Philadelphia Inquirer Poll: Obama leads Romney by 9-points in PA

[WI_DEM]

Yet another poll gives President Obama a big lead in PA:

Ten weeks before the election, a voter poll commissioned by The Inquirer finds President Obama leading Republican rival Mitt Romney by a significant margin in Pennsylvania, raising the question of whether the Keystone State is up for grabs on Nov. 6.

The Inquirer Pennsylvania Poll, led by a bipartisan team of top political analysts, concluded that if the election were held now, Obama would win the state by nine percentage points - 51-42 - with 7 percent of voters undecided.

The telephone survey of 601 likely voters, conducted from Tuesday through Thursday, had a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. The results are comparable to those of other recent polls, including one released Thursday by Muhlenberg College, which also found Obama leading by nine points in the state.

Jeffrey Plaut of Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm, said the results may indicate Pennsylvania has lost some of its "swingy-ness." He said Friday that Democrats would have to fail to turn out their base voters to "put the state in play."

His survey partner, Republican Adam Geller of National Research Inc., said Romney clearly was behind in the state. But he said Obama's current lead could be less - perhaps six, five, or four points - in light of the margin of error and the proven tendency of undecided voters ultimately to vote against incumbents.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/poll/20120824_New_poll_shows_Obama_with_a_significant_lead_over_Romney_in_Pennsylvania.html

[BumRushDaShow]

1. K&R

PA hasn't voted for a rethug President since 1988 (forget the Governor because NJ switches back and forth too). How many more election cycles do we have to go through before they stop calling the state "swing"?

[jenmito]

2. Good! The important thing is that he's over 50%. n/t

[speedoo]

3. May not reflect the full "Akin effect".

Poll was taken Tues - Thurs.

Put PA in the safe column.

[oldhippydude]

4. with PA efforts at voter suppression

i am not sure we can ever put the state in the safe column, this election cycle... nevertheless great news!!!

[Wounded Bear]

5. They may have played their cards too early.....

Hopefully, the GOTV effort can counter most of the damage.

[oldhippydude]

8. thats what i hear from Ed, and other folks on MSNBC..

but it seems to me GOP players are playing the same hand, that they did in Florida in 2000, in multiple states.. not scared but i am cautious..

perhaps in the second term AG Holder may want to look into ALEC's role in this years voter suppression.. (one can dream)

[Cosmocat]

10. I think Obama should carry the state

but, it is about the downticket races, too.

The PA republicans have been very effective over a LONG time of marginalizing a pretty big overall democratic voter margin.

While the state has gone blue on presidential elections for a long time now, they manage to split the governor and senate races 50/50.

They have an ABSURD, mortal lock, big advantage in the state senate and have control of the state house most often.

Look at both the federal and state house, and state senate districts maps - they are some of the most preposterously gerry rigged districts in the country. I mean, as sad as they are, they are literally laughable.

The can't find a way to game the state in presidentials, but anything beyond that and they run the state.

As hard as it may be to game it any more than they already have, they know while they probably can further harden their control in Harrisburg with the voter ID law.

[GallopingGhost]

6. Voter suppression efforts in PA will definitely continue, but

I don't believe it's a swing state.

We need to concentrate on Ohio, Virginia, Florida.

[BlueInPhilly]

7. Another statistical hack...

I guess Republican Adam Geller is not clear on what margin of error is:

His survey partner, Republican Adam Geller of National Research Inc., said Romney clearly was behind in the state. But he said Obama's current lead could be less - perhaps six, five, or four points - in light of the margin of error and the proven tendency of undecided voters ultimately to vote against incumbents.

Even with the margin of error, Obama would still lead.

[TroyD]

13. Undecided voters

proven tendency of undecided voters ultimately to vote against incumbents

It's not a proven tendency, actually.

It doesn't always work like that. Nate Silver wrote a piece about this earlier in the year.

[Hippo_Tron]

21. And even so, "tendency" doesn't mean they all vote against the incumbent

Tendency means you do really really well if 60% of them break your way. That's most likely not enough to overcome a 51-42 spread.

[Hippo_Tron]

20. People trailing 51-42 in multiple polls seldom win an election

Especially in presidential elections where turnout is relatively high and it's easier to get a good sample of who will vote, as compared to a primary election for dog catcher that's held in August.

Yes it's possible that it's actually Obama 47 Romney 46 and the undecideds will break to Romney. But the odds of that are small. Confidence intervals work such that we're 95% sure that it's 51-42 + or - 4%. But as you start to decrease from 95% the 4 gets smaller and smaller. At 75% confidence it's + or - 2.3% which at worst means it's roughly Obama 49% Romney 44% and the undecideds would have to break more than 6 to 1 for Romney to win, which will not happen. At 85% it's about + or - 3 which means that at worst is Obama 48% Romney 45%. Romney would need to win undecideds more than 2.5 to 1, which is also not going to happen. I'd say at absolute best he gets undecideds 60/40 or 1.5 to 1.

Basically, if the poll's methodology is sound, there's less than a 15% chance that Romney would win PA if the election were held tomorrow. Not good odds. But unfortunately, the election isn't held tomorrow.

[Ashleyshubby]

9. PA used to be close. Not anymore

Obama is pulling ahead.

[BrainMann1]

11. Good work PA

[TroyD]

12. So what's causing the increase in support?

Wonder why Obama's support has gone up in PA, but has tightened in other states?

[Wounded Bear]

14. Not sure about the 'increase'.....

and I'm skeptical of all the reports of races 'tightening' in some swing states. Most of that seems to reflect results in obviously RW leaning polls.

[TroyD]

15. Increase vs. Decrease

Actually, there does appear to be an increase in support in Pennsylvania for Obama. We now have 2 polls in a row showing a +9 lead.

The Franklin & Marshall poll earlier this month showed Obama ahead by only +5, and last month's PPP poll showed him ahead by +6. Also important to note that this week's Morning Call poll showing Obama +9 is an increase from their previous poll showing him +5.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/pa/pennsylvania_romney_vs_obama-1891.html

And there does appear to be some tightening in other states, like Wisconsin, Colorado & Virginia, and not just by RW polls like Rasmussen & Purple, but by PPP. For example, PPP's recent Wisconsin poll had Romney ahead by +1.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/wi/wisconsin_romney_vs_obama-1871.html

[DCBob]

16. bellweather.

If Obama maintains a lead like this in PA its over.

[TroyD]

17. Politico's take on PA:

With this most recent poll, Obama has now led in 20 of the 21 public polls conducted in Pennsylvania this year -- and Romney has been mired in the low 40s -- which suggests the swing state designation this year might be overstated.

Voters appear to be reverting to form in a state hasn’t voted Republican at the presidential level since 1988.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/charlie-mahtesian/2012/08/pennsylvania-poll-obama-up-by-133168.html

[ilikeitthatway]

18. Thank god! I'm in PA, and know that PA ain't Philly.

This is great news!

[PopeOxycontinI]

19. hmmm...

I figured PA my home state safe for many years, and my city has called the winner
in every presidential election since 1960, except(surprise, surprise, they stole it)
2000 and 2004. I am encouraging everyone I can to get out there and make sure
this state stays safe, we need extra dem or lefty indy voters to actually
visit the polls for us to avoid becoming FL 2000 or OH 2004. Diebold controls a lot of the
machines in my area, so I was pleasantly surprised that PA was not stolen in 2004 or
2008, but we cannot count on this year no matter what the polls show.
In principle I am not neccesarily opposed to voter ID, but enacting
just two months before this election could prevent legit citizens from getting one in time,
it is therefore part of a dangerously, dictatorially partisan agenda on the part
of the teabagrepubliconreichwing.