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Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 10/12-14. Likely voters. MoE ±2.5% (10/4-7 results)
The candidates for President are Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. If the election was today, who would you vote for?
Obama 46 (47)
Romney 50 (49)
At a time when other polls are moving back in the president's direction, our own weekly poll by Public Policy Polling saw the opposite—a two-point Romney gain. Per day:
Friday (38%) Obama 47, Romney 49
Saturday (39%) Obama 49, Romney 47
Sunday (24%) Obama 43, Romney 55
That Sunday sample, about a quarter of the total, was entirely responsible for Romney's favorable numbers. That's why the good pollsters collect data over multiple days, to smooth out such irregularities. And at 400 respondents (or so), Sunday had a single-day MoE of 4.9 percent. Lots of polls float around with worse. On the other hand, Saturday's sample MoE was 3.92 percent, while Friday's was 3.97 percent. And with no external news even suggesting the big Sunday collapse, it certainly smells like an outlier.
Moving on:
Swing state Obama 47, Romney 50
Blue state Obama 52, Romney 45
Red State Obama 40, Romney 56
Two weeks ago, it was Obama leading Romney 50-46 in the Swing states. But he was also winning Blue states by 56-37, and losing Red states by just 41-52. Actually, the change in Red states is smaller (-5) compared to Blue states (-12) and Swing states (-7).
Finally, a demographic note—in this poll, 44 percent of respondents were conservative, compared to 16 percent who were liberal. In 2008, 34 percent were conservative, and 22 percent were liberal. Now this could point to a bad sample, or it could point to depressed enthusiasm among our base. Let's really hope it's the former.