MediaPolitical has been digging through some recent polling data on the presidential race looking for interesting trend shifts and we found a few things worthy of deeper examination. The main two sets of data I am using are from the most recent Washington Post/ ABC News poll from 7/8/12 and the New York Times/ CBS News poll from 7/11-16/12.
These polls both have the race neck and neck with the WaPo/ABC poll showing a tie with Romney and Obama each at 46. The NYT/CBS poll made a little news because it has Romney ahead 45 to 43. This election is probably going to be very close, so I don't put much into these numbers. What I am looking for are changing trends that will push those swing/ independent voters one way or the other.
First, let's establish a few things. This election is going to be about the economy. The WaPo/ ABC poll asked if the economy is important or not important in your vote for president this year ? 89% said important, 11% said not important. Remember, "It's the economy stupid." This means that this election will be a referendum on how Obama has handled the economy. Indy voters who disagree with how Obama has handled the economy will vote against Obama more than they will vote for Romney. So, it is not really necessary Romney worry much about his likability numbers.
Next, we have the classic "right track, wrong track" question. These two polls track together with the NYT/CBS poll showing 64% say it is on the wrong track and 30% saying right track. The WaPo/ABC poll has it at 63% wrong, 33% right. It is safe to say that a clear majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, but the real question is do those folks hold President Obama responsible for it ?
When looking at President Obama's overall approval rating, the NYT/ CBS has disapproval at 46%, WaPo at 49%, with approval being 44 and 47% in each. So, Obama's slightly down in overall approval rating, but not horribly bad. However, when the question is asked if you approve of his handing of economy, things change. The NYT/ CBS shows that 55% disapprove and only 39% approve. The WaPo/ ABC poll tracks these numbers. Here we get into some trends.
The NYT/ CBS poll asked if the condition of the national economy is something a president can do a lot about, or is it beyond any president's control ? Look at the trend shift here.
Can do a lot Beyond president's control
9/10-15/11 41% 53%
7/11-16/12 51% 40%
That is a 10 point flip in just under one year, pretty dramatic. This tells me that people are no longer hanging our economic problems on Bush, they are now blaming Obama for them. Even though that question asks about any president, people obviously are thinking about the one currently sitting in the White House. The WaPo/ ABC poll asked regardless of which candidate you support, who do you trust to do a better job handling the economy ? Romney 49%, Obama 44%. Here is another rather large moving trend. The NYT/CBS poll asked does the federal government regulate business too much, too little, or the right amount ?
Too much Too little Right amount
9/08 28% 43% 16%
2/09 28% 40% 18%
2/11 45% 27% 17%
7/12 49% 22% 19%
Again, a pretty dramatic shift. What you see is that during the '08 election, and just after Obama took office, people were open to Obama's big government message and blaming our problems on business. Then, after two years of seeing the President's policies in action, they have rejected them (The Republicans landslide taking over the House is more proof of this), and people are still rejecting the big government idea. Adding to this, a new USA Today/ Gallup poll showed the following;
"A record number of Americans express skepticism about the activist role of government Obama espouses; 61% say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. That's the highest number since Gallup began asking the question in 1992."
This next NYT/ CBS poll question is on favorability.
Fav. Not Fav. Undecided Haven't heard enough yet
Obama 36% 48% 12% 3%
Romney 32% 36% 21% 10%
As I said before, I am not so worried about Romney's negative numbers because this election will not be about him. What these numbers do show me is that Obama's attacks on Romney and Bain are not defining him, or sticking, if he has 31% either undecided or haven't heard enough yet. This leaves Romney wiggle room to put forth his vision for the future and a chance to sell it.
Taking all these numbers together, it tells me that people have formed an opinion of how President Obama has handled the economy and they do not approve. There is little he can do to change that. It is too late for him to put forth any vision because people have already saw it, all he has left to do is try and destroy Romney by negative campaigning and advertising. In other words, Obama can't really say why he will be a better choice, he has to tell voters why Romney would be worse than him. Not exactly an inspiring message given what people think of his job so far.
Another thing that needs to be addressed here is the federal budget and what people think about it. Looking at the WaPo/ ABC poll, 70% of Americans see our budget deficit as a problem and those same people see Romney as 52% to Obama 42% being able to deal with this. In other words, a majority of people see our government's debt as a problem and do not think President Obama has done anything about it. A majority of Americans have come around to the idea, or realization, you can't live on credit. They don't believe Obama's vast expansion of government or his spending has done any good.
This leads one to ask, "Why isn't Romney polling higher or Obama polling lower ?" One part of this is that it is still early. Another is that the sitting president always gets a few points because he is in office, call it the benefit of the doubt rule. Obama has very high personal likability numbers, which I will address later, and right now he has other aspects of his first term that people do approve of, though just barely. I believe those numbers will fade when it gets closer to the election because people will forget about all of that and vote their wallet.
I remind you that in 1980, Carter and Reagan polled nearly dead even all summer/ fall until election day when Reagan crushed him in a landslide. This was not that pollsters got it wrong, it was that people sometimes do not tell pollsters the truth when in fact they may be wavering. I am a firm believer that on certain types of questions people tell the pollster what they want to believe as opposed to what they actually believe or do in the privacy of the voting booth on election day. I also think that the polling during the Carter/ Reagan election showed that many folks do not like to admit they made a mistake in who they voted for before, so many told pollsters they still supported Carter and then quietly voted for Reagan. I believe there is some of this reflected in Obama's poll numbers, people hate to admit they were wrong about him.
The last few points I want to make are probably going to get me into trouble, I am sure I will get the race card played on me but that is nothing new. A problem I have with these polls is that I believe they are oversampling black voters. Why ? Blacks turned out in historically high numbers for Obama in '08 and they voted over 90% for him.
I think these pollsters are modeling a similar black turnout. I do not believe he will get this high turnout the second time around. I think these voters will move back closer to their common historical voting turnouts and patterns, and even with the loss of just 2 or 3% of black turnout it will cost Obama dearly. The reason I think this is because while most blacks will not vote for Romney, many have become disillusioned with Obama and now see him as just another politician. His race has become meaningless to them, so many will just not bother to vote.
The next thing we need to honestly look at, and this will be by far the most controversial thing I discuss, is the "White Guilt" vote. Many people will argue this does not exist, and others who believe it does will not discuss it because they fear being labeled as a racist. There is a percentage of white people who feel guilt for the past injustices that were done to blacks by previous generations of whites, something they personally had no control over, were party to or for that matter were even alive when these things occurred. You can call it a sort of mental version of affirmative action. I think some whites actually do this without realizing they are doing it, these folks can come off very condescending to blacks. I know because black folks have told me this more than a few times.
I firmly believe that a certain percentage of whites voted for Obama simply as a way to cleanse their souls of this guilt. Because people will never be honest about things like this with pollsters, it is very difficult to get ideas about the numbers on this, but I think I found some poll results that demonstrate this. The following question is from the WaPo/ ABC poll cited earlier: "Do you think blacks who live in your community experience racial discrimination, or not? If yes, do you think it happens often, occasionally, or rarely?"
NET YES Often Occas. Rare. No No opinion
6/15/08 All races 50% 16% 26% 9% 47% 3%
Whites 48% 13% 27% 8% 49% 3%
9/14/08 All races 49% 18% 23% 7% 48% 3%
Whites 46% 13% 24% 8% 51% 3%
1/16/09 All races 47% 15% 25% 8% 51% 2%
Whites 43% 11% 25% 8% 55% 1%
7/8/12 All races 37% 11% 18% 8% 58% 5%
Whites 33% 6% 18% 9% 62% 5%
So, here we see folks opinions on discrimination against blacks before President Obama won the Democrat nomination (6/15/08), before the general election (9/14/08), after he had won (1/16/09), then after he has been president for nearly 4 years (7/8/12). First you see the numbers among whites trending to believing discrimination was not as big an issue as before, but it fell off the table by the 7/8/12 poll. In general population polling, this is a huge shift, among whites it is astronomical. One month shy of 4 years, you see whites shift 15 points saying discrimination is less of a problem. The second dominate race in America are Hispanics, I think the "All races" category reflects a shift on their part too.
What these numbers tell me is that many white folks, and possibly many Hispanics, have wiped their hands clean of "White Guilt." I think these whites have now reconciled their guilt, they are telling themselves, "I voted for a black president, I have done my part to clear the sins of our forefathers." Now they don't care about the president's skin color and these numbers reflect some people are no longer cutting Obama slack because he is a black guy (Which is the way it should be). I have always thought these ideas of cutting minorities slack because they are minorities is in itself a form of racism.
I also believe Obama's personal likability numbers are artificially driven up by whites who say they like him because in their mind it sounds racist to say they don't, so they lie to pollsters about it. Most poll analysts put too much meaning in likability numbers and this election will have nothing to with it. Remember, pollsters work with the answers people give them, there is no algorithm for ferreting out those who are not so truthful. It is up to people like me to do that and with most studies of human behavior (anthropology or psychology), it is guess work. But you base these guesses on known quantities and you look for outliers or trend shifts to form these opinions.
These numbers demonstrate to me that perhaps upwards of 4% (maybe more) of Obama's '08 independent vote could have been "White Guilt" vote. If my theory is correct and Obama loses just 3 or 4% of the whites who voted for him in '08 because they no longer feel guilty and they now judge him on his merit, I see no way he can win re-election. While these folks did so for different reasons in '08, some black folks will not turnout for Obama just because he is black again and some white folks will not vote for him again just because he is black either. Pollsters cannot model for these things and I feel these polls are inaccurate because of these reasons. How inaccurate ? We will not know that answer until after election day, but just 3 points can turn a tight election into a landslide, ask Jimmy Carter.
We are still months away from the election and much can change between now and then. But we do know that a majority of voters have made their minds up and are very unlikely to change. This entire election is a fight over a very small number of swing voters in swing states. It is going to be a rather ugly fight, no more hope and change from Obama, just divisiveness. Romney is in the position of being able to offer an alternate vision and these poll numbers show that many are at least willing to listen. The question here is whether or not Romney can articulate, sell it, to these voters. If not, they will fall back on what they know, Obama.
The main reason I wanted to write this piece is because I felt I could show clear trend shifts in favor of Romney. I don't know if I could have done this even a month ago. A Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll came out today, so I didn't have time to include those numbers in this piece, but the main news from it is that Obama's attacks on Bain Capital either are not working, or more importantly people just don't care about Romney's time at Bain. It does show that Romney's negatives are going up, but Obama's are too. This is one of the dangers of negative advertising, a backlash. So, these are even more things working in Romney's favor.
This is the first time I have been able to say this and keep a straight face saying it; I believe Romney has a legitimate chance to win this election. I no longer view him as an underdog who would need some incredible celestial alignment (aka a miracle) to win, and really that is more Obama's doing than Romney's. Barry has worn out his welcome and these numbers show it.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.