How party ID explains Romney’s “surge”

[ProSense]

How party ID explains Romney’s “surge”

Posted by Jon Cohen

New numbers from Gallup and the Pew Research Center showing the presidential contest tied among all voters in recent days are sure to buoy Republican hopes that Mitt Romney did more than win a debate last week. But the newly released data also undercut a persistent criticism of election polls: that there is a “true” measure of partisan identification — and its malicious corollary, that pollsters are manipulating reality...In Gallup, this is change from a five-point Obama edge in the three days leading up to the Denver debate; for Pew, it is a shift from a nine-point advantage for Obama in mid-September.

So who moved in Romney’s direction?

Well, not political independents, for one. There was no meaningful change in their support for Obama or Romney in either poll.

All of the change in both polls came from the composition of each sample. In pre-debate interviews by Gallup, self-identified Democrats outnumbered Republicans by five percentage points, according to Gallup’s Jeff Jones. By contrast, in the three days following the debate, the balance shifted in a GOP direction, with 34 percent of registered voters identifying as Republicans (two points up from pre-debate), 33 percent as Democrats (four points down).

For Pew, a nine-point Democratic advantage in mid-September is now plus one percentage point for the GOP. (The turnabout in “likely voters” was even more dramatic, shifting from Democrats up 10 to Republicans up five.)

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/10/08/how-party-id-explains-romneys-surge/

[still_one]

1. I suspect it has to do a lot with the media screaming for the last several days who was the winner.

The unfortunate thing is people like to be associated with who they consider to be the winner at the time

So when a pollster calls and asks who do you associate more with, Democrats or republicans, it all depends who the talking heads have told them who is winning.

[fugop]

2. This is the weirdest phenomenon

I'm a Democrat. No matter how bad my candidate might be, even if I should decide not to vote for him/her (which, frankly, I'll admit, won't happen), I'm still going to say I'm a Democrat. My husband is an independent. No matter how committed he is to voting for Obama (and he is), he's going to tell a pollster (if we ever talked to them) that he's an independent. My sister is a Republican. She voted for Obama, however, last time, and plans to vote for him again. But she still calls herself a Republican.

Who are these weirdos who say they're a Democrat one day and a Republican the next? I get changing your answers to questions like "Who will you vote for?" but I really don't get the idea that people go back and forth on how they label themselves. I know a wide range of people in the different categories, but they all call themselves the same thing every day, even if their vote shifts.

I just ... don't get how more people claim they're Republicans because of a debate. It's just ... so very weird. And I'm just not sure I buy it.

[still_one]

5. That is my speculation, just based on my thoughts that the psychology of many be is their desire to

be associated with a perceived winner

[regnaD kciN]

3. PPP showed the same phenomenon...

...a surge both in Romney's numbers and the percentage of self-identified Republicans.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. It's interesting

that suddenly, something seemed to tingle in media brains today because rather than a gradual shift or even a moderate "bump", the poll swung violently the other way - whether because of sampling or even number of days used in the poll range or even whether they were comparing "likely" versus "registered". So it made a mess and I even saw the tiniest bit of concern being reflected about the dramatic change.