21 thoughts on “The Preference Cascade”

  3. Keep in mind that it’s one poll and these polls do have a margin of error that’s about as great as the difference between Obama and Romney. Sounds like an opportunity for the media to pretend some preelection drama.

    1. The Gallup numbers are pretty far from the rest of the polling. Maybe they’re right and everyone else is wrong, but that isn’t the likely explanation.

      The regional breakdown of the Gallup numbers is interesting. They show Obama losing in the South by 22 points, and winning in the East, Midwest, and West. Regional subsets have an even bigger margin of error than the entire poll, and so should be taken with an extra large grain of salt. But if by some chance those numbers were right, Obama could lose the popular vote and still win re-election. Thanks to the electoral college, it doesn’t matter how badly he loses Southern states; losing by 20% is no worse than losing by 1%.

      [No doubt he’d like to win Florida, or even North Carolina, but he doesn’t need either one.]

        1. Let’s not forget that Romney needs more than the usual 270 electors. How many more remains to be seen.

  4. With a 9% response rate and a sample size of 2000, the pollsters can -almost- predict how the 2000 voters will go. Almost.

  6. I think it has sank in with a lot people after the last debate that Obama doesn’t really know what he’s going to do with these next 4 years. Every subject he talks about is “his #1 priority”. It’s like talking to a used car salesman at this point.

    Obama: “This is my absolute best car on the lot!”
    voter: “Nah I don’t like the style”
    Obama: *turns to another car* “This is my absolute best car on the lot”….

  7. A lot of people on the soft-left and in the middle were looking for reasons to vote for Romney. Between Romney and Obama, they’ve found some good ones.

  8. In some respects, Obama has crafted a situation that is very much like Carter’s in 1979:

    In both cases you have:

    a really lousy economy

    A very serious Middle East problem.

    1. I saw him speak at that black tie dinner and for the first time I saw a Reaganesque quality in him. He had Obama squirming and Michelle scowling. Even Chris Matthews was laughing.

  9. One of Romney’s punchlines about mainstream press bias went something like: “Tomorrow’s headlines. Obama meets with Catholic bishops. Romney dines with rich people.”

    Even Katie Couric was rolled over laughing.

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