Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour asserted this morning on NBC’s TODAY that “Hurricane Sandy saved Barack Obama’s presidency.” But did the president’s perceived leadership during the immediate aftermath of the storm really move 2.9 million votes? That’s highly unlikely. In fact, Sandy may have actually cost the president 800,000 votes. [cont.] […] Read more »
YouGov Poll Performance In The 2012 U.S. Elections
YouGov conducted a three wave “megapoll” during the recent U.S. national elections, providing detailed estimates for the national popular vote and Presidential and Senate races in 27 states (a total of 51 contests). As in the 2008 Presidential and 2010 midterm elections, YouGov hit the national vote split with almost […] Read more »
Aggregating the Aggregates
… All told, the forecasts did quite well. But look at what worked better: averaging over the forecasts. This makes good statistical sense: as Alex points out with a fun Netflix example, it makes more sense to keep as much information as possible. In a Bayesian framework, why pick just […] Read more »
Barack Obama and the Triumph of Identity Politics
… Credit where it is due to Team Obama. Recognizing the economic headwinds the president faced, it borrowed a page from Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign, accomplishing two goals simultaneously. … First, it played to its base with a level of intensity rarely seen in the modern era. “The war on […] Read more »
Demography Not The Only Reason Romney Lost
… If winning an election depends on appealing to and then turning out a base of old, white people you are going to lose every presidential election from here on out. That model may still be enough to help Republicans win midterm elections – older and white voters turn out […] Read more »
How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis
In his re-election victory, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly defeated Republican Mitt Romney in the national popular vote (50% to 48%). Obama’s margin of victory was much smaller than in 2008 when he defeated John McCain by a 53% to 46% margin, and he lost ground among white evangelical Protestants and […] Read more »