Category Archives: Public opinion

Of COURSE she has a ‘commanding lead,’ when no one can think of another Democrat

Thought this headline on an email alert from The Washington Post kinda odd:

Hillary Clinton (has a) commanding lead over Democrats for 2016, poll finds

Hillary_Clinton_official_Secretary_of_State_portrait_cropWell, yeah. Duh. I mean, since I can’t think of a single other Democrat being seriously spoken of as a 2016 candidate, one would assume she would have a “commanding lead.”

OK, yeah, Joe Biden. But we already knew she would swamp Joe Biden. I mean, I like Joe, but let’s be serious.

The Post further reports:

The race for the Republican nomination, in contrast, is wide open, with six prospective candidates registering 10 percent to 20 percent support….

What that means is that there is someone who has had a lead (if not a “commanding” one) over on the GOP side, too, but he’s in a lot of trouble.

And so, my little fantasy of having two acceptable people who were shoo-ins for their nominations, possibly avoiding the tears and flapdoodle of the sort of musical chairs game the Republicans played last time around, is to remain a fantasy. As, of course, I knew it would.

Democracy is so… messy

Chris Christie no longer the front-runner. This week.

Taegan Goddard over at Political Wire says it’s “Time to start calling Chris Christie the former GOP frontrunner.”

And he presents good arguments in support of that statement. He says Christie’s main strength was his crossover appeal — the GOP base loved him not — but according to a new poll, he’s lost ground among Democrats, Independents and women and:

Without holding the electability card, Christie has little chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination. It’s just one more example of how quickly fortunes can turn in politics.

Yes, exactly. I seem to recall that in the fall of 2011 and into early 2012, the GOP field had a different front-runner every week. And then the musical chairs game ended, and Mitt Romney, the original front-runner, was the only one with a seat.bak3jqccqaeb15s

So Chris Christie is out of it this week. And next week, too. But who knows what will transpire during the 145 weeks left until Election Day 2016? People are disenchanted with Christie now, but that’s in a vacuum. Whom will they love better? And what will be that person’s “electability?”

The most important question in politics is, “Compared to what?” Or perhaps I should say, “Compared to whom?” And the comparisons have not yet begun.

Has there ever been a pope as popular as Francis?

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Yeah, John Paul II was kind of a rock star, but at the moment, papal stock seems to me at an all-time high.

The pontiff is having a very good day today:

  1. He was named TIME’s Man of the Year (oh, wait, they call it “person” now, don’t they?).
  2. An ABC/Washington Post poll found that among Catholics, 85 percent approve of the direction in which he’s leading the Church, while only 7 percent disapprove (so much for that conservative Catholic backlash we keep hearing about).
  3. Even Jezebel, a website that I only know about because Kathryn sends me links to it, shouts “Pope Francis Is the Princess Diana of Popes.” The same site earlier said that “the coolest pope ever” is “basically the Beyoncé of organized religion.” I’m not sure, but I think maybe Diana is even a step up from that. His stock just keeps rising, even among the unlikeliest audiences (you have to have read a few of the Jezebel links Kathryn has sent to fully appreciate what I mean).

I hope no one thinks this demeans him in anyway, but this Bishop of Rome is a public relations genius. Which is kinda what the Church needs these days.

He hasn’t changed a thing, other than perception, but that is huge. He hasn’t changed any doctrines (frankly, I’m not all that sure an individual pope can do that on his own — maybe some of y’all more conversant with canon law can shed light on that), including the kind that make smoke come out of the ears of writers at Jezebel. OK, he busted the Bishop of Bling (who was sort of this pope’s polar opposite, PR-wise). That did something. But mostly, it’s about the perception.

What he’s done is make just about everybody feel better about the Church. Which helps the Church in doing its actual job, which is to be the physical manifestation of Christ in this wicked world — spreading the message of love, healing the sick, helping the poor and outcast. It’s kind of hard to get those messages across when so much of the world is holding its hands over its ears and making loud noises to shut you out.

This pope has, in a startling brief span of time, gotten those people to take their hands from their ears and stop going “AAAUWAUWAUWA!” and start listening, because they like what he’s said so far and are eager to hear what he’ll say next.

Years from now, when the Church is contemplating whether to canonize him (which at this point seems highly likely), this should go on the scoreboard as his first miracle.

Democrats’ poll says it’s 44-40, with slight edge for Haley

Emphasis on the “slight,” according to the Democrats. Just about the same as the 3.53 percent margin of error:

COLUMBIA — S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley holds slight edge on Democratic challenger Vincent Sheheen in their 2014 gubernatorial rematch, according to a poll done for the Democratic Governors Association.

Haley, a Lexington Republican, leads 44 percent to 40 percent, according to the poll from Clarity Campaign Labs.

Sheheen, a Camden lawyer, is within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.53 percent of tying the race. He lost by 4.5 percentage points to Haley in 2010….

They’re pretty excited about it. I ran into James Smith this morning, who said this is where the 2010 contest was just before the general election, which as you recall, Gov. Haley won with only 51 percent of the vote, and that in the big year for the Tea Party, her natural base.

The thinking, among Democrats, is apparently that if Vincent Sheheen had had just a little more time to keep gaining in 2010, he could have won. And this time, he’s got the time.

Sheheen campaign manager Andrew Whalen lost no time touting the poll in a fundraising email:

This is big! Earlier today, a poll released fantastic news for our campaign. This race is essentially tied.

Now we have proof of what we knew all along: we are poised to win this race!

Vincent is neck-in-neck with Haley, and Nikki Haley’s approval numbers are deep into the incumbent Danger Zone at only 40% statewide…

I think he meant “neck and neck,” but you get the point.

Rep. Smith said he felt like this was as good as it’s going to get for Haley.

Well, we’ll see. She’s quite a campaigner, and in SC, any member of her party has a sort of home-field advantage. But if this poll is at all reliable, it looks like it will be competitive.

Push-polling in the 1st District?

Not much time for blogging today, but I thought I’d call attention to the buzz today about a supposed push-poll aimed at smearing Elizabeth Colbert-Busch. Here’s an account from The Atlantic Wire:

ThinkProgress spoke with two women in the state, each of whom said they’d gotten a call from someone claiming to be conducting a poll on next Tuesday’s race. Among the questions that one woman, April Wolford, said she received were the following:

  • What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she had had an abortion?
  • What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you a judge held her in contempt of court at her divorce proceedings?
  • What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if she had done jail time?

And so on. It’s worth clarifying at this point: There have been no reports that any of these things actually happened to Colbert Busch…

And the HuffPost has pulled together elements from several reports on the subject.

If this is really happening — and one of the nastiest thing about these sleazy devices is that it’s hard to know what’s really happening, and who’s responsible, in time for voters to absorb the truth before the vote — it would be in keeping with a long South Carolina tradition. Just ask John McCain, or Max Heller.

Oh, and in terms of actual polling, there’s this one out there:

A new poll shows the race between Republican Mark Sanford and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch tightening, with both candidates at 46 percent entering the final days of the 1st Congressional District campaign.

The poll from Red Racing Horses, which bills itself as “a Republican-oriented online community,” also has 7 percent of voters undecided. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 5 percent…

If it’s really neck-and-neck at this point, you’ve got to put your money on Sanford. If you’re putting money on it. Which I wouldn’t recommend. But given the nature of the district, I suspect he has an edge worth several points more than polls measure…

PPP shows Colbert Busch leading Sanford by 9 points

Some fascinating number have just been put out by Public Policy Polling:

PPP’s newest poll on the special election in South Carolina finds Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch expanding her lead to 9 points over Mark Sanford at 50/41. Green Party candidate Eugene Platt polls at 3%.

Colbert Busch’s lead is on the rise for several reasons. She has a 51/35 advantage with independents. She’s winning over 19% of Republicans, while losing just 7% of Democrats. And it also seems that after last week’s revelations about Sanford that a lot of GOP voters are planning to just stay at home- while the district supported Mitt Romney by 18 points last fall, those planning to turn out for the special election voted for him by only a 5 point spread.

Sanford continues to be unpopular in the district with 38% of voters rating him favorably to 56% with a negative opinion. 51% say the revelations about his trespassing last week give them doubts about his fitness for public office. Interestingly the events of the last week haven’t hurt Sanford too much with Republicans though- 65% say the trespassing charges don’t give them any doubts about him, and his favorability with GOP voters has actually improved from 55/39 a month ago to now 61/32…

Before, the difference was within the margin of error. Now, if this poll is indicative, Elizabeth Colbert Busch has a real and perhaps expanding lead.

Earlier, Gina Smith (whom you will recall as the reporter who caught Sanford getting off the flight from Argentina, back when she was with The State), had raised the question, “Will Republican women stay home on Election Day after Sanford trespass charge?” Perhaps this new poll helps answer that question…

Except… wait a minute… in this poll, there is no gender gap. The Democrat is favored by 51 percent of women, and 49 percent of men (the margin of error for the full sample is 3.5 percent). And the exact same percentage of both men and women — 41 percent — support Sanford.

So much for this being about what women think of him…

Haley poll results: Up or down? No, statistically the same…

First, I saw this release from the state Democratic Party:

Columbia – Today, Winthrop University released its latest public polling data showing that once again, the majority of South Carolinians do not approve of the job Governor Nikki Haley is doing. The Governor made meager gains from within her Republican base but continues to turn off moderates in South Carolina with her politics before people approach that is standing in the way of creating 44,000 jobs by expanding health care, and is costing South Carolina’s taxpayers millions of dollars as a result of the corruption and dysfunction in the state government. The poll also contained bad news for the governor who got elected on a Tea Party wave and consistently chooses to put Tea-Party politics ahead of sound policy – the approval rating for the Tea Party continues to wan with only a quarter of respondents approving of the Governor’s Tea Party movement.

Then, I went back and looked at the news story, which said the opposite:

By ANDREW SHAIN — ashain@thestate.com

COLUMBIA — A pair of major 2014 candidates in South Carolina watched opinions about them go in different directions in a new poll released Wednesday.

Gov. Nikki Haley’s job approval is rising among voters — especially those in her Republican party, while U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham saw his support within the GOP falter over the past two months, according to a new Winthrop University poll…

So was she down or up? Well, while both reports were technically true, the reality is that statistically speaking, the level of support for Haley is the same as it’s been. The reported shift is within the margin of error:

Haley’s approval rating among South Carolinians rose to 43.5 percent, up a percentage point from two months ago.

The first-term Republican scores 45 percent among registered voters — also up a percentage point and the fourth straight gain in the past year of Winthrop polls.

More than one in three does not like the governor’s performance in office.

But Haley’s popularity among Republicans rose two percentage points to 69 percent since February — a high in two years of Winthrop polls…

The poll’s margin of error among registered voters was 3.5 percent.

Also… while Haley was “up” and Graham was “down,” Graham is still doing better than the governor is among all voters — although again, the difference between them is less than the margin of error:

His approval among registered voters dropped four percentage points to 44 percent in the past two months and slid among all South Carolinians two percentage points to 45 percent…

The most significant change for Graham was among Republicans, dropping “57.5 percent from 71.6 percent in February.”

Oh, by the way, though — if you think Graham’s numbers are bad, Tim Scott has a 38-percent approval rating among all voters, and 54 percent among Republicans.

So, let’s try to keep everything in perspective.

PPP provides another reason to think Dem could win in 1st

Add this to the list I gave you of reasons as to why Elizabeth Colbert-Busch might (and I continue to stress “might”) have a chance of winning in the 1st Congressional District, which has been Republican since 1980:

Raleigh, N.C. – PPP’s first look at the special election in South Carolina’s 1st
Congressional District finds a toss up race. Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch leads
Republican Mark Sanford 47-45 and ties Curtis Bostic at 43.download
This is a Republican leaning district and Barack Obama’s approval rating in it is only
41% with 57% of voters disapproving of him. But Democrats are far more unified than
the Republicans are. Busch is winning 87-89% of the Democratic vote while Sanford
(76%) and Busch (72%) are both earning less than 80% of the GOP vote. Busch is also
up by 16-18 points with independent voters.
Sanford remains a strong favorite for the Republican nomination heading into next
week’s runoff. He leads Bostic 53/40. The horse race numbers closely mirror his
favorability with GOP voters- 55% see him positively to 40% with a negative opinion.
Focusing in on the potential race between Busch and Sanford it’s surprisingly close for
one simple reason- voters like Busch and they continue to strongly dislike Sanford. 45%
of voters see Busch favorably to only 31% with a negative opinion. On the other hand
Sanford is still stuck with a 34% favorability rating and 58% of voters seeing him in a
negative light….

There are a lot of Republicans (especially those who had to deal with him in the State House) who already don’t much like Mark Sanford. If his insistence on getting back into the ring costs them this seat, they’ll have another reason not to count him among their faves.

AARP poll: SC grownups favor Medicaid expansion

I say “grownups” because all the respondents were over 45. It was the first word that came to mind. I’ll allow that there may be some grownups out there younger than 45. Anyway, here’s a report from the Charleston paper on the poll:

Most South Carolina adults interviewed for a new poll think the state government should expand Medicaid eligibility to include more low-income residents.

The poll was commissioned by AARP, a group in favor of expanding Medicaid in South Carolina under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A statement about the poll was published Tuesday on AARP’s website, but the full results have not been released.

It found that 54 percent of 800 adults polled in February favor Medicaid expansion and 57 percent disagree with Gov. Nikki Haley’s decision to decline federal money to accomplish that. All of the adults included in the survey were 45 and older.

South Carolina has a choice to opt out of the expansion because the state would eventually need to pay for part of it — 10 percent of the costs by 2020. The federal government would fully fund Medicaid expansion for three years and at a minimum of 90 percent after that…

Maybe when Nikki Haley gets to be 45, she’ll develop a more sensible approach to this, too. It’s possible. I don’t know what the excuse of the GOP majority in the Legislature might be.

By the way, AARP is lobbying in 40 states (including SC) for Medicaid expansion. But that should come as no surprise, since AARP has a lot of grownups in it…

Graham, others break with Norquist

With most Americans pessimistic about the chances for a compromise that could avert the “fiscal cliff” — and inclined to blame Republicans for the failure — it’s worth noting that our own Lindsey Graham is among those trying to lead the GOP away from Grover Norquist and toward a somewhat more rational course:

A pair of congressional Republicans reiterated their willingness Sunday to violate an anti-tax pledge in order to strike a deal on the “fiscal cliff,” echoing Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who suggested last week that the oath may be outdated.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he was prepared to set aside Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge if Democrats will make an effort to reform entitlements, and Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) suggested the pledge may be out of step in the present economy.

“I agree with Grover — we shouldn’t raise rates — but I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we can’t cap deductions and buy down debt,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “What do you do with the money? I want to buy down debt and cut rates to create jobs, but I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform.”…

Hey, Lindsey, I’ve got your entitlement reform right here: Eliminate the income cap on contributions to Social Security, and raise retirement age slightly. That would save that benefit, and would be a good place to start. Then, bada-bing, go raise some revenue for the general fund…

Did the ‘war on women’ meme even work?

Ralph Reed (answering the question, What ever happened to that guy?) had an op-ed piece in the WSJ today (“Round Up the Usual Social Conservative Suspects“) bemoaning — as you would expect him to — that once again, social conservatives are being blamed for a Republican defeat.

The main thrust of his piece is that the GOP would push the culture warriors away only at its peril.

Nothing new there. What interested me was this one paragraph in which he was speaking not about Republicans, but about Democrats:

Despite the Obama campaign’s accusation of a Republican “war on women,” Mr. Obama actually won women by a narrower margin than he did in 2008; he lost married women by seven points. Nor did single women—who went heavily Mr. Obama’s way—vote on reproductive issues. Forty-five percent of single women voters listed jobs and the economy as their most important issues, while only 8% said abortion.

That was welcome news to me, given my repeated complaints about the Dems overemphasizing Kulturkampf stuff this year. (I would like very much for the president’s victory to be because of other factors, and for both parties to know that, and in the future act accordingly, so that I don’t have to be quite so appalled at the tenor of campaigns to come. And on the immigration front of the Kulturkampf, there are actually some signs that some Republicans learned something.) Of course, considering the source, I immediately wondered how accurate his characterization was.

That led me to this interesting 2012 exit polls graphic at the NYT site (if you don’t get anything else from this post, go check that out). While the words on the graphic seem to contradict Reed, saying, “Mr. Obama maintained his 2008 support among women,” when you call up the actual numbers (just scroll your cursor over the blue and pink bubbles), you see a slight drop — although it’s only one percent, which is well within the 4 percent margin of error.

But in looking further at the numbers, I saw something that I had forgotten about, if I ever knew — that in 2008, President Obama edged out John McCain among men — the only time the Democratic nominee has done that in the last four presidential elections. Maybe, if they believe their “war on women” meme worked, Democrats should have claimed the Republicans were conducting a “war on men” as well.

I knew without looking that Reed was accurate in saying Obama won among single women and lost among married ones. As for what he said about single women caring far more about the economy than abortion — well, that makes sense (think about it — I would expect pretty much every broad demographic group to cite the economy as a bigger issue than abortion), but I haven’t found data that back it up. Has anyone seen that subset analyzed along those lines? I have not.

I have always believed that we don’t look hard enough at exit polls after elections. Yet in the polling world, that’s where the substance is. Ahead of the election, political junkies mainline polls in their desperate desire to know what might happen. Exit polls are the only kind that tell you what the actual voters who actually showed up were actually thinking on Election Day. Maybe you have to allow a bit for a Democratic bias (Republicans are more likely to refuse to participate in exit polls), but it’s still valuable stuff.

Peggy Noonan is going with her gut on this

Last night was the annual Cardinal Bernardin lecture over at USC, and on my way in to hear Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta speak, Florence attorney and longtime USC Trustee Mark Buyck asked me what was going to happen in the presidential race. I told him what I said in this post, that it looked like Obama, at least in the Electoral College.

He said I should go read what Peggy Noonan had posted on her blog.

So I did. And in what Business Insider called “The Most Anti-Nate Silver Column Imaginable,” she basically argued that we should ignore the numbers and go with our gut. And her gut was telling her that Mitt Romney is going to win:

But to the election. Who knows what to make of the weighting of the polls and the assumptions as to who will vote? Who knows the depth and breadth of each party’s turnout efforts? Among the wisest words spoken this cycle were by John Dickerson of CBS News and Slate, who said, in a conversation the night before the last presidential debate, that he thought maybe the American people were quietly cooking something up, something we don’t know about.

I think they are and I think it’s this: a Romney win.

Romney’s crowds are building—28,000 in Morrisville, Pa., last night; 30,000 in West Chester, Ohio, Friday It isn’t only a triumph of advance planning: People came, they got through security and waited for hours in the cold. His rallies look like rallies now, not enactments. In some new way he’s caught his stride. He looks happy and grateful. His closing speech has been positive, future-looking, sweetly patriotic. His closing ads are sharp—the one about what’s going on at the rallies is moving.

All the vibrations are right. A person who is helping him who is not a longtime Romneyite told me, yesterday: “I joined because I was anti Obama—I’m a patriot, I’ll join up But now I am pro-Romney.” Why? “I’ve spent time with him and I care about him and admire him. He’s a genuinely good man.” Looking at the crowds on TV, hearing them chant “Three more days” and “Two more days”—it feels like a lot of Republicans have gone from anti-Obama to pro-Romney.

Something old is roaring back. One of the Romney campaign’s surrogates, who appeared at a rally with him the other night, spoke of the intensity and joy of the crowd “I worked the rope line, people wouldn’t let go of my hand.” It startled him. A former political figure who’s been in Ohio told me this morning something is moving with evangelicals, other church-going Protestants and religious Catholics. He said what’s happening with them is quiet, unreported and spreading: They really want Romney now, they’ll go out and vote, the election has taken on a new importance to them.

There is no denying the Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm. The Democrats do not. Independents are breaking for Romney. And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.

Is it possible this whole thing is playing out before our eyes and we’re not really noticing because we’re too busy looking at data on paper instead of what’s in front of us? Maybe that’s the real distortion of the polls this year: They left us discounting the world around us…

Now, on a certain level I have to sympathize with Peggy on this. After all, I’m the intuitive type, and have no great love of numbers. And more often than not, my own gut has been right when it comes to knowing who will win an election. It’s been right ever since the first statewide race I covered in Tennessee, the gubernatorial contest between Lamar Alexander and Jake Butcher in 1978. All the top political writers at the big papers were saying it was a dead heat, too close to call.

But I had accomplanied each of both candidates, practically 24/7 (we used to really cover campaigns in those days), for a week each late in the race, and Alexander acted like a winner, and crowds reacted to him that way. And Jake Butcher was pathetic. I remember Speaker Ned Ray McWherter walking him around his district to introduce him to constituents, and he looked like a lost child.

I was right. And I was right that day Sarah Palin campaigned with Nikki Haley, and I saw how Nikki had hit her stride at just the right moment, and was convinced she had the nomination.

I have also been very wrong. In the primaries early in that same gubernatorial campaign, I traveled with Roger Murray, a Democrat who was getting tremendous positive reactions everywhere he went. Voters kept telling him he had done the best job in the multi-candidate debate just before this tour, and I believed that meant he was going to win. He wasn’t even in the top two.

But I was just a kid then — even months later, in the general, I had gained a lot of savvy I lacked during the primaries — and it was a valuable lesson, learning to discount the effect of being in the bubble. I haven’t been that spectacularly wrong since.

All that said, while I may not love numbers, I respect them, while Peggy Noonan seems to be wishing them away. “The vibrations are right.” Really? We’ll see, very soon.

What do you think will happen tomorrow?

A graphic that ran with the Post/ABC results.

Someone asked me that at Rotary today, and I say that in the presidential contest (which is what the question was about), if you force me to pick a winner, I say it will be President Obama. In the Electoral College at least. Although it’s close enough that I could be wrong, at this point I think we’re where we were months ago: A slight edge for the incumbent.

As more than one poll has indicated, I’m with most Americans in making that prediction. The latest one I’ve seen shows that 55 percent of the electorate thinks Obama will win, and only 35 percent thinks Mitt Romney will.

Here’s the boiled-down-to-essentials way Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight put it several days ago:

Mr. Obama is leading in the polls of Ohio and other states that would suffice for him to win 270 electoral votes, and by a margin that has historically translated into victory a fairly high percentage of the time.

Over the weekend, Silver noted that various polls also show a slight Obama advantage in the popular vote, but generally within the margin of error.

Now comes the last Washington Post/ABC p0ll of the election, showing that same pattern:

Heading into Election Day, likely voters divide 50 percent for President Obama and 47 percent for his challenger, Republican Mitt Romney, according to the latest, final weekend release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.

A nail-biter throughout, the presidential contest remains closely competitive through its last days, even as most voters perceive a likely win for the president.

In regular polls since early July, neither candidate ever gathered more than 50 percent of likely voters, and neither ever slipped below 46 percent. Across nearly 7,000 interviews with likely voters from Oct. 18 through Sunday evening, less than four-tenths of a percentage point separates Obama and Romney.

The difference between the candidates in the final weekend tally is right at the 2.5 percentage margin of sampling error for the final four-night sample of 2,345 likely voters. This makes Obama’s being at plus three points over Romney an edge only by the slimmest of margins, well below conventional measures of statistical significance…

So how are you seeing it?

Apparently, the kids like Obama

Got this release today:

November 4, 2012, Mount Hermon, MA – High school students across the country took to the polls this month and chose President Barack Obama to serve another term as President of the United States in a nationwide mock election.

More than 54,000 students from more than 130 schools across the United States–at least two from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia–participated in this year’s VOTES Project (Voting Opportunities for Teenagers in Every State), one of the nation’s largest mock elections, began in 1988 by teachers at Northfield Mount Hermon School. High school students across the country campaigned on behalf of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney–as well as third-party candidates–holding rallies, debates and other campaign events leading up to tonight’s announcement of the winner.

Barack Obama received 316 electoral votes and Republican challenger Mitt Romney received 208. Obama received 50.2% of the popular vote (27,107), and Romney earned 41.2% (22,252).

The final tally took place at the 2012 VOTES Election Central gala in James Gym on the NMH campus. The NMH Singers and Jazz Band provided campaign music, and students acted as television moderators, conducting interviews and reporting electoral results by fixing either a blue or a red pin to a map of the United States.

Due to Hurricane Sandy, a total of five schools in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania were unable to hold mock elections, meaning 14 electoral votes were not distributed…

But how valid can that result be when it doesn’t include votes from a single high school that I personally attended (I attended three, in SC, Florida and Hawaii)?

Is Hurricane Sandy God’s ‘October Surprise’?

And if so, which candidate does he want to benefit?

Nate Silver is worrying about Sandy, and not just because he lives in Brooklyn:

I’m not sure whether I render the greater disservice by contemplating the political effects of a natural disaster — or by ignoring the increasingly brisk winds whipping outside my apartment in Brooklyn. Still, I thought it was worth giving you my tentative thoughts on how Hurricane Sandy might affect the runup to next Tuesday’s election.

We may see a reduction in the number of polls issued over the coming days. The Investor’s Business Daily poll has already announced that it will suspend its national tracking poll until the storm passes, and other cancellations may follow. And certainly, any polls in the states that are most in harm’s way, including Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, will need to be interpreted with extreme caution…

But beyond the polls that Silver lives by, what about the election itself?

The aftermath of Katrina did enormous damage to public perception of President Obama’s predecessor. What will happen in those blue states that will bear the brunt of this storm, and how quickly will it happen?

Will this be a chance to show political leadership that will enhance the incumbent’s chances, or will it inevitably cause a bad taste that accrues to Mr. Romney?

The Washington Post has put together this interesting explainer on “five places where Hurricane Sandy could affect the election.” Interesting. A snowstorm in conservative southwest Virginia keeping people from the polls? Whoa.

Meanwhile, the Obama team is shrugging everything off and declaring their victory inevitable. The other side is pumping out some hubris, too, saying in a memo: “Every day, Barack Obama’s so-called Ohio firewall crumbles a little bit more because of Mitt Romney’s electric appearances, our campaign’s robust ground game, and Romney’s forward-looking message that lays out a serious and specific agenda for the future.”

Electric appearances? Really?

Reuters finds Obama leading in early voting

Or rather, he’s leading in what early voter are telling pollsters, so take that big grain of salt:

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are neck and neck in opinion polls, but there is one area in which the incumbent appears to have a big advantage: those who have already cast their ballots.

Obama leads Romney by 59 percent to 31 percent among early voters, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling data compiled in recent weeks.

The sample size of early voters is relatively small, but the Democrat’s margin is still well above the poll’s credibility interval – a measurement of polls’ accuracy – of 10 percentage points. (full graphic: bit.ly/RmeEen)

With the November 6 election just more than three weeks away, 7 percent of those surveyed said they had already voted either in person or by mail (full graphic: bit.ly/SWm5YR).

The online poll is another sign that early voting is likely to play a bigger role this year than in 2008, when roughly one in three voters cast a ballot before Election Day. Voting is already under way in some form in at least 40 states…

On a side note, I don’t care how popular it is, I still don’t hold with this early voting nonsense.

Follow the bouncing polls

Slatest reports contradictory poll results following Mitt Romney’s big debate win last week:

A TALE OF TWO POLLS: In the wake of Mitt Romney’s historic debate performance last week, the GOP challenger has leapfrogged President Obama and now leads the incumbent among likely voters with less than a month to go until the election. Unless, of course, he hasn’t, and his post-debate bounce has since evaporated. Those were the two very different narratives suggested by a pair of polls out Monday.

GOOD NEWS, MITT: The Pew Research Poll released the results of its latest polling this afternoon—the first major survey taken entirely after last Wednesday’s debate—that showed Romney and Obama knotted at 46 apiece among registered voters, and the Republican out in front 49 percent to 45 among likely voters. That’s quite a change from last month’s survey, when Obama led 51-42 among registered voters and 51-43 among likely voters.

GOOD NEWS, BARACK: Gallup, meanwhile, offered a different snapshot of the state of the race for the White House. The polling outfit’s latest seven-day rolling average—which included polling conducted through Sunday—shows the president out in front by 5 points, 50-45, among registered voters. That figure was particularly noteworthy because Obama had seen a pre-debate lead of 4 points shrink to 3 points by Saturday, before jumping back up to 5 points once Sunday’s results were factored in…

Instant polls give the debate to Romney

Poll results compiled by Nate Silver show the viewing public pretty much agreeing with the commentators who gave last night’s debate decision to Romney:

Instant-reaction polls conducted by CNN and CBS News suggest that Mitt Romney was the winner of the first presidential debate.

A CNN poll of debate-watchers found Mr. Romney very clearly ahead, with 67 percent of registered voters saying he won the debate, against just 25 percent for President Obama.

A CBS News poll of undecided voters who watched the debate found 46 percent siding with Mr. Romney, 22 percent for Mr. Obama and 32 percent saying it was a tie.

Google, which is experimenting with online surveys, found 38.9 percent of respondents saying they thought Mr. Obama performed better in a poll it conducted during the debate, against 35.5 percent for Mr. Romney and 25.6 percent who said it was a draw. But a second poll they conducted after the debate found 47.8 percent of respondents giving Mr. Romney the advantage, against 25.4 percent for Mr. Obama…

I still haven’t seen enough of the debate itself to know what I think. But from what I’m hearing, I’d have to actually watch it, which would be unusual for me. A lot of the advantage given to Romney sounds like it was based on visual impressions. Usually, I listening while Tweeting and blogging. Last night, rehearsal prevented me from doing anything with it at all…

‘Sugar high?’ Sounds like someone’s a bit envious of someone else’s post-convention bounce

It appears that the Democrats got a modest bounce from last week’s convention, but the opposition refuses to be impressed, according to the WashPost:

BOSTON — Acknowledging Monday that President Obama has seen a surge in voter support since last week’s Democratic National Convention, the Romney campaign’s pollster likened the bounce to a “sugar high” and argued that the Republican challenger has a long-term advantage over the president.

Neil Newhouse, Mitt Romney’s pollster and senior strategist, wrote a memorandum released to reporters to rebut the conventional wisdom that Romney has fallen behind in the presidential race and to calm any panic among supporters. In the memo, Newhouse wrote that Obama “has seen a bounce from his convention” but contended that the president’s approval ratings are likely to recede in the weeks ahead.

“Don’t get too worked up about the latest polling,” Newhouse wrote. “While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly. The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama Presidency, and Mitt Romney will win this race.”

According to several new national polls, after months of deadlock, Obama opened a lead over Romney after last week’s Democratic convention in Charlotte. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday, 47 percent of likely voters supported Obama and 43 percent Romney. In a Gallup tracking poll, Obama leads Romney 49 percent to 44 percent, while an automated Rasmussen poll released Monday put Obama at 50 percent and Romney at 45 percent….

“Ultimate downfall?” Really. It looks like maybe Jim DeMint is acting as scriptwriter for Mr. Newhouse. Here I thought we were just facing an election. The Romney team seems to be planning something more on the order of Götterdämmerung. I can see Mitt in his helicopter now, cranking up the Wagner and explaining, “It scares the hell out of the libs… but our boys love it!

First sign of the post-convention bounce

This from Reuters is the first indication I’ve seen of the usual post-convention bounce:

(Reuters) – Mitt Romney has moved into a narrow lead over U.S. President Barack Obama in a small bounce for him from the Republican National Convention, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Thursday.

Romney entered the week four points behind Obama in the first installment of a Reuters/Ipsos rolling poll, with Obama leading 46 percent to 42 percent.

But the most recent daily rolling poll gave Romney a two-point lead of 44 percent to 42 percent among likely voters…

Possibly that bounce will increase. I heard someone from Gallup (I think; it was on the radio) yesterday say that historically, Republicans usually get a 5-point bounce, and Democrats get 6 points, making it pretty much a wash.

But we’ll see, as more numbers come in over the next week or two.

Oh, you know how I learned about this? From a DCCC email soliciting money. This is how the party functionaries work: “If we’re up, give us money. If we’re down, give us money.”