I got a little nervous after reading a couple of recent polls (one by a Democratic firm PPP) that showed a dead heat in CO-Sen– but I felt a lot better after looking at the just released actual vote totals.
About 27% of the 2006 vote total has already been counted in 2010 (more than 440,000 votes.) Of those votes 41.7% were Republicans and 36.0% were Democrats. As the most recent 200,000 absentees have come in, the Republican share has dropped only from 42.1% to 41.7% while the Democratic share has dropped from 37.0% to 36.0%. This indicates that Republican share of the two-party vote is increasing as the vote count continues. This is also a considerably better split than that assumed by PPP, which assumes a 38% to 35% Republican turnout lead. With approximately 1/4 of the votes already in, Bennett needs a much better Democratic turnout with remaining voters to hit those 38-35 numbers.
Even better news from Survey USA, which also showed a 47%-47% tie in their results. According to the Survey USA results 51% of Bennett voters had already voted vs. only 45% of Buck voters. Yet the current turnout numbers suggest a 5.6% Republican turnout advantage, which strongly indicates that Survey USA has oversampled Bennett voters. If Republicans are turning out 6% more than Demorcats in the real election, but polls are showing that more Bennett voters have already voted than Buck voters, I really like our chances here.
Moe Lane
PG DeFreese
Victoria Coates
Daniel Horowitz
Dan Spencer
Excellent insight
bluerose75 Monday, October 25th at 8:43PM EST (link)This is indeed promising and very insightful. I am sorry by PPP to me is just plain garbage. I am sorry this firm has no credibility whatsoever. Any firm tied to the Dailykos cannot under any circumstance be valid. It is nothing more than a poll in cheerleading attire with a big GO D on the front!!!
I like you analysis of SurveyUSA which is much more reputable. The turnout advantage again mirrors what the Battleground poll that came out today bears in its final analysis. Republicans have at least a 5 percent point advantage if not more if the “extremely likely to vote category” is taken into account. The Independents will push Republicans over the finish line in mnay races. This will not be picked up in any PPP analysis. The Buck voters will be coming and the SurveyUSA clearly shows that oversampling of Democrats is again driving misguided poll numbers. Real numbers are what counts and from the numbers above the Republicans in CO are sitting in a nice spot!
I'm sorry...but I don't really understand what you are saying.
froster (Diary) Monday, October 25th at 10:45PM EST (link)Crosstabs carry astronomical margins of error.
So are you saying there is some difference between a PPP poll showing the race tied and a SurveyUSA poll showing the race tied?
Let’s examine the difference.
Male:
PPP: Buck +10
SurveyUSA: Buck +9
Women:
PPP: Bennet +12
SurveyUSA: Bennet +13
White:
PPP: Buck +2
SurveyUSA: Bennet +1
Hispanic:
PPP: Bennet +9
SurveyUSA: Bennet +3
Already Voted:
PPP: Bennet +3
SurveyUSA: Bennet +6
Not Voted:
PPP: Buck +1
SurveyUSA: Buck +3
So now, what was your reasoning again? That PPP is Democratic cheerleading so don’t trust them? Yet the toplines are the same…and the crosstabs are in the margin of error? Huh?
Republican from California.
Sorry to confuse you Froster
constitutionalconservative (Diary) Monday, October 25th at 11:04PM EST (link)What I was suggesting is that both polls showing that the race is tied make fundamental Pro-Bennet assumptions in terms of the composition of the electorate that do not seem to be borne out by the current evidence at the ballot box.
The simplest way to state the core point is that both SUSA and PPP think that we are tied based on the notion that more Bennett voters have already voted and that Buck voters are voting later. But based on the votes already in, it is very, very likely that Buck is ahead. So if the later voters really skew for Buck– as both these pollsters say they will– then Buck will win the election.
Oh, yes, your diary was laid out very nicely, and it was a quick, but nice read.
froster (Diary) Monday, October 25th at 11:36PM EST (link)And I completely agree. The nice 5 point advantage that Buck has in early voting shows that the polls (SurveyUSA AND PPP (not just PPP)) are skewing a little bit too much towards Bennet. (As evidenced by the Bennet advantage in early-voting)
I was simply responding to bluerose75, who seemed to say SurveyUSA was more trustful than PPP even though they gave the same results.
Republican from California.
PPP has shifted
distantvoter (Diary) Tuesday, October 26th at 7:18AM EST (link)Early in the cycle, they were actually returning results that were, on average, more Republican than some other pollsters.
But in some (not all) of their recent polls, they’ve been significantly over-sampling Democrats. Examples would be in Pennsylvania, the most recent WV Senate, etc.
If they’ve over-sampled Democrats here, it is on a small basis.
I personally think they did what they did early in the cycle so as to build credibility that they weren’t biased for the Democrats. Now, they have some polls that appear reasonable (to protect that credibility, IMO) and others that are total garbage. I think they’ve decided which races they want to influence, and are keeping it fairly straight in the others (I think they are somewhat reasonable on this CO poll), while using that “credibility” to try to influence a few other races.
My guess is that they are staying “reasonable” in CO because they know it is going Republican, and they don’t want to be discredited by showing a lead for Bennet.
PPP Trend
colawman (Diary) Tuesday, October 26th at 7:27AM EST (link)PPP was the one pollster throughout the cycle that was showing Bennet with a lead. This is the first poll in which PPP has shown that Bennet’s lead has evaporated. I agree with distantvoter. PPP is no longer willing to show Bennet with the lead due to their recent abandonment as an outlier.