Poll Jumpy

DonkeyRising has a few more thoughts on the state of the race:


Well, those cards and letters keep coming in, so I thought I'd respond to a few of the most common questions that have been posed to me.

1. How can you deny that Bush is ahead?

I don't. My view is that he is currently ahead, but only modestly, contrary to the tone of media coverage and the findings of some polls. I have tried to explain the reasoning behind this assessment, especially as it pertains to possible problems with contemporary polls.

It's worth noting that the latest poll data on RVs--ending the night of the 12th--have Kerry up by 2 (IBD/CSM/TIPP) or Bush up by 4 (ICR). That averages out to a 1 point Bush lead, even without party-weighting the data. And Rasmussen LV data for the period ending the 12th also has Bush with a one point lead.

2. How is it possible for samples of RVs to suddenly have too many Republican identifiers? Aren't voters just shifting their party identification?

It is certainly possible that we gone from, say, a 4-5 point Democrtic lead in party ID to a 4-5 point Republican lead in the space of the last month. But color me skeptical about this 8-10 point swing in a few short weeks.

A better explanation for this sudden shift in poll samples, in my view, is that when the political situation jazzes up supporters of one party, they are more likely to want to participate in a public opinion telephone poll and express their views. An increased rate of interview acceptance by that party’s supporters would then skew the sample toward that party without the underlying distribution having changed very much, if at all.

In this case, the Republican convention, coming on the heels of the Swift Boat controversy, may have helped raise political enthusiasm among Republican partisans, leading to more interview acceptances and a disproportionate number of Republicans in recent samples.

Do I know this for sure? No, I don't, because we lack direct evidence that this is happening, just as we lack direct evidence that individual voters are suddenly and massively shifting their party allegiance. But I do know which of these explanations I find more plausible and consistent with other evidence about the general stability of party ID.


More here

My uninformed gut tells me that this race is, and will likely remain, close. I always thought it would be, as inexplicable as that is. I have been following this interesting theory by professor James Galbraith that Bush is on a slow trajectory to defeat for some time. Basically, he says that Bush has been artificially boosted above his natural level by three events, 9/11, Iraq and the capture of Saddam. He is fairly sure that it will take an October Surprise for Bush to win:

With about seven weeks to go, this equation suggests that if no new major episode occurs, Bush should lose about 2.1 percentage points between now and Election Day. In that case, he will face John Kerry with approval ratings very close to the lows of his presidency. And very close to the floor, below which he probably can't sink.

The moral remains the same. As I've said in earlier columns, an "October surprise" could tip the balance. The country should be braced for news on the terror front from Pakistan or elsewhere. Or perhaps we'll see the gift of a "You can go home soon" speech by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. One hears, at this stage of the campaign, all kinds of rumors. They can't be verified, but they gain weight from the fact that the Bush team tried to manipulate the terror war -- ordering up well-timed arrests in Pakistan -- to squelch Kerry's convention bounce last July. Who knows what else they have planned?

On the other hand, it's clear that Bush hasn't put the contest away. Kerry can win this thing for sure.