Gallup was very wrong. Their final poll had Mitt Romney defeating President Obama by 1 percentage point, after giving Romney a lead as high as 7 pt during the final month of the campaign. It seems now their final poll could end up being nearly 5 pt off the mark. […] Read more »
Pollsters reassess their methods after 2012 election miscalculations
Polling outlets that were hammered ceaselessly by both campaigns throughout the campaign cycle are reassessing their methods in the wake of President Obama’s convincing election victory. “We constantly review and tweak some of the things we do and if the data bears it out, we make changes,” Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank […] Read more »
After the Tumult and the Shouting
… Much has been made of the increasing whiteness of the GOP coalition, with the implication being that Mitt Romney lost because he failed to attract enough support from ethnic or racial minorities. Without doubt, this was a problem for the GOP nominee and certainly made a difference in key […] Read more »
Obama Campaign Polls: How The Internal Data Got It Right
Summing up the lessons learned from a massive investment in data and technology, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has a blunt message for pollsters: “We spent a whole bunch of time figuring out that American polling is broken.” At a Politico forum on Monday, Messina spoke about the campaign’s “three […] Read more »
Today’s Politics: Coalition of Transformation vs. Coalition of Restoration
… In terms of shaping the Democrats’ long-term trajectory, by far the most important decisions Obama made this year were to dive into the powerful cultural and demographic currents transforming the American landscape. … For better or worse, this election more clearly stamped the Republicans as a Coalition of Restoration, […] Read more »
Where Obama and Romney Beat Their Polls
I’m traveling for Thanksgiving, so we’ll keep this relatively brief. But I thought this map was worth sharing. It shows how President Obama and Mitt Romney performed on Election Day relative to the FiveThirtyEight forecasts in each state, based on the ballots counted so far. [cont.] Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight (NYT) Read more »