Comments on: The McCain Democrats May Matter More Anyway

By: Eunomia » Barr And Obama

Eunomia » Barr And Obama — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:38:10 +0000

[...] Obama’s biggest potential problem among his Republican supporters remains moderate Republicans, who are exactly the sort of “soft” or independent Republicans whom Obama should be able to peel away under normal circumstances, but whom McCain appeals to for reasons that continue to escape me.Â Single-issue antiwar votersÂ who back Obama will not be pulled awayÂ by Barr for two reasons: Barr is not running a purely antiwar campaign, but a comprehensive small government, conservative-libertarian campaign, and they believe that Obama can actually end the war, which is their top priority (that’s why their single-issue voters).Â As I have said before, though, this microscopic analysis of Obama’s Republican and right-wing supporters will probably matter very little to the final outcome, because McCain continues to pull away more Democrats from Obama than he loses among Republicans. [...]

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:16:09 +0000

The non-incumbent party always polls better this far in advance of the election, and then performs worse come Election Day. This is what I have been saying for weeks and weeks. We can rattle off the list–Nixon, Carter, Dukakis, Bush the Younger–and see that the incumbent party candidate gains strength as Election Day nears. Sometimes it is not enough to win (1968), and other times it is enough to result in a near-landslide (1988). So the answer to your question is: to some extent. But the pattern suggests that the likely Democratic nominee is not going to get stronger, but rather the opposite. Otherwise, when the challenger didn’t lose ground from early polling it is usually because the incumbent party candidate was leading comfortably all along. I agree that it will likely be a close election, which is amazing when you look at things like the generic ballot in Hotline’s new poll. Dems win the generic ballot by 8 points, and both of their candidates trail by at least 2.

N.B. I am not making predictions. I am reporting what the polling data show right now. So, actually, forget about what this does or doesn’t tell us about November. It definitely reflects with some accuracy what public attitudes are at the moment.

By: jaloren

jaloren — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:01:33 +0000

“To the extent that polling this far removed from November is any indication of real voting preferences…”

Well, to what extent is polling this far removed from November any indication of real voting preferences? As far as I can tell, the answer is little to none. It seems to me that these types of electoral predictions are without evidentiary basis–i.e. speculation.

I argue this for two reasons: voters possess notoriously short attention span and it will be a close election (even though it should not be). As a result, the winner of the election will be determined by events that neither campaign will have control over (e.g. recession, price of oil, another terrorist attack etc).