The latest from FMWB shows a neck-and-neck race in Michigan with Mitt Romney nosing out to a one point lead (really 0.6), 47 to 46 with 2% Undecided. A lot of naysayers want to down-play FMWB’s results but this polling firm only gets criticized because they provide full transparency unlike the other firms. They give you all the ugly data underneath the poll results which lets you know how the sausage really gets made. I have blogged my own thoughts on the firm when they first showed up on my radar and notably they provide a FMWB Public Opinion Polling Modeling Reliablity Press Release for those who want to dismiss results. Dismiss them if you will but we’ll all know on Tuesday night who was polling the electorate and who was polling Narnia:
Who are you most likely to vote for in the Presidential election – Democratic President Barack Obama, or Republican Nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, another candidate, or are you undecided?
Republican Nominee Mitt Romney 46.86%
President Barack Obama 46.24%
Another candidate 4.94%
Undecided 1.96%Foster McCollum White Baydoun (FMW)B, a national public opinion polling and voter analytics consulting firm based in Michigan and representing the combined resources of Foster McCollum White & Associates (Troy Michigan) and Baydoun Consulting (Dearborn Michigan) conducted a telephone-automated polling random survey of Michigan registered and most likely November 2012 General election voters for Fox 2 News Detroit to determine their voting and issue preferences on the Presidential election.
The margin of error for this total polling sample is 2.24% with a confidence level of 95%.
Battleground Watch 
67 Comments
I think I will start chilling the Champagne. Opps no I have to fly that day. 8 hours bottle to throttle.
NBC National Poll: Obama 48 Romney 47
Politico/battleground: Obama 48 Romney 48
Rasmussen Reports:Obama 49 Romney 49……certain to vote its Romney 48 Obama 47
It’s gonna be a close race folks….but one thing all these polls have in common? Obama under 50%!
There’s some interesting stuff in the Politico/Battleground poll. It does show a tie, with Obama below 50%. It also shows a rough tie among independent voters. However, it also shows a huge move in favor of Obama in the northeast, from an 8% margin to a 20% margin in the northeastern states (almost all of which are blue regardless of the margin). So I’m wondering whether this might not portend some additional strength for Romney outside of the northeast. Another thing is early voting. Unlike Gallup, which showed Romney with a 52-47% lead among early voters, this poll shows Obama with a 50-48% lead among the 27% of the poll respondents who say that they have already cast their ballots. Of the remainder, “another 58 percent who have not voted yet described themselves as ‘extremely likely’ to vote. Of them, Romney leads 49 to 46 percent.” Last time I looked, a 2% margin among 27% would equate to a 0.54% advantage, but a 3% margin the other way among 58% who have not yet voted but are “extremely likely” to do so would equate to a 1.74% advantage for Romney, so a net 1.2% (1.74% – .54%) advantage for Romney among that 85% portion of the poll respondents. We’re not told anything about the other 15% (who have neither voted nor are “extremely likely” to do so), but in order to overcome a 1.2% advantage for Romney, they’d have to vote in favor of Obama by an 8% margin. It seems unlikely that Obama would have a 4X greater margin among election day voters who aren’t “extremely likely” voters, as compared to early voters.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BF146003-AEB2-4CAE-81CF-578919B83017
And the Battleground poll is now 3 days old, taken at the height of whatever bounce Obama got out of the response to Sandy (10/29-11/1)
Defused by that revenge nonsense, I dare say.
It might be worth pointing out that Politico is calling the Electoral Vote 290-248 for Obama
http://www.politico.com/2012-election/swing-state/
Same as RCP and Electionprojection.com.
–bks
bks you never want to actually look at anything other than top line numbers. It is GIGO. And by the way, Politico is the ultimate MSM left-leaning outfit, to the extent you can be “MSM” and be a website.
I am gratified to know that Politico is a dead parrot as we thought all along. Thank you, b-k-s.
I’m still waiting for a reasonable explanation of why “top line numbers” are bad in 2012, but were fine in 2008, 2004, 2000, ….
If Romney wins all those swing states on Tuesday, you guys will have good reason to break out the bubbly. Until then, you’re on the fringe.
–bks
I don’t recall McCain being tied in WI, PA or MI a couple days before election day in 08..or even close. But somehow pointing to that makes us crazy and fringe…so says the lone troll on a conservative leaning blog.
And Nate Silver swings his entire model around (from 80% O victory to 70% R victory) based upon whether the popular vote comes in tied or R+1? What ever happened to the meme that the popular vote doesn’t matter, it’s only the electoral votes that matter? (That’s what all you libs were saying when the national polls were consistently coming in at Romney +2 or more.) Bottom line, if the electorate in 2012 looks like it did in 2008, Obama will win reelection. If the electorate looks more like a 2004 or 2010 electorate, Romney is our next President. Still waiting to hear from bks why he never looks at the internals of any polls — might as well just sit on the Politico and WaPo websites and cluck like a chicken that Obama can’t lose.
Posted this last night:
If you use the Rass Party Affliation tracker, If Romney splits the independents with Obama, the he wins the Pop vote by 1.2%. 50.3 to 48.8.using this method rather than LV has predicted actual margin of victory within a .4% for the past 2 cycles.
If Rasmussen’s party ID tracker is correct then it would be a convincing Romney victory more like 52-47 not 50-48. Bush lost independants in 04′ and still won by 50.8 to 48.3 with an R+1 or 2 electorate. Rasmussen’s tracker has Romney only getting 87% of Republicans, this would mean underperforming McCain by like 4-5%, I would wager that Romney will do better then McCain did in the crossover vote.
Keith–I’ve reading your blog for months and just want to say THANK YOU for doing it. I’ve learned so much about polls and polling methodology from you. I’d still be at the mercy of the MSM re: poll results if not for this blog–and that’s not a good place to be! I hope you have plans to continue blogging after the election. Go Mitt! ( My wife and I will be at the Manchester rally tomorrow night–first political rally ever for both of us.)
+1
That Narnia meme will live on well past this election. Love it.
‘The latest NewsmaxZogby polling numbers show Obama, who was down three points just a few days ago, has pulled ahead by a couple of points.
Zogby said the president is “turning the tide with Independents.”’
http://www.newsmax.com/US/zogby-election-tracking-poll/2012/11/02/id/462571
–bks
Do you have nothing better to do?
Zogby is nothing but a left wing political hack. His credibility was shot years ago. If Zogby says Obama is winning, then I am even more sure of a Romney blow-out!
Certainly, but given that you spent half the time denying that there was a tide in the first place…
We do not fight because we are sure of victory, but because we believe in America. We believe that Mitt Romney offers the right course for the nation’s future, and we believe that his message will ultimately appeal to Americans from all walks of life. It ought to be clear that Mitt Romney is the only candidate with a proven track record and vision of common-sense Conservative, bipartisan leadership.
So you can kindly just keep your bks without the “k” till after the end of the world. And make sure you hide from the sun, which turns all trolls to stone. Then again, you’re called trolls for a reason. You just don’t get it. Alright. Find someone else to pick on, like hobbits or dwarves or the Eldar. Just stay away from us here.
Wow. You have to rely on the disgraced Zogby for hope.
The article (written on Friday) says that O’s photo ops after Sandy has helped with independents. The poor FEMA response and O hitting the trail again with stark images of gas lines and hungry, cold people should kick independents back away from O and only help reinforce his incompetence with fence voters. I know that I have to wait until tomorow to get gas because of my odd numbered license plate. The line for gas I saw on my way to mass this morning (where the church had no power) at 7:30 am was about a half mile long with about 30 people standing in line with gas cans to feed their generators. But hey if this were a swing state…………..
May of been a slight bounce for Sandy, but it was fleeting. I also do not believe that independents get swayed so easily by a photo op. The reality of the economy is what they will be thinking about, going into polling day.
Hope it’s true that O doesn’t get a bounce from this tragedy. Given how insanely lucky he’s already gotten with Benghazi, it would be cosmically unjust.
“Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!”
– Gandalf, in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Strangely appropriate. He was speaking to trolls.
I love it!!! Someone was talking about Mitt-thrandir also – lol
wow, bks, you’ve reduced yourself to quoting zogby and newsmax. Think about that for a moment.
I quoted right-wing sources because I knew you would reject PPP out of hand. PPP finds independents breaking +5 for Obama:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/11/obama-leads-50-47-nationally.html
ABC and Politico find Romney and Obama tied among independents.
–bks
So YOU are gumby, eh?
Never mind anyway, trolls are all related somehow, all made in mockery of the Ents.
Okay, so Obama will win. (No, I don’t actually believe that.) But I will say it just to shut you and your constant stream of negative bullcrap up.
D/R/I samples not given in the PPP poll, but I reverse-algebraed them from the subgroup levels of support: D 42.4/R 27.6/I 20
Ack: damn typos…should be 42.4-37.6-20
OK, subsamples are given, so duhhhh me, just not in the place they usually are. D/R/I is 40/35/26. Reverse multiplying gives 50.56% for Obama and 47.1% for Romney. So D’s probably rounded up in this sample to 40. Dems up 0.5 or so from 2008. R’s up 3, and I’s down 3.
Zogby: “In our poll, we ask those who’ve already voted who they voted for and they’re telling us nationwide that it’s about even slightly favoring President Obama at this point. But that is nationwide.”
if the early vote is “slightly favoring President Obama” he’s done.
This is actually true based on history and party Affliation. Those that left the Dem party in the last 4 years have now rebounded into Obamas camp
However, this is all the support Obama can expect from the Independents. the remaining 2-3% will break heavy for Romney. Thus, you will see the PV at 50.3% R to 48.8% O.
Remember Zogby’s election day prediction of a landslide for President Kerry? Ah, good times.
O is acting like a loser. All of the action is in the blue states. Yet polling seems to have them tied, O still making a play at NC and VA. OH not quite there. Axelrod and Mussina releasing their 120,000,000 voter contact figures. O up in poll averages.
What is going on? What is the truth here?
I guess we’ll have to wait 48 hours to find out.
Last NBC/WSJ poll shows Obama up 1, 48-47. D+2.
D+2 is reasonable, of course.
And there has definitely been some movement with indies, in favor of Obama.
“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one.”
– Puddleglum in The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis
Rasmussen shows Romney up 9 among indies this morning with a D+3 tracking poll out. Earlier in the week Romney was only up 3 among indies. The trend of indies back towards Romney looks real and the inadequate response to the Sandy disaster is starting to take hold.
I posted this on another Battleground thread but it deserves a re-post!
OK Anyone that believes Obama will win on Tuesday – please read and observe!
THE MILLION MUPPET MARCH
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/million-muppet-march-descends-on-capitol-hill
How many do you think turned up??
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20196271
Apparently it was HUNDREDS yes HUNDREDS, not THOUSANDS, NOT A MILLION!
I am laughing on the floor right now.
The modern day Democratic Party. Beyond parody!
(please also note that this has been planned and in the works since early October)
weird poll. They scaled black votes to 17.5% up from 12% in 2008 (exit polls)but also they don’t call cellphones. I think it’s D+9 but that’s on raw data, not scaled. They scaled up young people and blacks quite a bit, so maybe it’s more in the final scaled poll, but I couldn’t find it.
Which way do the final 2-3% break? My guess is that turnout advantages will be even, unlike OH 2004. O is down 5-6% nationally from 2008 in the early vote, with some cannibalization (I’ll throw out O>R as a guess in this matter). I’m sticking with R 51-48 or 52-48, 300-310 EV. All those guys at WP this AM making guesses? I could make the same ones if all I read was Nate Silver and the RCP averages. Someone is going to be very wrong here–who? It’s just like Moneyball. Trust the stats entirely, or use your gut and some real world experience to modify them? I vote the latter, but I can see where partisans on the left would cling and grasp to the former.
Drove around my area of Michigan the last couple of days. Romney signs out did Obama signs 20-1. In 2008, it was the exact opposite. I know it’s only anecdotal but it is encouraging.
Here in West Michigan (conservative strong hold), signage is down for both. Still more Romnus signs. Libs in the neighborhood haven’t put up their O signs so the Romnus people haven’t responded. I have my Religious Liberty sign (code) sign up.
I think the polls now are just background noise. Actual early votes are in and they are supporting the assumptions that Romney’s team need to win the election. First and foremost OH. Since Obama lost a net 250k early votes currently, in a race he won by 260k in 2008, and since McCain actually won the Nov. 6 vote tally in 2008 with a very depressed Republican voter turn out, there is no way Obama will win OH this time when GOP voters are super energized. OH is Romney the fundamentals are in place.
And the population of Obama’s biggest stronghold in Ohio, Cuyahoga County, has declined since 2008 and this is reflected in 6,350 fewer early votes having been cast in Cuyahoga County in 2012 as compared to 2008.
Click to access 2008_2012InHouseVotingDailyComparison.pdf
As a reminder the incumbent president or the leading challenger usually gets even or less than 0% from his final polling numbers. History is on our side. This goes back to 1956. I will be happy to see O have 48 or less on Monday. 11 out of 14 elections. Only 3 went on to win with an increase from their final poll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_U.S._Presidential_election
We’ll have to do something about women, “moderates”, Hispanics and union members soon, that’s for sure.
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby 35% grade F 31% 48%
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/analysis-most-accurate-polls-2008-presidential-election
Wow, D +9 (assuming raw not scaled), black vote scaled up to 17.5% and males scaled down to only 46%, and Mitt’s still up? If reliable, this is great news.
+1
Final Michigan presidential vote was D +16.5% in 2008 and D +3.4% in 2004. Still think D +9% (even if raw) is more than generous to Dems given depressed enthusiasm this year. Great news for Romney team.
Wait, black 17.%?
25% MORE than 2008?
YGBSM.
Not sure what you mean by 25% more… Blacks 17% (or a little under) sounds about right to me, given that they’re one of the most reliable voting demographics (and possibly the single most reliable voting bloc among Dems).
Indie vote in polls are fluid. Polls taken from Wed-Frid. Don’t reflect the Indy vote today. As mentioned above, I wonder if some of the movement in the popular vote is driven by North East and Dem base coming home. The fundamentals haven’t changed. Glad to see the Indies shifting back in at least one daily tracker I trust 🙂
Maybe they couldn’t get a hold of enough New Jersey/New Yorkers, so they imputed historical Dem/Rep numbers – which are no longer valid?
THE MILLION MUPPET MARCH amazing no pan shots to really show the small crowd. Our liberal media at work as usual. If it had been a republican event they would have been all over it. Their spin of course is Sandy.
Yes I posted some details above and links about this including video.
It really is hillarious!
I originally thought this was an Onion piece. Funny/sad.
This poll is encouraging, but what is the D/R/I mix, and how does it compare historically?
Am I reading right, Did Rasmussen predict the election turnout to be D 39% R 37%?
So what is his party id polls showing R+1
Also Axelrod is really going big bravado on Sunday shows saying Romney is in deep trouble desperate going elsewhere because Ohio is failing and states like VI and FL are not wrapped up. Big talk for a campaign defending PN WI MN
Yeah, I think a campaign that is struggling to defend Minnesota and Pennsylvania and Michigan ought to be a bit more humble and realistic about how the campaign is going. But humility isn’t in the toolbox of a modern Chicago pol, it would seem.
A couple of Things. If Romney was really close MI, MN and PA don’t you think they would have spent less time in Nevada, Iowa and Colorado and more in these three states. There is always talk on here about where the canidates are. Romney is still in Florida and Virginia which were supposed to be sewn up weeks ago. One note on the MI poll. 80% of it is people 51 and older. I am not sure that is realistic.
Romney hasn’t been in NV for close to a week now. He’s only going FL and VA to do rallies with Connie Mack and George Allen to help pull the over the finish line in their Senate races…….The fact Romney has moved into blue PA, MI, WI and MN and the fact 0bama (or Bill Clinton) is coming in those states to defend them tells all. 0bama knows he’s in trouble and Romney is just looking to expand the map for broader win so the democRATS can’t argue is was a close win and Romney doesn’t have any mandate to undo 0bamacare.
FWIW: I saw Axlerod on Chris Wallace this morning. The man does not look confident at all.
I’d have to think that if Romney is this close in Michigan, Ohio is looking better and better. Why would Romney spend less time in Colorado, cbr66? When a poll shows you a little ahead, those 9 EV are extremely valuable because added that with either Wisc or OH, he doesn’t need any of the others you mention above.
White people, men and women, in the important tri-county area metro Detroit, left a ton of votes on the table in 2008. 2012 white vote will turnout huge in Oakland and Macomb counties. The turnout in Wayne county, blacks and Latinos with not approach 2008 levels. Finally, the massive MI labor, union vote will vote the economy, not the blind straight-ticket democrat line. Romney will carry MI. watch white women in Oakland and Macomb.