Another strong poll for Romney in Florida. The party ID was D +1 (Dem 40, Rep 39, Ind 21). In 2008 it was D +3 (Dem 37, Rep 34, Ind 29). In 2004 it was R+4 (Dem 37, Rep 41, Ind 23). The split seems OK but there are likely too few Independents. Of concern in the poll is Romney support with 21% of African-Americans. That’s simply not going to happen.
Florida and its important 29 electoral votes are all but in the Romney camp, according to Sunshine State News poll of likely voters taken mostly following the third and final presidential debate. But the parties still have a big challenge ahead in their ground games. Early voting begins Saturday in Florida. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pushed above the 50 percent mark in the poll conducted between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24 by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Voter Survey Service. Of 1,001 likely Florida voters, 51 percent were ready to vote for Romney to 46 percent for President Obama. Only 12 percent said the recent debates had any sway on their opinion, with 40 percent of those individuals saying they switched from Obama to Romney and just 22 percent going the other way.
Meanwhile, the state, as of Thursday morning, had already received 1.05 million absentee ballots back from voters, of which 468,417 are from registered Republicans and 414,343 from registered Democrats, according to the Division of Elections. According to the VSS poll results, in which 50 percent of those contacted labeled themselves conservative and the rest evenly split as liberal or moderate, Romney is winning the argument about jobs creation by a 2-1 margin, and even on international issues by a 51 percent to 44 percent margin. Romney has a 15 percentage-point margin with men, with Obama having a 5 percentage-point edge with women voters. While Obama continues to win with young and black voters, he is underperforming from his 2008 victory with suburban, women and Hispanic voters. The poll also suggests that Obama may be losing some support in the black community, as 21 percent of the respondents identifying themselves as African-American plan to vote for Romney. Lee noted that while some polls using “live” pollsters have pushed Obama numbers above 90 percent among black voters, those using automated polls have shown a more diverse outcome. “This would suggest perhaps Obama won’t be on track to get 95 percent of the black vote this time, but only 90 percent or even less.”
| For President | Percent |
| Barack Obama | 46 |
| Mitt Romney | 51 |
| Other | 1 |
| Undecided | 2 |
Battleground Watch 
23 Comments
“This would suggest perhaps Obama won’t be on track to get 95 percent of the black vote this time, but only 90 percent or even less.”
How bad would that be for Obama if replicated across the nation? Not so good, yes?
My housekeeper whio is black and her whole family (a bunch ) are not going to vote for Obama. When he came out on gay marriage that did it for them.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years being a transplant to Florida from Ohio is that in both states Democrats are usually over-represented in all polling – be they exit polls or pre-election polls. Exit polls here in Florida said that Sink should have won the Governorship by 5, but Republican Scott won by 1. Exit polls showed Strickland should have won by 2, but he lost by 2.
I’d agree on the black vote here, but something to think about is that Charlie Crist got 21% of the black vote in the Senate race of 2010 – and I believe Crist also received over 20% when he ran for Governor.
Why is this important? Well, Kendrick Meek, the black Democratic Senate candidate from Miami, received only 74% of the black vote in Florida. Rubio got 4%. Crist got 21%. So it is not out of the realm of possibility.
This is of consequence because this is a race where blacks could have gone 90% to the black Democrat and they did not. Crist, viewed as more moderate, won a good portion. Romney also is viewed by many as being more moderate, so that could play here in Florida.
Blacks suffer higher unemployment than whites in Florida, as they do nationally. I wouldn’t anticipate 20% plus going Romney, but I could see 10-15%.
My feel here is that Florida will go for Romney by a pretty wide margin. Obama’s campaign has pulled back here. They are still here for show. They don’t want people to hear they’ve abandoned Florida, but the Obama campaign’s GOTV efforts here have scaled back. Far fewer phone calls going out to Florida. They are calling Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota from what I’ve heard.
Admittedly, I’m not exactly sure how African-Americans will vote this time around(outside of the obvious the most will go to Obama). They are generally ambivalent to the Republican Party…but there is some ambivalence that has built up from Obama’s support for gay marriage. However, at the same time, there is still some rawness over the race issue in Mormonism (although I do know one black Mormon minister personally and Mormonism has become more ethnically diverse over the decades, so I”m not sure how much that sentiment exists…I know some family members of mine that take issue with it…my father is worried about his religion playing into govt policy and my grandfather who is a 80yr old retired Lutheran minister, while still supporting Obama, obviously doesn’t approve of Mormonism, nor gay marriage for that matter). I personally could care less about Romney’s religion and am glad it dumped its racism when it did decades ago now. Regardless of who wins, it will be interesting to see how the chips fall on the African-American vote.
What you describe suggests continued overwhelming support for Obama (90%+) but perhaps not quite the turnout he got in 2008.
I would tend to agree…I would be shocked if it fell below 90% nationally. It’s not impossible I suppose, but unlikely.
Few of our friends who are black will be sitting out this years. Theyare not happy with O’s stance on gay marrige, they were offended that O has gone so low as to calling R names and had a ad telling the young woman voting for O will be like losing their virginity the first time, but they are raised as Dems, although they are very upset about the economy, they fear that they will be ostracized by their family and friends, so they simply are not going to vote. Several told me that even if there do vote, they will vote for Romney, but if anybody asks, they voted for O.
“Several told me that even if there do vote, they will vote for Romney, but if anybody asks, they voted for O.”
For some reason, that doesn’t shock me. I know fellow African-Americans that refer to black Republicans as “Uncle Toms”…I’ve voted for Republicans before (mostly in my home state of Washington where they are more moderate), but voting Republican for President is a stretch for me, particularly on social issues. But I would never be so low as to call people out of name just because they support a different political party. There is something just very wrong about that.
New Wisconsin poll today out from Ras. Keep an eye out for it; very very interesting.
49-49 according to drudge
All the movement is to Romney.
Here it comes… surprise..consumer sentiment at 5 year high…big story of the day plastered all over the nightly news tonight
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49567744
From Zero Hedge (Ministry of Truth strikes again) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-26/americans-modestly-less-confident-expected-umich-finds
Probably because it’s sinking in that Romney’s going to win and win big.
I guess I look at things a little differently than most people. I think it’s obvious Romney is going to win Florida. That alone usually would mean he will win the election, since Florida usually goes with the winner of the election. Nine out of the last ten, as I recall. But the clincher for me is I think he will also win Ohio, which almost always goes with the winner of the election. Ten out of the last ten, as I recall. But show me one time in the entire history of the country where someone has lost both Florida and Ohio and won the presidency.
http://www.100bestwebsites.org/alt/evmaps/electoral-maps.htm
it’s never happened. but this is fun — it’s got maps going all the way back
I didn’t think it had ever happened, and I don’t think this year will be the first time. At least I hope it won’t.
This Florida poll was done by Susquehanna.
I looked through their crosstabs. They look very accurate. It has the electorate as D+1 with independents going by 3% to Obama. That sounds about right for Florida.
In 2004, Kerry won independents in Florida by 7%. Obama won them by 16% in 2008. Winning independents by only 3% is a major sign of weakness in Florida. D+1 is correct for Florida turnout too. Romney leads by so much because a lot of Democrats are voting for Romney. These are southerners who still identify as Democrats but they vote Republican. The northern half of Florida is a southern state. There are also a bunch of people who say they are independents in Florida who always vote Democrat.
Also, if Susquehanna is this right about Florida….what about Pennsylvania? They have Romney leading by 4 in Pennsylvania.
I am taking a vacation day on Nov 7th so I can recover from the massive celebration. If this is going to be a R+2 to R+4 election nationally and Romney is winning Indies +10 or more, it is so over. The Blue wall will come tumbling down hard.
Keith, there is a “ethnic calculator” on the CNN website (dont kill me) could you punch in your best estimate of those breakdowns and maybe post it. I tried playing with it last night but dont really know the national trends as far as Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians ans others. Might be very interesting what you find
Today’s not the best day for me time wise but this should help.
The real racial breakdown in 2008 was White: 76.3, Blacks 12.1, Hispanic 7.4 Asian 2.5, Other 1.7 — There #s are rarely accurately reported in the media. They use 2008 CNN exit polls when the Census Bureau goes back and checks all the #s before releasing the real data provided.
I would expect Whites: 75% (Team Obama expects 72%), Blacks (11%), Hispanics (9%), Asians (3.5%), Other 1.5%
latest rasmussen has it 50-48 BUT early voters at 23% participation show a 10% advantage to Obama, thus 2.3 percent ahead. Romney is up 3 with the other 77% thus 2.31 percent. So how is this not an even race?