While I don't necessarily believe that Romney is up 15 in Florida, this is all really bad news for Obama... http://is.gd/4uCWWG #tcot #p2
Poll Shows Romney up Huge with Seniors — Foster McCollum White & Associates
UPDATE: Be sure to read the first comment below. It is from the President of Foster McCollum explaining in great detail their poll weighting that was not reflected in the disproportionate sample sized mentioned in my post as well as other trends they are finding. There is a ton of additional data in that comment. In brief, according to Mr. Foster:
We have seen polling from Foster McCollum previously and identified the group as a Democrat polling firm. At the time they showed Obama with a 1-point lead in Michigan which was in-line with multiple other polling in Michigan. Today’s poll, however, is an enormous outlier relative to other polling in Florida. In the survey Romney leads by 15-points over President Obama in Florida. But underneath this incredible headline result we see many problems with the make-up of respondents.
The major discrepancy is the age breakdown of voters. Florida is a retirement haven for many seniors which skews the state polling disproportionately higher in age breakdown relative to the nation. But this poll was 63.54% aged 66+ and 1.33% were 18 to 30. Florida may be old, but not that old. Based on 2008 exit polls, the Youth vote made up 15% of the electorate in Florida while Seniors made up 22%. These two groups were hugely disparate in their preferences in 2008. In a state where Obama won by 3 percentage points, Seniors in Florida voted in favor of John McCain by 8 points (63 to 45) while the youth vote was strongly in favor of Obama by 24 points, 61 to 37. So this survey seriously over-samples Seniors — a staunch Republican demographic while undersampling the Youth vote — a staunchly Democrat demographic.
Biasing the poll towards Obama, the gender breakdown in the poll was 57.62% women and 42.38% men. In 2008 both demographics voted for Obama by 3-5 percentage points, but today men skew heavily for Romney while women skew heavily towards Obama.
The party ID was Dem 38%, Rep 41% (or R +3). In 2008 the party ID was Dem +3 and in 2004 it was Rep +4.
The race breakdown also over-represented white and under-represented Blacks and Hispanics.
Based on the over-weighting of seniors as well as ethnicity problems, the only salient takeaway from this poll is that the Romney addition of Ryan to the ticket is hugely popular with seniors — contrary to relentless mainstream media misrepresentations that say otherwise
Based on the respondent universes, we made the adjustment weight for the five underrepresented groups. Even though our model projects a lower turnout among primarily voters under 50, we weighted the voters ages 18 to 30 at 12% of the possible election universe and voters ages 31 to 50 at 15%, for a total of 27%.
Additional factors within our cross tabs relate to the shift in Obama’s fortunes in the state
• White Women – He is losing both in Florida and in our Michigan poll
• People ages 31 to 50 – He won this group handily in 2008, but with the economic challenges and housing struggles, this group is more disenchanted then before.
• Florida Latino voters – the Cuba community seems to be coming home to the Republican party.
• People don’t understand Obama’s plan to Ryan’s plan – Paul Ryan has provided Mitt Romney with cover for lacking details about his economic and budget plans. People can at least understand and make sense of what Ryan wants to change about Government. President Obama’s plan still seems vague to most voters. It isn’t in clear easy to understand bullet points.
• Joe Biden – Biden is not helping Obama with white men, Catholics and seniors anymore. His verbal missteps takes the Obama campaign off message.Begin original post:
We have seen polling from Foster McCollum previously and identified the group as a Democrat polling firm. At the time they showed Obama with a 1-point lead in Michigan which was in-line with multiple other polling in Michigan. Today’s poll, however, is an enormous outlier relative to other polling in Florida. In the survey Romney leads by 15-points over President Obama in Florida. But underneath this incredible headline result we see many problems with the make-up of respondents.
The major discrepancy is the age breakdown of voters. Florida is a retirement haven for many seniors which skews the state polling disproportionately higher in age breakdown relative to the nation. But this poll was 63.54% aged 66+ and 1.33% were 18 to 30. Florida may be old, but not that old. Based on 2008 exit polls, the Youth vote made up 15% of the electorate in Florida while Seniors made up 22%. These two groups were hugely disparate in their preferences in 2008. In a state where Obama won by 3 percentage points, Seniors in Florida voted in favor of John McCain by 8 points (63 to 45) while the youth vote was strongly in favor of Obama by 24 points, 61 to 37. So this survey seriously over-samples Seniors — a staunch Republican demographic while undersampling the Youth vote — a staunchly Democrat demographic.
Biasing the poll towards Obama, the gender breakdown in the poll was 57.62% women and 42.38% men. In 2008 both demographics voted for Obama by 3-5 percentage points, but today men skew heavily for Romney while women skew heavily towards Obama.
The party ID was Dem 38%, Rep 41% (or R +3). In 2008 the party ID was Dem +3 and in 2004 it was Rep +4.
The race breakdown also over-represented white and under-represented Blacks and Hispanics.
Based on the over-weighting of seniors as well as ethnicity problems, the only salient takeaway from this poll is that the Romney addition of Ryan to the ticket is hugely popular with seniors — contrary to relentless mainstream media misrepresentations that say otherwise
