Ignore the Current Polls

Why the Current Polls Are Worthless!

The current polls have President Obama leading Governor Romney nationally by 5-6%. They also have the President winning all nine battleground states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

With 40 days and three debates before the election, the media and polls have all but declared the election over - a landslide election awaits President Obama. They are also willing to proclaim that the Democrats will retain the Senate and have a chance of regaining control of the House, even though they utterly failed to predict the 2010 Republican midterm landslide.

Ignore the polls; they’re meaningless right now. Don’t delve into the internals about whether or nor they over poll Democrats, ignore recent voting patterns, or voting registration patterns.

If you wish to look closer at the polls, then the Wall Street Journal shows some of the confusion. A recent poll shows the President up by 6% among registered voters and 5% by those likely to vote. However, it shows the Governor winning by 3% among those highly interested in the election – a measure of the intensity factor.

The Governor is coming off a bad week, haunted by the 47% remark. He will bounce back, just as President Obama has seemingly recovered from the “You didn’t make it” assertion.

The polls are worthless unless you assume that President Obama will match or outperform his 2008 election results; in other words that Governor Romney will do worse than Senator McCain, who lost by 10 million votes.

President Carter still had a large read over Governor Reagan at this point in 1980. We know who won by a landslide.

Senator Obama was an unknown, telegenic charismatic candidate who offered “Hope and Change.” The country had just suffered an economic collapse. The Republican President, George W. Bush, was very unpopular. President Obama outspent Senator John McCain 9:1. Senator McCain ran an otherwise insipid campaign except for the selection of Governor Palin as his VP running mate. Senator Obama, as a former community organizer, established an outstanding ground game.

President Obama is a known quantity today. His economic performance has been abysmal. He is running away from the economy. His eloquence bounces off most listeners. His campaign rallies are often under attended.

The conservatives and Republicans who voted to elect conservatives in 2010 will turn out equally strong this year. They will vote even if a blizzard hits on election day.

The question is if President Obama can achieve his same turnout this year aside from the African Americans who will turn out in overwhelming numbers.

Let’s look at some specifics. The NBC/Marist/Wall Street Journal poll shows the President up by 2%, 48-46% in North Carolina. The President carried North Carolina by only 14,000 votes four years ago.

The Quinnipiac/New York Times/CBS poll shows the President ahead by 10% in Ohio, a state he won 51.5% to 46.9%.

Four polls show the President ahead by an average 5%, 49-44% in Virginia. His margin in Virginia was slightly higher at 6.3%.

Senator Obama won 52.9% of the vote in 2008. He hardly ever approaches 50% in any poll. That’s a warning sign because undecided voters usually go to the opponent against an incumbent.

The only polls that count are the ones at the polling booth on election day.

We will see if “It’s still the economy, stupid.”