The elephant in the polling numbers

I’ve writ­ten a lot about the skew in the polls but today in the hot air green room Matt Vespa in the process of debunk­ing Chris “The sky is falling for the GOP” Cil­liza brings up a point that almost nobody is talk­ing about:

This leads us to the next poll: the direc­tion of the coun­try. What “jolt of opti­mism” is Cil­lizza talk­ing about? Ras­mussen has 36% of Amer­i­cans believ­ing the nation is on the right track.

Now while we give our friends on the left a few min­utes to scream how: “Ras­mussen can’t be trusted” busi­ness lets take a look at the over­all num­bers in this poll since Jan 2009 the month Barack Obama Took office:

When you look at that chart remem­ber this is an AVER­AGE of every sin­gle polls that is mea­sured not a sin­gle poll that skews one way or the other.

Right now the MSM is run­ning a ton of polls with huge Demo­c­rat skews yet take a look at the results at the end of the chart for today:

56.3 vs 37.6 Wrong track over right track that’s a spread of 18.7 and con­sider this: The CBS/​NYT poll and the NBC/​WSJ poll, the two polls that are the most skewed have a wrong track/​right track num­bers of –19 & –16 respectively.

Think about that: Even with a sam­ple that couldn’t favor Obama more if they were paid employ­ees of the white house they can’t even get a gap of less that 10 pts let alone a favor­able num­ber.

More impor­tantly con­sider the his­tor­i­cal perspective:

You have to go to June 13^th 2009 to find a day dur­ing the last 4 years where the right track/​wrong track num­bers were equal.

On Jan 20^th 2010 the national spread was 56.9 to 36.6 just 2.4 off today’s num­ber yet the day before Mass­a­chu­setts, a state that nobody con­tends is a state where the pres­i­dent has a chance of los­ing in 2012 elected a Repub­li­can sen­a­tor to replace the late Ted Kennedy.

On Elec­tion day 2010 the spread of 63.8 to 31.2 A 32.6 points gap, just under dou­ble what it is today and the GOP won nation­wide in an elec­tion so his­toric it reached into state­houses all over the country.

On Sep­tem­ber 13^th 2011 the spread was 73.6 to 20.8 a gap of 52.8 and for the first time since Woodrow Wil­son was pres­i­dent a repub­li­can won an elec­tion in the 9^th dis­trict of NY right in the heart of New York City.

What does that mean for today?

On Elec­tion day 2012, It is unlikely the right direction/​wrong direc­tion spread will be 52.8. That sug­gest Mitt Rom­ney isn’t going to man­age to win the State of New York.

On Elec­tion day 2012 It is unlikely the right/​wrong spread will be 32.6. That sug­gests Mitt Rom­ney isn’t going to man­age a vic­tory of his­toric pro­por­tions all over the country.

But with just over 40 days to the elec­tion with polls so skewed it’s a won­der the com­put­ers they are tab­u­lated on don’t tip over the right/​wrong track is 18.7 pretty close to the num­bers on the Day Scott Brown was first elected, does that mean Mitt is going to do well enough to take a state as blue as Massachusetts?

I think not, but unfor­tu­nately for the left, he doesn’t have to take Mass­a­chu­setts, or New York or any other deep blue state. He has to take the states in the mid­dle, the ones that once voted for the GOP but went to Obama in the heady days of Nov 2008 for the left.

And a with a right track /​wrong track num­ber of 18.7 that’s not only doable that’s prac­ti­cally inevitable.

I’m sure there are peo­ple who might not like Mitt Rom­ney, I’m sure there are those who don’t like he is a Mor­mon, those who don’t like he is rich and those who think he’s kind of stiff.

But unless you live in the land of deep blue delu­sion nobody in their right mind would sug­gest he is unqual­i­fied to be president.

This elec­tion isn’t going to be about: “Do I like Mitt Rom­ney?” This elec­tion isn’t even going to be about “Has Barack Obama done a good job” the polling shows the ver­dict is already in on it.

The peo­ple are dying to vote against Barack Obama, all Mitt Rom­ney has to do is con­vince them he can do the job, because Barack Obama has already con­vinced them he can’t.

Update: VDH notes how few votes it would have taken to make 1980 a Carter vic­tory

In other words, until the very last week of the cam­paign, Rea­gan had an uphill fight. True, he even­tu­ally won a land­slide vic­tory in the Elec­toral Col­lege (489 to 49) and beat Carter hand­ily in the pop­u­lar vote. Yet Rea­gan only received a 51-​percent majority.

What had saved Rea­gan from a per­fect storm of neg­a­tive fac­tors — gaffes, addi­tional con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­dates on the bal­lot, a sin­gle debate, and a biased media — was not just the debate. Voter turnout was rel­a­tively low at only 53 per­cent. If Reagan’s con­ser­v­a­tive base was united and ener­gized, Carter’s proved divided and indifferent.

Mitt doesn’t have a John Ander­son but he also doesn’t have Reagan’s charisma, his conclusion:

The win­ner prob­a­bly won’t be decided by old video clips, gaffes, or even cam­paign money, but by turnout and the Octo­ber debates — depend­ing on whether incum­bent Obama comes across as a petu­lant Carter and chal­lenger Rom­ney appears an upbeat Rea­gan. As in 1980, vot­ers want a bet­ter pres­i­dent — but they first have to be assured he’s on the ballot.