I love the quadrennial Presidential Election Season, which usually runs for about 3 years. Now that we are getting down to the final 5 months of the election, it's time to start thinking about getting engaged in the process.
Both parties have their nominees: In the left Corner: President Barack Obama representing the Democrats, and on the Right, Mitt Romney representing the Republicans after a prolonged primary season.
National Polls show it currently as a tight race, but I suspect in the end they will be wrong and it won't end up close. For one reason, there is no National Race, there are only 51 State/District races. For another, the Electoral Map of those 51 races show it currently to be a lop-sided race. Electoral-vote.com has it currently as 314-224 in Obama's favor. Real Clear Politics which averages all the polls has it even wider at 332-206 in favor of the President's Re-election.
But don't get too wrapped up in all that yet. There aren't a lot of state polls to go on yet, and some of them were taken prior to Romney wrapping up the nomination. That initially could be in Romney's favor and make some of the races appear tighter, for example in Michigan, where Obama had a 14 point lead in the RCP average on April 1st, but it currently sits at +3.5 for the President.
So what should you believe? Probably nobody, but if you really want to gauge the trend of the election, I would suggest you pick one or two polls and watch the changes in that poll over time. Much of the media reports all of the polls as if the Bloomberg poll and the USAToday/Gallup poll are the same and the changes between the two polls are significant. They usually aren't as they use different sampling methodology, ask questions differently among other differences.
So choose a poll and follow it, and draw your own conclusions. It should be a wild ride over the next few months.
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