Tag: Polls

I've noticed President Obama's poll numbers trending up the past couple weeks, and now we have another example from Quinnipiac University:

President Barack Obama's job approval rating is up, from a negative 41 - 55 percent October 6, to a split today with 47 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving in a Quinnipiac University poll released today. The president has leads of 5 to 16 percentage points over likely Republican challengers.

[...]

Obama also is looking better in matchups against potential Republican nominees:

47 - 42 percent over Romney, compared to a 46 - 42 percent Romney lead October 5;
52 - 36 percent over Perry, up from a 45 - 44 percent tie last month;
50 - 40 percent over Cain, who was not included in a matchup last month;
52 - 37 percent over Gingrich, who was not matched last month.

Not too shabby, the key is for these numbers to keep improving over the next year. If they do, I'm not saying Obama's reelection will be easy, but given the utterly, outrageouly pathetic Republican presidential field, perhaps it won't be that difficult either.

By the way, as far as Romney's concerned, check after the "flip" for a video of Romney endorsing a "Daily Kos diarist who supported Bush's impeachment, led demonstrations against the Iraq war, disagreed with capital punishment, and supported marriage equality." I'm sure that will go over just GREAT with the right-wingers who vote in Republican primaries. Heh.

In any trend, there's going to be a moment when you realize things are out of control. That cool little bar band hasn't just gotten noticed -- they've sold 20 million records and now their second album is coming out and everyone's expecting it to be the second coming of The White Album.

And so when FiveThirtyEight brought easy-to-understand statistical analysis to the national stage in the 2008 cycle, there was sure to be a phase of irrational exuberance. When people start pretending polls are photographs of facts, not lobs at the dartboard. And that a SurveyUSA poll in July, when people's #1 issue is how am I gonna get all this sand out of my car, that claims 97% of voters have already made up their minds might be the definition of worthless.

As Josh Marshall at TPM points out yet another example that polls are far from perfect -- intentional or not, the possibility of bias at SurveyUSA:

Not quite sure what to make of this yet. But SurveyUSA's polls this year are leaning pretty strongly toward the GOP candidates relative to most other pollsters.

Matt Yglesias neatly sums it up: "The latest poll numbers show the same thing that poll numbers have shown since January of 2009. Barack Obama is more popular than congressional Democrats who are more popular than congressional Republicans."

Also, thank you Tea Party!

After Tuesday's primary votes, not one member of the dream team will be the Republican nominee in November.

Instead of rolling to victory, the GOP's well-groomed recruits have been sideswiped by insurgents, unknowns and dark horses, challengers whose failure to win the party's seal of approval was suddenly viewed by voters as a plus.

Hahahahahahaha.