If you are interested in what people actually think about the health reform bill, you really should read all of the responses. Not only are they great data points, but they have a level of honesty almost entirely lacking in the national media discourse on the bill. You can read them all here.
While reading through the reasons people gave for opposing the bill, several things stuck out:
Little of the opposition comes from the left. Of the 508 responses for people who opposed the bill, only 20 gave reasons that strongly suggested left-wing opposition. 75 others gave either entirely vague responses that might have been left-wing opposition, or focused entirely on the mandate without offering up any obvious indicators of right-wing opposition. 433 gave responses that were very unlikely to be based on left-wing opposition. I have sorted all of the responses here, so you can judge my sorting for yourself (note: the file shows 436 responses that unlikely to be left-wing, but there are three doubles I can't identify).
Even in the highly unlikely scenario where all 75 of the unclear responses were based on left-wing opposition, that still means that only 19% of the people who oppose health reform do so from the left. In the more likely scenario where the unclear results are split, or skewed significantly to the right, then only between 4-11% of the country opposes the bill from the left. Those numbers would represent 5% of the population or under.
This data is superior to vaguer questions such as "does the bill go far enough," which can have many conflicting meanings to the general population.
People don't care about process. Only about 3% of those who opposed the bill focused on process issues like not being bipartisan, moving too quickly, or the use of budget reconciliation. Most of the opposition was substantive-opposed to the methodology) or ideological (opposed to the purpose).
A such, it seems that Democrats should do well when Republicans are complaining about process. The main arguments that seem to be working for Republicans are complaints about the cost, socialized medicine, government takeover, and that you shouldn't have to pay for other people's insurance. When Republicans are not hitting on those points, they are ignoring the most successful arguments against the bill.
Abortion a minimal factor. Even though Stupak bloc seems to represent the biggest obstavle to passing the bill, only 2-3% of those who opposed the bill mentioned "funding abortions" as their primary reason. Stupak and his allies are catering to a very narrow constieuncy.
Good stuff. I wish more polling outfits would ask open-ended questions like these, and release all of the responses online. It provides much more clarity into what the country is actually thinking than just the topline poll numbers themselves.
In a truly surprising comeback, since the Massachusetts special election seven weeks ago, health reform has gained a net 7% in national popularity, and a majority no longer opposes it. Pollster.com:
Health reform popularity trendline, January 21-March 10
The Democratic health reform bill is actually 2% more popular on net now than it was back in early November, when the House first passed a bill.
With all that said, the bill is still not very popular, especially in relative historical terms. Congress rarely passes unpopular laws, and that has always been at the heart of the difficulty in passing this bill.
Still, at this rate of growth, it is possible that a plurality will favor reform by Latin Easter (April 4th), the current goal for President Obama to sign the bill into law.
And now it deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote that was cast on welfare reform, the Children's Health Insurance Program, COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and both Bush tax cuts - all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.
I have therefore asked leaders in both of Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well.
Over the next week: Senate proves to House that they have the votes to pass a fix to the health reform bill via reconciliation. Simultaneously, House leaders whip to find enough votes to pass Senate health reform bill. Once both conditions have been met, the House will take up the Senate health reform bill and a reconciliation "fix" to that bill.
By March 19th: The House passes the Senate health reform bill
By March 20th: President Obama signs the Senate health reform bill into law
By March 21st: House passes reconciliation bill to "fix" the Senate bill, and send it to the Senate
By March 23rd: Senate takes up reconciliation bill.
As this all unfolds, the health reform bill is surprisingly making a comeback in the polls. While still not very popular, health reform has gained a net of roughly 4% over the past month, moving to only a net negative 7.7% nationally:
The health reform bill is now only 1% less popular on net than when it passed the House back in November. It is actually more popular than when it passed the Senate. Further, if current trends hold, a majority of the country won't even oppose it in just a couple more days.
It is unclear what is causing the health reform bill to back a comeback. The upward rise in polling actually started before the health reform summit. If I had to just guess, my bet is that Republicans have started to focus on abstract process messaging to their own detriment. Back when Democrats had to focus on process issues like passing the bill through the Finance Committee, clearing "cloture" three times, making deals to a couple of holdout Senators, and wrangling with various constituency groups, the bill just sounded like an inside job to more Americans. Now, opponents of the bill our focusing their public messaging on the inside game, and it is hurting them.
Rather than slamming quick hits with half a dozen entries, here are six polls released today worth noticing:
Indiana Senate looks terrible for Democrats. Both leading contenders (Evansville Mayor, Jonathan Weinzapfel, has apparently bowed out) to be the Democratic nominee in Indiana are losing by at least 10% to every potential Republican nominee, according to Rasmussen reports. So, it looks like keeping Evan Bayh's seat will be a real longshot for Democrats. Groovy.
I will attempt to have a full Senate forecast up later today. Tomorrow at the latest.
There appears to be a strong anti-Palin vote, as President Obama's numbers go up to 50% when matched against her. Against everyone else, he is steady at 45-46%.
Nevada health care poll. The PCCC / DFA / CREDO coalition that is conducting the Senate whip count on the public option has released a new poll on health care in Nevada. The key findings are what people following polls closely would expect:
The overall health care bill is unpopular;
The public option is popular;
Voters don't really care about process issues like reconciliation and the filibuster.
Nothing untoward about Fire Dog Lake House polls. Nate Silver analyzes the Fire Dog Lake polls of four House districts. He concludes that there was nothing fishy about the polls, just a significant pro-Republican House effect due to methodological decisions made by SurveyUSA (not by FDL)
So I don't think there's anything untoward that's gone on here -- although there do appear to be some house effects in these congressional district polls resulting from methodological decisions that SurveyUSA has made.
I am with Nate here, and I am pretty much done criticizing individual polls myself. After my research on election forecasting showed that just taking the simple mean of all polls conducted over the last fifteen days of a campaign produced the most accurate results around, I've pretty much got a deaf ear now when it comes to complaints of bias or methodological flaws in any single poll. Forecasting works out best when you look at them all equally, rather than sifting out polls you don't like. Poll averaging is more accurate than any individual pollster.
House ballot update. After forgetting for a few days, I have finally updated the National House Ballot again. I am trying to get a seat by seat House forecast completed soon. Apologies for the delay.
A seventh poll worth looking at, but already mentioned in Quick Hits, comes from the Illinois Senate race. According to an internal poll, Democrat Alexis Giannoulias leads by 4%.
Activists in the Tea Party movement tend to be male, rural, upscale, and overwhelmingly conservative, according to a new national poll.
They should add "overwhelmingly tend to exaggerate their political involvement" to that list of adjectives. This is because 11% of the country are not tea-party activists:
According to the survey, roughly 11 percent of all Americans say they have actively supported the Tea Party movement, either by donating money, attending a rally, or taking some other active step to support the movement.
The poll surveyed adults aged 18 years and over. This group makes up 75.7% of the population, according to the Census Buereau. With a national population of 308,703,482, that would make about 26 million tea party activists.
For some perspective on why these numbers are simply wrong, consider than less than ten million people donated to political campaigns in 2008, and that the largest gathering in the entire history of the United States was the three million people who turned out for the Boston Red Sox victory parade after they won the World Series in 2004.
So, even if tea party activists have magically equaled the record protest when no one noticed, and even if they have more donors than all political campaigns in 2008 combined, and even if none of the people who turned out at these mythical rallies were also political donors, even then they only have half as many activists as this CNN poll claims.
Part of this is a problem with the poll, which vaguely includes people who are "taking some other active step to support the movement," whatever that means. However, the main problem comes from the tendency for Americans to grossly exaggerate their level of political activism. Consider:
For example, the current population survey taken by the Census Bureau estimates that total turnout in 2006 was over 96,000,000, even though, as I already pointed out, it was a shade under 86,000,000.
About 5-10% of the American adult population claims to be political active, but actually are not. Perhaps they feel guilty for not participating and politics, so they tell other people that they participate. Perhaps they consume a lot of news, and consider that political activism in and of itself. Perhaps they would like to be political activists, but simply haven't gotten around to it. Whatever the case, between two and three times as many Americans claim to go to political rallies, donate to campaigns, and take other action (contacting elected officials or members of the media, wearing political paraphernalia, joining a political organization) than actually go to political rallies, donate to campaigns or take other action.
Believe me, I wish that about 20% of the country were political activists. Not only would it make for a much better democracy in this country, but it would make political punditry and activism of the sort we do here on Open Left a huge, booming business. The truth is, however, that at most 10 million Americans, or about 4% of the adult population, are political activists. This means that surveys of political activists, like the one conducted by CNN, pretty much just survey the much larger group of faux-activists. So, I guess we at least get to know what all the posers are like.
Even though the tea party protests are almost universally hailed as the grassroots backbone of the Republican electoral resurgence, a look at polling trendlines suggests that the tea party protests were actually pretty ineffective at shaping public opinion.
For example, from August 1st through September 12th, the height of the tea party protest activity (the period of the health care town halls through the tea party march on D.C.), support for the health care plan actually went up:
Health care plan, favor / oppose, August 1st through September 20th
It was only after the tea-party protests had faded from public view, around the beginning of October, that support for the health care plan really began to crash:
Health care plan, favor / oppose, September 21st forward
Even though they are frequently hailed as such, the tea party protesters were not a driving force in the falling popularity of health care reform. The credit they receive is pretty specious, coming from commenters who see health care reform falling, and see people protesting health care reform, and then conclude, without any evidence, that the protests must have been the cause of the fall in popularity. It is borderline astrology--you see stars move, and see events unfold on Earth, and think that there must be a causal relationship between the two.
It wasn't even necessary to look into the polling trendlines to conclude that the tea party protests were not the main cause for the lack of popularity of the health care bill. Only about 34% of Americans oppose the health care bill from the right, while another 12-13% oppose passing it from the left. (Many people who don't think the bill goes far enough still favor passing it. Also, about 5% of the country oppose passing the bill but did not specify their opposition in ideological terms.)
While this still means that most opposition to health care reform comes from the right, the left-wing opposition is high enough to prevent a majority center-left coalition from forming. To demonstrate this point, try to imagine the chances of a Democrat being elected President if Nader was receiving between 12-13% support in national polls. That is simply too much left-wing opposition create a majority coalition for Democrats, and that is the problem health care reform faces.
The tea-party protests did not move public opinion on health reform, and they are not the cause of insufficient left-wing support for the health care bill. They have certainly got a lot of articles written about them, but that is a long way from demonstrating a causal relationship between their efforts and declining Democratic popularity.
The Republican Party has nearly erased their once massive favorability deficit on the Democratic Party.
According to the four most recent public polls conducted on party favorability (see ABC, Fox, CNN and Pew), the Republican Party is now viewed nearly as favorably as the Democratic Party:
Favorability ratings, two major parties, January-February ABC, CNN, Fox and Pew polls
Favorable
Unfavorable
Net
Democratic Party
46.5%
46.0%
0.5%
Republican Party
44.0%
47.3%
-3.3%
Across these four polls, the Democratic lead in party favorability is now only 3.3%. Over the summer, from June through August, the situation was very different in these same four polls:
Favorability ratings, two major parties, June-August ABC, CNN, Fox and Pew polls
Favorable
Unfavorable
Net
Democratic Party
51.0%
40.3%
10.7%
Republican Party
38.3%
52.3%
-14.0%
Over the past six months, the Democratic favorability advantage across these four polls has dropped 21%, from 24.75% to 3.75%. That is a pretty steep decline for six months.
What's worse, the change has come not only from declining Democratic Party favorable ratings, but from improving Republican Party favorable ratings. This is not just seeing the two parties as equally bad, but a real improvement for Republicans. Whatever the cause, a significant percentage of the country seems to have either forgotten or forgiven the problems created under Republican governance.
* Defined as Medicaid and Department of Health and Human Services. General "health care" numbers from Pew poll used.
Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to all types of spending cuts. Outside of the State department and NASA, which account for less than 2% of all federal government spending, at least five out of six Americans do not want to see the federal government cut spending in any other area.
More than five out of six Americans are opposed to cutting 98% of the federal budget. Most don't want to cut the remaining 2%, either. Keep that in mind whenever you hear politicians calling for spending cuts, and polls claiming that voters want spending cuts.
Budget documents provided by the Obama administration show that in Fiscal Year 2009 50% of all federal spending went to national defense, Social Security and Medicare. When the cost of veterans affairs are included, that number grows to 53%. Five percent (5%) paid interest on the federal debt, and 42% was used for everything else in the budget.
However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that only 35% of voters believe that the majority of federal spending goes to just defense, Social Security and Medicare. Forty-four percent (44%) say it's not true, and 20% are not sure.
Voters claim, in the abstract to want spending cuts. However, they don't know what the government spending money on. When given a possible list of cuts, Americans overwhelmingly reject them all (with the possible exception of NASA).
How many Americans participated in tea-party protests this year? Well, if you believe a Republican pollster, the number is around 5,000,000:
Americans don't claim to be experts Tea Party movement, but that hasn't stopped them from getting behind what they think the movement is about. That's according to a new poll from Republican pollster McLaughlin conducted for National Review.(...)
The poll shows that 52% were sympathetic to the Tea Party's goals of, as the pollster described it, "protesting deficit spending and Washington's expanded role in the private sector." About 6% said they had personally participated in protests. Around 30% said they "did not agree" with the aims of the movement.
The McLaughlin poll surveyed people who were considered likely to vote in 2010. If one were to take an conservative estimate, and say that only 85,724,135 people were to vote this year (the same number that voted in 2006), then about 5.1 million people claim to have participated in tea-party protests in 2009. That is a number way, way beyond any estimation of participation in the protests.
I point this out not to try and discredit the poll, but rather to take a dig at the people answering the poll. This is hardly the first instance of Americans exaggerating their level of civic participation. For example, the current population survey taken by the Census Bureau estimates that total turnout in 2006 was over 96,000,000, even though, as I already pointed out, it was a shade under 86,000,000.
The kindest way it put all this in context is to say that millions of Americans exaggerate their level of their civic participation. A less kind way is to say that about 5-10% of Americans lie about their level of civic participation. This segment of dedicated exaggerators is one of the reasons why accurate likely voter models are difficult for pollsters to construct, and also a good reason to remember that public surveys are usually close estimates, rather than an exact measurement.
Two recent Democracy Corps polls present counter-intuitive findings about the nature of "drop-off voters" (that is, people who voted in 2008 but who are unlikely to vote in 2010). According to the polls, those who voted in 2008, but who are unlikely to vote in 2010, are much more positive about the direction of the country than people who are likely to vote in 2010.
This finding is important, because it damages a theory, prevalent in progressive circles, that drop-off voters are motivated primarily by a growing cynicism with the failure of Democrats to deliver on sweeping change. Here are the numbers:
Democracy Corps, January Q.10 Generally speaking, do you think that things in this country are going in the right direction, or do you feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track?
Likely Voters
Drop off Voters
Right Direction
36%
45%
Wrong Track
58%
43%
Net
-21%
+2%
Democracy Corps, November Q.10 Generally speaking, do you think that things in this country are going in the right direction, or do you feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track?
Likely Voters
Drop off Voters
Right Direction
35%
42%
Wrong Track
58%
50%
Net
-23%
-8%
(The sub-sample of drop-off voters is small in both polls (133 in January, 125 in November). As such, it has a large margin or error of about plus or minus 8.5%.
However, margin of error can break both ways, and the odds or a poll erring closer to its published, topline numbers are higher than the odds of a poll erring toward the outer boundaries of its margin of error. As such, even with that 8.5% margin of error, there is a very high probability that drop-off voters have a more positive opinion about the direction of the country than likely voters.)
As that's not all. As I discuss in the extended entry, drop-off voters also have a more favorable view of their incumbent member of Congress, and are less likely to reject the two-party system than likely voters. Plus, they like President Obama, Democrats, and the health care bill.
Democrats have lost 6% in the generic ballot from 2008 due to people switching from Democrats to Republicans, and have lost an additional 3% from projected lower Democratic turnout. Even though this means there are about as many 2008 Democratic voters switching to Republicans as there are Democrats who are currently unlikely to vote in 2010. Those who are switching to Republicans are causing twice as many problems because they are removing a vote from the Democratic column and adding one to the Republican column, while those deciding not to vote are just removing one from the Democratic problem.
The problem Democrats face from voters defecting to Republicans is exacerbated when one conducted a closer examination of the 2008 national congressional vote. While GQR posits a 2008 Democratic victory of 53%-45%, the Green Papers shows that Democrats actually won by 53.18%--42.53%, or 9.65%. This suggests that Democrats have lost even more than 6% to voters who have defected from Democrats to Republicans--possibly as much as 7-8%.
Additionally, as I wrote three weeks ago, some of the lower Democratic turnout is entirely natural, given lower turnout for youth voters in midterm elections:
Long-term data from the census bureau indicates that the turnout gap between Americans above and below the age of 45 widens significantly in mid-term elections. For example, over the last nine Presidential elections, Americans aged 45-64 turned out, on average, at a rate 12.7% higher than Americans aged 25-44. However, in mid-term elections, the average gap over the last nine cycles has been 17.1%. Given that Obama won 55% of the vote among Americans aged 25-44, but only 50% of the vote among Americans aged 45-64, this "natural" turnout problem facing Democrats in mid-term elections also makes the specific problems they face in 2010 appear more pronounced than it actually is. Midterms electorates are worse for Democrats than presidential electorates.
Altogether, this makes the problem of voters switching from Democrats to Republicans much worse than the problem of lower Democratic turnout.
This isn't to say that lower Democratic turnout isn't a problem, because it is. Also, this isn't to say that Democrats will appeal to those voters who have currently moved over to the GOP will be brought back by centrism. There is simply no evidence of that, and it is far more likely that improving economic conditions would do much more to bring them back into the fold than any abstract ideological maneuver.
What this data does indicate that it is wrongheaded to blame current Democratic electoral problems mainly on a failure to "excite the base." Even if Democrats brought all 2008 voters back to the booths in 2010, they would still be facing significant losses. To prevent any losses, they must hold together their entire 2008 coalition, which means bringing 2008 Democratic voters who are currently favoring Republicans back into the fold. Short of a remarkable economic recovery that few economists are predicting, it is hard to imagine at this can be done in its entirety. Democrats are in charge, things suck, and so they are inevitably going to lose voters both to apathy and to the opposition party.
Earlier today, I pointed out that the Massachusetts swung 18% against Martha Coakley during a time when national trends on Obama job approval, the health care bill, and the national House ballot remained static. From this evidence, I concluded that the main, though certainly not the only, cause of defeat in Massachusetts was a large gap in the quality of both the candidates and the campaigns.
Some people objected to that post, claiming that polling itself it stupid. The more sensible claims argued that I was comparing national trends to local ones. Even though that was precisely my point-campaign specific trends were more to blame than national trends--here is a look at local, Massachusetts polling that underscores the weak candidate theory:
PPP did not poll the health care bill in the two polls, but still hard to see pinning the late movement this primarily on President Obama. Granted, his 44-43 approval rating is very weak for a state like Massachusetts and helped set the table for a more difficult election.
This poll suggests a combination of factors. President Obama's approval rating dropped by a bit more than half the amount of Coakley's lead (19 vs. 35). Still, this would imply a primarily mixed result, where national trends and the differences between the candidates were roughly equal
However, assigning even that level of blame to national trends becomes difficult given that Coakley moved from a net favorable advantage of plus 29 on Brown, to a net disadvantage of negative 30. That is a 59 point swing against Coakley in terms of candidate and campaign quality, three times the drop in President Obama's favorable ratings.
****
Coakley lost last night by a little less than 5%. Available, empirical evidence suggests that last night's defeat would not have happened in such a poor, national political climate for Democrats (which cost Coakley at least 9%, and possibly as much as 15-19%). At the same time, she would not have lost without such a large difference in quality between the campaigns and the candidates, which cost Coakley at least 11% and more likely something around 18%.
There is not much supporting evidence for those looking to pin the blame entirely on the Obama administration and the national political environment. At worst, it was a roughly equal cause to the local campaign factors. It is much more likely that the local factors were the main (but, once again, certainly not the only) cause of defeat. But really, removing either problem would have prevented this disastrous result.
Think Martha Coakley lost mainly because of President Obama, the national Democratic position, and health care? Think again.
The following four charts measure trendlines since December 31st for the Massachusetts Senate race, the popularity of health care reform, the national congressional ballot, and President Obama's job approval. What they show is that Martha Coakley trended sharply downward during a time when opinions about the health care bill and the 2010 congressioanl vote were static, and job approval of President Obama was on the rise:
President Obama, job approval trend since December 31st
National Congressional Ballot, trend since December 31st
(Note: My numbers show a slightly better position for Democrats because I include Daily Kos polls)
Health care plan, favor / oppose trend since December 31st
Massachusetts Senate race, trend since December 31st
Martha Coakley went from a 13% lead to a 5% deficit since December 31st, for a swing of 18%. During that exact same time period, national approval of the health care bill stayed exactly the same, the national congressional ballot stayed exactly the same, and President Obama saw a 2% upswing in his approval rating.
The national political environment is worse for Democrats than it was in 2008. As I pointed out last night, the generic congressional ballot shows a 9% swing toward Republicans since Election Day, 2008. However, Martha Coakley's campaign dropped 18% independent of this trend.
There is a lot of blame to go around. However, the available evidence shows that the bulk of it rests on the candidate and the campaign. On that front, it is also worth considering the relative difference between the Scott Brown and Martha Coakley campaigns. That is, Coakley could have been slightly below average rather than terrible, while Scott Brown--and the conservative organizing behind him--might have been fantastic.
This projects to a 70% chance of a Brown victory (and thus a 30% chance of a Coakley victory).
That is a bit better for Coakley than most other forecasts, mainly because my methodology discounts trendlines over the final two weeks. While that may not hold up in this specific case, my research indicates that discounting trends over the last 15 days produces about 20% more accurate results than regression analysis which emphasizes more recent results. Across 144 instances, one occasion of greater error in a special election won't change those findings much.
We will find out soon enough. This is an open thread on the Massachusetts special election. Results thread will appear at 8 p.m. In the comments, please post links to election returns websites.
There is a lot of useless information floating around about the Massachusetts Senate campaign. Here is some information that should actually be helpful:
No exit polls. There will be no exit polls tonight.
Anecdotal reports on turnout mean nothing. Barring a comparison to:
Past turnout levels;
At exactly the same point in the day;
Across several dozen, randomly selected precincts;
And only if that selection of precincts is representative of the state as a whole;
Then, and only then, will all those reports you are hearing about turnout mean anything at all.
There is no such systematic turnout report. Since there is no such systematic comparison, the turnout reports you hear favoring one side or the other are not solid information on how the election is going. As mikegehrke wrote over twitter:
New fake exit poll: 48-52 gonna be a squeaker! Turnout at some guys precinct in Wooster looks moderate.
That goes for absentee ballot reports, too. Barring a statewide comparison of absentee ballot reporting, the same argument in bullet point #2 applies here.
Polls close at 8 p.m.. Results will start coming in at 8 p.m., but really won't start coming in for at least 30 minutes after that.
Following the results live. Still haven't found a site that lists them town by town, but the Boston Globe and The Boston Channel are good bets. If you have a better one, please post it in the comments.
What are Coakley's chances?About 20%, averaged across the forecasting methodologies I have found to be the most accurate in the past.
In my experience, most people prefer anecdotal, or even entirely subjective, information that supports their perspective. Grounding in empirical observation, facts, and solid reasoning is frustrating rare. Consider that when watching the pre- and post-election spin during the rest of the day.
I want to reiterate something Nate Silver wrote last night: although Scott Brown is the favorite, he is by no means a 100% lock to win. This is the case across all forecasting models:
On Pollster.com, Charles Franklin looks at 18 forecasting models for the campaign, all of which show Brown ahead. However, a lead in a forecasting model, even across 18 forecasting models, is still not a lock.
Franklin says that the standard estimate for Pollster.com shows Brown ahead by 6.2% (although the chart at Pollster.com says 6.9%). In the 55 closest (under 17.0% estimate) statewide elections from 2008-2009, there were 5 instances where Pollster.com's standard Loess regression estimate missed the final results by more than 6.2%, and 4 instances where it was missed the final results by more than 6.9%. That would give Martha Coakley a 4% chance to win if the lead is 6.9%, and a 5% chance to win if the lead is 6.2%.
On 538, Coakley is given a 25% chance to win, and Brown an estimated advantage of 2.2%. That squares with my estimate of Nate's error rate. Based on Nate's 2008 results and a deficit of 2.2%, Coakley would have a 24% chance to win.
And finally, my model gives Coakley a 35% chance to win (although, in this specific case, I actually think it is less, around 31%, given the recent trendline).
4%, 5%, 25%, 31%, 35%--none of these are great chance for Coakley, but they are still chances. This campaign has not reached the 10% range, at which point the odds of victory would be reduced to zero (at least in an election pitting a Democrat vs. a Republican).
Another point of hope for Coakley is that no polling was conducted yesterday. Brown's support is very new, and thus very soft. As such, it is possible there has been some movement back in her direction since Sunday night. Public opinion does not follow physical laws, and just because a candidate was trending upward does not mean that candidate will continue to trend upward.
My best estimate, based on the available data, is that Brown will win by between 0.9% and 2.7%. However, no matter which way you look at it, Coakley does still have a chance. Not a good chance, but a chance none the less.
Based on that model, I feel pretty confident Scott Brown will not win by as much as 6.9%, as Pollster.com is currently estimating. Unfortunately, I feel pretty confident Scott Brown will win anyway. The polling is converging and, as such, so are the electoral forecasts.
Further, the error in my model will probably favor Brown at this point. This is because the polls from the second to last week of the campaign are more favorable to Coakley than the polls over the final week. A report by NCPP showed that polls taken in the second to last week of the campaign are about 15% less accurate than polls taken during the final week of the campaign. While I have not yet tested to see if applying this negative 15% weight to polls taken during the penultimate week of the campaign would produce even more accurate results, I suspect it would.
So, I think it will be closer than many are forecasting, but I still think Scott Brown will win. While a Coakley win is not out of the question, at this point it is not very likely.
Charles Franklin of Pollster.com, whose polling analysis I respect greatly, has posted an article claiming:
But no matter how you slice the data, the only reasonable conclusion is that Scott Brown has moved from well behind to a lead somewhere between 4 and 11 points.
I disagree, for two reasons:
Pollster.com methodology over-emphasizes recent polls. There is empirical evidence that Franklin's methodology overemphasizes recent polls (that is, polls in the final week of the campaign over polls in the second and third weeks). In this case, that means Pollster.com is probably overstating the rapid shift toward Brown.
As I noted on Friday, here is a comparison of the 2008 average error rates from final estimation to final vote margin for 538 (which weights polls on a variety of factors, including recentness), Pollster.com (whose Loess method pretty much only weights polls on recentness) and a simple, 15-day mean which does not weight polls based on recentness (or really, anything at all):
Error rates, final predicted margin to final vote margin, 52 closest campaigns, 2008
Pollster
538
Simple 15-day mean
Mean error
2.76
2.88
2.56
Median error
2.14
2.16
1.68
By not placing any extra weight on more recent polling, the simple, 15-day mean actually produced results about 22% more accurate on the median than more recentness-focused methodologies. This wasn't a fluke, either. Looking back to 2004, across 143 campaigns, including older polls at equal weight did not harm the accuracy of the simple mean:
Mean error rate, various date ranges, simple polling mean, 143 campaigns, 2004-2009
30-day
25-day
20-day
15-day
10-day
Mean error
2.63
2.60
2.56
2.54
2.59
All of this makes it a good bet that the Pollster.com trendline is overstating the trend toward Brown. It doesn't mean that the trend doesn't exist, just that it is smaller than the trend posited by Franklin.
It is likely that there are a lot of flawed polls on the campaign. There is a very good reason not to trust the available data (aka, the polling) on the Massachusetts special election. Later in the same article, Franklin notes:
Finally but significantly, we are seeing more pollster variation in this race than normal. If we look at the residuals around the trend estimates, past experience with 2004, 2006 and 2008 state and national contests has pretty consistently found that most of the polls (about 95%) fall within +/- 5 points of the trend estimate. Now that is an empirical observation, not a theoretical one.(...)
Only half of the current polls are inside +/-5 points of the linear trends.
Normally, 19 out of 20 polls group together, which also happens to be the percentage of polls that should group together given polling error rates. But in this case, the polls are not grouping together at all. Half of all polls on the special election are outliers. The odds of this occurring naturally are astronomical--how often does a 1 in 20 shot happen 5 times out of 10?.
There are two more likely explanations for the outlying data: a rapidly trending campaign, or massive error in the polls. Now as I explained above, apparent rapid movement in a Democratic vs. Republican campaign turns out to be illusory--or at least significantly overstated--more often than not. As such, this means the most likely explanation is that the polling data is itself f*cked heavily flawed.
If the polling data is heavily flawed, then we are potentially dealing with a situation that outlies from the 4-11% Scott Brown lead that Franklin posited based on existing data. In that scenario, is it more likely that Scott Brown is ahead by less than 4%, or that he is ahead by more than 11%? I agree that Scott Brown may well win--I actually give him a 48% chance at this point. However, the idea that he will win by more than 11% strains credulity. As Nate Silver notes, such a Scott Brown victory would require the electorate in Massachusetts to be more conservative than the country as a whole. Not bloody likely.
As such, one can be reasonable, and conclude based empirical observations of polling dynamics that Scott Brown is ahead by less than 4%, or even slightly behind. There is good reason to believe that much of the polling data (cough, Pajamas Media, cough) is screwy, and overstating the extent of Scott Brown's rise.
I rate this campaign as extremely close, and believe it will be decided by less than 2%. The forecasts currently showing the campaign as "lean Brown" are overstating the extent of Scott Brown's rise. This is both because a focus on late polls has historically overstated campaign trends, and because it is likely there is something screwy in the existing data.
Coakley still with a 90.6% chance to win. Normally, a lead of 8.2% would give Coakley a 97.5% chance to win. This is because only 7 of the 138 closest statewide general elections from 2004-2009 show a difference of 8.2% of greater from the final polling average to the final result (((7 / 138)/2) = 0.025).
However, because of the difficulties associated with special election polling, her chances of winning are only 90.6%. This is assuming average polling error in special elections to be the same as primary elections (7.0%), instead of general elections (3.9%). This makes a lead of 8.2% equivalent to a lead of 4.6%. In the 138 closest statewide general elections from 2004-2009, there were 26 instances where the final polling margin was 4.55% or more divergent from the final vote result (((26 / 138)/2) = 0.094).
What about those rumored polls? No rumored polls are included in my averages. Until those polls are released to the public, they will stay that way. This includes the rumor of a Republican poll showing Coakley up 11%, a Boston Herald poll showing Coakley up only 1%., and Coakley's internal polling showing her up only 5%. Let's look at each of these rumors:
Even if the 11% poll exists, it was taken too long ago to be included in the final averages, so it doesn't matter.
The 1% poll from the Boston Herald was first rumored 5 days ago. Media outlets don't sit on sponsored polls that long. It doesn't exist. It was either referring to the PPP poll that eventually showed Brown up 1%, or it was just bullshit.
Taegan Goddard's rumor about Coakley's internal polling only showing her up 5% must refer to the one-day sample of her internal polling on the 11th. This is because Coakley released an internal poll that was conducted from January 8th through the 10th, and Goddard reported the rumor on the evening of the 12th. At that time, the interviews for internal polling on the night of the 12th would still have been ongoing. So, even if Goddard is correct, he is referring to a one-day sample, which would have a high margin of error, and as such is not to be taken seriously.
In short, the rumored polls either don't exist, or they don't matter.
Why do the polls diverge so much? Which one is right? First, the polls don't actually diverge. As Mark Blumenthal showed on Sunday, they just project different turnout levels. All pollsters seem to agree that the higher the turnout, the larger Coakley's advantage becomes (and vice-versa). The campaign is tied among those who are "absolutely certain" to vote, but Coakley has wide leads among those who are less certain to vote.
The best bet, given the success of polling averages in predicting elections, is to just average all of the polls. With an average error of only 2.6% (actually 2.57%) from the final 15-day average to the final result, simple polling averages have proven to be the most accurate measure of election results available. It is more likely that there is a kernel of truth in all the polls than absolute accuracy in one or two of them.
Doesn't Rasmussen show the campaign tightening? My research shows, pretty conclusively, that including multiple polls from the same polling firm in the average, rather than just the most recent poll from each polling firm (which is what I did in 2008), reduces the error in the polling averages. So, the issue isn't if one polling firm shows the campaign tightening, but if the overall average is tightening. On that front, the Rasmussen poll did show the campaign tightening, but only from 9.8% to 8.2%.
What is the lesson in all of this for Democrats? This one is easy: the political environment is terrible for Democrats, and they are going to lose seats in 2010. Duh.
Why is Democratic turnout so low? This is very hard to say. No one has conducted a survey asking people who voted in 2008, but who do not intend to vote in 2010, why they don't intend to vote in 2010. Until such a poll is conducted, every theory about why Democratic turnout is down is just pure speculation. In most cases, pundits will just say that Democratic turnout is down because Democrats aren't doing what that pundit thinks they should do.
If Scott Brown wins, then the health care bill will not pass. There will be no 60th vote for Democrats in the Senate, meaning they have to go through Olympia Snowe. However, many members of Congress might well be scared off by the Scott Brown win, thus causing some lost votes on the right. Also, with everything the House Progressives feel like it has already had to swallow, some votes will probably be lost on the left, too. With only a three-vote margin in the House, a zero vote margin in the Senate, and the need to restart the month-long House-Senate negotiation process entirely, it is very difficult to envision the bill passing in any form if Scott Brown wins. In all likelihood, the whole thing unravels at the finish line.
With so much at stake, Dems, unions piling on ads. Given everything that is at stake in the Massachusetts special elections, both SEIU and the DSCC are making major advertising purchases in the campaign. They know Scott Brown is a longshot, but that he can still win. And they know what that means for the health care bill.
When is the election? The election takes place in six days, on Tuesday, the 19th.
This is the main political event in the country right now. If you want to help out, visit Martha coakley's website, and take action.
