… In the debate post-mortem, Obama’s defenders put forth a variety of explanations for the President’s underwhelming performance, beginning with Stephanie Cutters’ effort in the spin room to implicitly blame moderator Jim Lehrer for not putting a stop to Romney’ s bullying tactics. … I suspect the explanation is far […] Read more »
Debate Improvements: Using a laugh track to highlight blatant lies …
Debate Improvements: Brian McFadden, The Strip (New York Times) Read more »
Can the Debate Move the Polls?
Pollsters Bill McInturff and Fred Yang speak with Gerald F. Seib, the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Bureau Chief, about the first presidential debate. Read more »
Did past week’s events change Romney’s, Obama’s fortunes?
If you’re looking for an answer to the question of whether last week’s events — Mitt Romney’s strong debate performance in Denver and Friday’s jobs report that showed unemployment dropping to 7.8 percent — changes the trajectory of the presidential campaign, be patient and don’t rush to judgment. … One […] Read more »
September Polls and November Outcomes
Jay DeSart and I have done some work over the years on using September state-wide trial-heat polls to predict presidential election outcomes in the states. … Jay has been good enough to update our model and provide forecasts for the 2012 election. Here’s what it looks like: [cont.] Tom Holbrook, […] Read more »
Suspicion of poll, jobs numbers takes hold on right
As the presidential election reaches its apex in intensity, so have arguments from the right that polls and economic statistics — the numbers used to explain the 2012 campaign — are not to be trusted. The theory that many polls are under-sampling Republicans (and thus overstating the support for Obama) […] Read more »