doing it are far more dedicated to it than those attempting to stop it. Voter fraud itself is ineffective if you don’t know one key thing, how many votes you will need to win. You can’t go crazy and make up 10s of thousands of fake votes in every precinct to insure a win as the fraud will become obvious quickly. It has to be a sufficiently close election to start with for fraud to work.
The best way to prevent voter fraud is to prevent those that would commit fraud from knowing how many votes to make up. The best way to do this is to not allow any count to proceed until all voting has stopped, everywhere in a state. Once that is done no precinct will be reported until a each and EVERY precinct has a final count. It is insane that mostly Republican areas basically announce what is needed to overcome them prior to many Democratic areas finishing their count or in some cases while still voting.
Rocks on November 12, 2012 at 12:15 PM
He got out his base better than conservatives like Allen, Flake, Fisher, and he tied Cruz in Texas.
Jon0815 on November 12, 2012 at 12:18 PM
Actually he’s currently down 1 million vs. McCain, and there are still 3 million votes uncounted in CA.
Jon0815 on November 12, 2012 at 12:20 PM
hmmm..
Dems 2 (2008/12)
Tea Party 1 (2010) (and control of the House through 2 elections)
RINOs 0-3
Not a good record for the squish team.
faraway on November 12, 2012 at 12:21 PM
We beat ourselves. Mitt was the best candidate available. He won Independents, but was done in by purists and bigots. To get the votes of the purists he would have had to do things which would have cost him the support of Independents. People on this site support a naif who thinks you can organize a presidential campaign in 2 months.
Basilsbest on November 12, 2012 at 12:22 PM
This I do not buy at all. All the exit polling data that I have found shows the biggest drop, 2%, in the 30-44 age group. A quarter of these were youths just 4 years ago. 18-29 went up a percentage point from 4 years ago, as did 45-59. Seniors remained the same percentage.
Rocks on November 12, 2012 at 12:23 PM
Anyone who thinks this election was ‘fair’ need look no farther than the PA Sec of State website and see that In Wrd 4 (for example) Obama got 99.32% of the vote and 4 people were running. On all of the swing states there are reports on their Sec of State websites of 140%- 150% of voter turnout and Owebama getting 50000 votes where there are just 900 registered voters! Documented and online for anyone to see. My biggest question is, why isn’t Romney all over this??? I can’t do anything about it but email and call my congressmen….they are not in today, but I’ve emailed them with links to all these various websites.
DanaSmiles on November 12, 2012 at 12:24 PM
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