Good news. Check that. Great news.
As we mentioned earlier, Kasich is up 51-43 over Strickland, thereby doubling his lead from the last Ohio poll conducted at the end of September.
The two biggest takeaways are the two most obvious.
Kasich is over 50%.
Strickland is still flatlined.
Getting over that 50% + 1 barrier has to feel like a weight has been lifted off the shoulders of Team Kasich. While a couple other polls have shown the candidate as hitting that number before, getting confirmation from the Ohio Poll for the first time has to feel good. That said, the average on all polling for Kasich likely won't quite reach 50% yet, but we won't complain.
And of course there's Strickland's flatline.
That beautiful, beautiful flatline.
Since January, Strickland has failed to see much of a statistical fluctuation past 42%/43%. With 18 days to go, it's great to see yet more confirmation that the Governor continues to go nowhere with his negative campaign. And with 18 days to go, it's hard to see how Strickland can make up the ground necessary to win. Not only does he need every remaining Independent vote, but he needs to pull votes from Kasich. Can such an overwhelmingly convincing argument be made in such a short amount of time to so many? I find that hard to believe.
Especially when you consider the next number.
Most likely voters - 85 percent - say they will "definitely vote" for their current choice for governor on Election Day. Kasich leads Strickland, 56 to 41 percent, among these voters. The remaining 15 percent of voters say they "might change their mind" about their current choice. Among these voters, Strickland leads Kasich, 55 to 36 percent.That has to scare the ever living hell out of Team Strickland. Not only does it show apathy among Strickland supporters, which makes it harder to actually get them to go and actually vote, but it also shows the votes they have aren't even locked down.
Ultimately, this is just a poll. It's a snapshot in time and there is no reason to believe this is exactly where the race stands. As always, we need to take all polls into consideration to get a true understanding of where things are right now.
According to Real Clear Politics, this is where we stand...
Now onto the Ohio Senate race.
My analysis: Portman is beating Fisher like a redheaded stepchild.
But seriously, this race has turned into an absolute buttkicking. He's up by a mindboggling 58-36%. That jumps to 63-37% among the most likely to vote. There are now only two questions left.
1) How much will Portman's domination help the other candidates seeking federal office (i.e. congressional targets)?
2) How much of Portman's fundraising haul will he contribute to Ohio candidates and beyond to help ensure victory elsewhere and increase his profile?
In summary, there is still a lot of work to do and this is no time to get complacent. We have the wave with us, and we need to keep riding it 'til 11.2.10.
A flawed poll is just that. Flawed. Meaning none of its data can be relied. On its fact, the Ohio Poll admits that it sampled 17% less than its prior survey. It's sample consisted of 11% (or less) of Independents, even though the usual percentage of the voting population is nearly three times that. It clearly had to oversample Republican voters at the expense of Democratic ones, even though available early voting data shows the Democrats leading in early voting.
ReplyDeleteThese sampling errors are so severe that the entire poll is just worthless. It doesn't matter that it shows Strickland at 42%, it did so because of significant undersampling of Democrats and Independents.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you include this with other polling, then your average is garbage, too. This whole post is meaningless because Strickland's flatline (which doesn't actually exist as both RCP and Pollster shows an uptick for Strickland recently pre-Ohio Poll) is based on an unreliable number. Think it would still be 42% if more Democrats had been included in the sample, of course not.
Keep whistling past the graveyard, Keeling. Kasich's campaign just told donors yesterday they're polling had them only two points up.
Hmmm. Odd.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Ohio Poll had similarly low numbers of Independents in their other two polls this year I never heard you complain.
May had less than 75 Indies in a sample of 668.
September had 96 in a sample of 777.
This one has less than 75 in a sample of 705.
As far as the sample size. It's 205 larger than Rasmussen. 205 larger than that crap Angus Reid poll. 205 larger than Suffolk. 105 larger than Reuters.
If dismissing this poll makes you feel better, fine. But it means you are dismissing every other Ohio Poll.
As for that claim about the call to the donors,.....LOLOLOLOL!!!!
Um, you still missed the whole undersampling of Democrats/oversampling of Republicans, entirely
ReplyDeleteI admit, I hadn't noticed the undersampling of Independents before if that's the case. That doesn't make the criticism any less valid.
Pretty weak response for you.
Instead of acting like a jerk, why don't you get someone to come forward and say it's actually not true for once.
You laughed off Rasmussen in September saying it was just one poll and doesn't mean the race was tightening (you were wrong.) You kept saying the DGA was pulling out of Ohio (it never did.)
Come on, Keeling, you surely know some Kasich donor that would have been on that conference call yesterday, right? I know you do.
Um. Someone did.
ReplyDeletehttp://twitter.com/edgoeas/status/27451547315
Pay attention to your twitter feed before you post comments, Brian.
I just corrected. Still mostly correct. And you're still ignoring the fact that Kasich's own pollster doesn't confirm the results of this Ohio Poll or the sampling errors.
ReplyDeleteYou split hairs more than a barber, but it doesn't distract people from realizing that you're avoiding the real issues with this poll.
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ReplyDeleteModern, the key is likely voters. The enthusiasm gap is huge. Even Gallup shows a huge advantage in this years electorate for Republicans. We shall see. I think Ted loses by 5%.
ReplyDelete