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An outlier, or a tight Pennsylvania?

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 19th, 2010 at 06:00 PM  | 

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Sestak Toomey

Republican Pat Toomey has been rather comfortable in the Pennsylvania Senate polling. He hit double digits in the last Rasmussen poll a week ago, and Democrat Joe Sestak hasn’t led a poll since one weird outlier in the middle of May.

For PPP to show Sestak up today is definitely surprising, and noteworthy, but it’s possible this is an outlier.

There’s little chance this’ll matter much in my Senate projections tonight, but Sestak 46-Toomey 45 (MoE 3.7), showing what’s been a solid Toomey lead turning into the slightest of Sestak advantages, caught my eye right away, as I’m sure did the eyes of many readers.

It could be real. Sharp shifts happen in races. However I need to see more polling in this direction before I can even consider taking it as an actual trend. This is an often polled race, and seeing that answer should not take long. That’s no disrespect to PPP, either: When Rasmussen that one time suddenly showed Sestak ahead, the same logic would have applied, and it would have been vindicated when the Toomey hits just kept on coming.

From Unlikely Voter

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COMMENTS

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  • jaybo

    Need I say any more?

  • Brian_Roastbeef

    I’m wondering if they are just going completely off the rails with some of their numbers lately. Geraghty mildly calls them out on their Pennsylvania numbers, pointing to the significantly more heavily Democrat sampling. He completely blasts them for their bias in NC.

    I suppose it is conceivable that they are ahead of the trend on seeing a Democrat awakening – but as I’ve been hearing rumors of Democrat enthusiasm grown over the past two months, none of which seem to amount to anything, I remain skeptical…

  • Return to Revolution

    but I’m not taking anything for granted. PA went way heavier for Obama in 08 than I thought it would. Though I do think Toomey is running a great campaign.

  • davidabippus

    From what I have read elsewhere, this most recent PPP poll is based upon the expectation that Democratic turnout will be higher this year than during the 2008 presidential election. I find that very hard to believe and I am not buying what they are selling with the results that they have posted. Also, looking back at previous polls conducted in Pennsylvania for both the senate race and the governors race, PPP has found less support for both GOP candidates as opposed to Rasmussen in just about every instance. I think that both candidates are fine and these will both be Republican pick-ups.

  • jaybo

    It was pointed out that the “turn-out” model used in the poll is pure fantasy.

    I guess that must be why The Daily Kos chose to use them (chuckle).

  • philhoganjr

    http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/250231/are-pennsylvania-democrats-suddenly-waking

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • Oz

    PPP is projecting a more Democratic turnout than in 2008.

  • mypalfish

    In this St Norbert poll, Johnson is underperforming Scott Walker, who leads the WI Gov race by 9. Why are the Senate polls showing mostly neutral or bad news, while the House polls are really encouraging?

  • Berean

    Their turnout model is completely off base, and they are managing to distort poll averaging in the process (really they should be thrown out as an abnormal poll).

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • IJB

    He pulls the exact same routine over at Geraghty’s. He bares close watching…

  • IJB

    They are *really* going out on a limb on their polling this cycle!

    Nearly every recent poll from them has been the same – Dems as a larger, and Indies as a smaller, percentage of the electorate than 2008, 2006, 2004 (and 2002?).

    My favorite was their campaign poll for Carnahan in MO – not only did it have a more Dem electorate than 2008: IT HAD A MORE DEM ELECTORATE THAN THEY UNDERLYING DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI ITSELF! (at least, based on Wiki’s numbers…) I’m sorry, they’re predicting more Dems than Republicans turning out, in MO?! In 2010?!?!!! As IF!!

    Either PPP will be shown to be geniuses on Election Night, because they will have picked up on a huge Dem voting surge in 2010 that will surpass 2008, or they will be shown to be, once and for all, nothing more than a Dem stooge polling outfit.

    I’ll let you guess as to which I think it’ll end up being…

  • After Seven

    Sestak is going to absolutely get blown out by a minimum of 8 or 9 points. PPP is a collection of leftist tools who only get their polling correct when they are not using them to suppress the vote or alternatively to get out the vote, which is usually the 2 – 3 days before an election. Even here in rainy California I know the mood of PA’ers well enough to know, there is going to be an absolute Rout in battleground states like PA & OH.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I’ve changed my mind upon reminding myself that you’ve been spreading the lies a while.

  • LisaDe

    Then onto another link concerning Absentee Ballot Requests in PA.
    It states: Another Hit To The Dems… Rep 49%- Dem 41% – Ind 10%
    This looks pretty promising!

  • philhoganjr

    can you tell those of us blogging troglodytes what a conern troll is? just curious.

  • Oz

    people who push anything negative while pretending to be “concerned” but are really either focusing on the Democratic talking points or just flat out telling lies.

  • acat

    What I mean is, this time around there’s the potential for all kinds of ballot box stuffing. Voting the dead, voting the apathetic, voting based on identity fraud…

    PPP are positioning themselves, for whatever reason, to be the “Hey, look, we got it right” pollsters… with the statement from the DoJ being “Hey, look, PPP called it, that’s what actually happened, Repubs go home”.

    It’s a nightmare scenario, I admit, but .. let’s be very, very observant.

    Mew

  • IJB

    …Is basically someone who post things like, “Oh no! All of a sudden the polling has turned against the GOP! Are we gonna LOSE?!?!!?!!!”

    Basically, the real intent of the poster is not to express concern, but to depress moral or to cause trouble among their political opponents (i.e. *us*).

    One “official” definition of “concern troll” is:

    Someone who posts to an internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against those goals, typically, by claiming “concern” about group plans to engage in productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group’s credibility, or alternatively to give up on group projects entirely.

  • philhoganjr

    the name was self-explanatory, but the intent was a little murky.

  • IJB

    I almost posted a suggestion along those lines, but then thought better of it.

    But, the way I figure it, if the Dems and the Left actually stoop to massive voter fraud to attempt to steal the coming election, there will literally be an “Orange Revolution” in this country that will send them back on their asses forever.

    While PPP’s polling could be seen as the precursor to an attempt at something like that, I honestly don’t believe that the Dems have either the infrastructure or the courage to even try to pull something like that off.

    (IOW – small-scale vote fraud: Dem S.O.P.; large-scale voting fraud: too scary to contemplate, even for the Far Left…)

  • jaybo

    What a sad thing to watch. I don’t know if they are trying to create a news story or simply surrendering to the democrats as another propaganda source for the election efforts.

  • earlgrey

    Any thoughts on why the Senate races are so tight while the house is showing strong R trends? Is the incumbency a bigger deal in the Senate than the house?

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    We’re CRUSHING the Dems this year.

    I’ll run my new projection soon but I expect we’ll either be at R+7 or R+8. That isn’t tight. That’s a FREAKING BLOWOUT.

    I have the battleground right now at CA, WA, IL, NV, WV. All states Obama won except WV.

    This is an unmitigated disaster for the Dems.

  • earlgrey

    On that note I will shut down the iPad and enjoy sweet dreams of dancing in the streets on November 3.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • Scope

    and get some answers from him as to why all those cadidates he has been supporting aren’t doing so well in the PPP polls. Let us know what he says.

  • IJB

    Especially Governor’s races, but I think it’s true to a lesser extent of Senate races.

    The only real “new” concerns currently are CO and KY.

    On CO, Geraghty had a good point – Bennett has been consistently at 45% all year (even now). Applying the “incumbent rule” to this, Bennett *will* lose. Currently, some “soft” Buck supports may be peeling off him to “undecided” again – but none of them are shifting to Bennett. My guess – in the end, Buck gets most of them back and wins by 4%.

    In KY, Conway’s in even worse shape. True – he’s not an incumbent, so the “incumbent rule” doesn’t apply to Conway’s candidacy. But outside of two recent polls (likely ‘outliers’), Conway hasn’t been much over 43% all year. And, frankly, I think this latest gambit of Conway’s is in the process of blowing up in his face – I expect Rand will be up by as much as 10% by next week.

    Meanwhile, WV still looks good, while NV looks better and better all the time. And both WA and CA are both still in play. That leaves just IL as the “coin toss”.

    I still think we’ll be at +7 or +8, with +9 still a real possibility, if we start to see real narrowing in WA, CA or CT, or we start to pull ahead definitively in IL.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    What’s happening here is we’re seeing an effect from PPP’s likely voter screen, which is set up with a somewhat different set of assumptions (presumably) than other people’s likely voter screens. Boiled down, PPP is letting first-time 2008 voters through… and before you say that they shouldn’t, bear in mind that you can’t just *ignore* them, either.

    I don’t think that they’re making the right assumptions, but this isn’t another R2000 situation, either.

  • rdelbov

    as it had a 48D-41R polling mix of voters. The absentee requesta are as follows:

    http://blogs.mcall.com/penn_ave/2010/10/absentee-ballot-requests-favoring-gop.html

    Yup absentee requests are 49R 40D–almost an exact oppisite breakdown of the polling survey. In PA you have to request absentees for each election so its a good judge of voter interest.

    I might add that as the NBC/WSJ poll found today likely favors are favoring the GOP. Registered voters have a 46-44 preference for the democrats but likely voters are 53-40 for republicans. That is similar to a surge of likely voters in Galluo-Rasmussne surveys. Republicans are pumped.

    Every where but in PPP senate 2010 where democrats are surging over their 2008 turnout numbers. I don’t buy it

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    On what do you base your assumption that absentee votes are representative of all votes?

  • IJB

    I wonder if anyone’s taken a rigorous look at the relationship between either absentee ballot requests and/or early voting and the ultimate final election result.

    My best guesstimate is that there is a correlation in some (many?…) elections, but not in all.

    Anyway, if anyone knows if this issue has been studied, please post that info up here! :)

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    But being correlated is not the same as being predictive.

    I’m sure the Literary Digest poll was correlated with Presidential wins, but we know how that turned out. Just ask President Landon.

  • rdelbov

    Its possible that all the republicans who requested absentees are voting democratic and vice versa.

    Its just to vote absentee in PA you have to call or download a form or fax a request in to start the ball rolling. Its an affirmative action. To me its a sign of passion.

    For instance in this May’s PA primary even as Sestak Specter seemed to be the center of the political universe as a % of registered voters–republican turnout exceeded democratic turnout. The two GOP primaries were 80-20 affairs but the republicans turned out. Again its a passion thing.

    I might add that GOP primary turnout this year topped democratic primary turnout by 3 million voters. For the 1st time since 1930 republican primary tunrout topped democratic primary turnout. Passion–more passion.

    So in PA absentee ballot requests–in PA primary turnout–nationwide primary turnout I see republican passion. Yet PPP sees turnout passion for the democrats in PA? % wise more in 2010 then 2008?

    I don’t see it. I might add that numerous other PA polls have seen it.

  • Rob_McEwen

    ALL of the House seats are up for election every two years. In contrast, every two years, only about 1/3rd of the Senate seats are up for election. Therefore, about 2/3rds of the Senate is “locked in” for either 2 or 4 more years.

    Additionally, different election cycles bring with them DIFFERENT ratios of the # of seats up for grabs from each party. If you want your party to gain seats, then it is to your advantage for more of the seats to be “up for grabs” that are currently held by your opponents party–and less “up for grabs” seats to be held by your own party. Simply put,.. you want more seats that can possilby be switched to your party… and fewer seats that could possibily switch to the other party.

    Along those lines, I’ve read that, “out of the gate”, THOSE numbers are not so good this year for Republicans. Relative to the actual proportions of Republicans-to-Democrats in the Senate, the # of seat up for grabs involves a higher percentage currently held by Republicans. So this isn’t such a great election cycle from that perspective.

    BTW – I hear that, just two years from now. 2012 is going to have a very disproportionately high number of Democrats up for relection. (which makes sense considering how badly the Republicans did in 2006)

    In the meantime, under THESE circumstances, the fact that the Senate predictions/polling is shaping up so well for Republicans is amazing.

  • expatuae

    All the polls though boil down to the likely voters and turnout. PPP has a Dem bias.

    But enthusiasm has changed recently with Dem enthusiasm and voter likeliehood increasing, driven by O’Donnell running in the same media market.

    Phila Dems aren’t enthused to vote FOR Sestak. But they are enthused to vote AGAINST O’Donell, following a campaign receiving at least as much local press as the real PA race.

    When that idiotic commercial says “I am you” runs, it turns off independents who probably disagree and reminds Democrats to vote. She is red meat to Democratics- after all, Bill Maher did not put her on his show to effectively spread a conservative message.

    Don’t want to disparage ?hristine who seems very sincere and would clearly be preferable to Coons, but whether fair or not, she has a lot of baggage. The damage she is causing in the PA race is very real.

    Give money to Toomey instead.

  • Adjoran

    The last several elections in PA have been fairly consistent in turnout, no matter which party was winning, but no more than 41% Democratic, even when they were practically running the table in the commonwealth in ’06 and ’08.

    Sorry, if I am to now believe, in a year of demonstrably lower Democratic enthusiasm, they will comprise 47% of the electorate, I require more than one poll’s word on it.

    It is NOT an “outlier,” as I understand it, though. That would be a sound sample which delivers a result wildly inconsistent with either other polls or the actual vote. This is a skewed sample.

    Now, perhaps it is possible for a sample to get that far out of whack by accident. It does seem to be the regular occurrence, however, that in PPP’s case they seem to go wildly off track in the same direction (that being left).

    And that, my friends, cannot be random.

  • expatuae

    Another good commentary on Toomey, PA and the philly suburban races, esp Fitzpatrick v Murphy.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304410504575560242500893632.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_newsreel_opinion

    Republicans don’t win statewide in PA without winning the Philly suburbs.

  • SirGladiator

    I heard the analysis earlier, and it matches what Im reading here, this poll simply gave WAY too high a Democrat vote. There is no way on earth that Democrats have a BIGGER advantage this year than they did when Obama was on the ballot in 2008. Pennsylvania is still firmly in our camp, that’s just the bottom line. That doesn’t mean we shouldnt redouble our efforts, we should always campaign as if the race were tied and our effort is what will put us over the top. And perhaps a little more aid from the national party would be in order as well, just to be safe. This is a really big pickup, we don’t want to blow this thing from overconfidence, that’s the one good part about this poll, it should shake every Republican who had gotten overconfident out of that once and for all.

  • Read Chesterton

    They’re dragging out al the dem fear points, from “He’ll take away your social security” to “He’ll make all abortion illegal” to” He’s endorsed by *that woman!*” (with a SP midwestern heavily accented “You betcha!” thrown in for extra ridicule points. My theory is that the add will attract more conservatives than they will attract democrat liberals.