So Where Is This Going?

These are the latest results from our NewsmaxZogby Tracking Polls with exactly one week to go in the presidential race between Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and GOP challenger former Governor Mitt Romney.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you (let alone tells the world) who will win this – or even who has the better odds. This is about human campaigners and human voters and not about raw numbers, commodity trades, baseball statistics, the weather, or even history. What we do know is that three of the past four U.S. elections have been too close to call – a statement more about changing demographics and cultural divisions than about probabilities and statistics.

Here is what troubles me, however. As a pollster, I sure want to be right, to be able to show the trends, to get a handle on what is motivating tens of millions of citizens to vote one way or the other. I want to be able to chronicle the American story at a pivotal moment. But as a citizen, I am troubled that we just may not know, that there may not be a clear winner on November 6. With the pending fiscal cliff and numerous other domestic and global crises, Americans may again vote another tie (as they did in 2000 and 2004). And even without a tie, we know that President George W. Bush was not able to use his majority from 2004, just as President Barack Obama was not able to treat his 53% majority from 2008 as a mandate for change.

I believe in the public will. I am a devotee of Jean Jacques Rousseau who wrote that the expression of the full community yields something greater than the sum of its parts. But another tie produces worse than a stalemate. In its most benign form it leads to indecision, to entropy. In its worst form, it allows our problems to get larger and more unsolvable. And even worse than that, both sides end up in the courts. This time, as you can see from the above tables, the courts can be kept busy in more than Florida. Add any number of states, including some that may not even be close.

I am worried. I want to be right as a pollster; but I want clarity on Election Day and am not sure we will get that.

Pollster John Zogby: “What is most noticeable from the national table is that undecided voters seem to be breaking toward the challenger with Romney gaining 3 points since the beginning and Obama losing 1 point. Romney is picking up support among independents. A close look inside shows that Romney is now polling 37% among Hispanics, 8% among African Americans, 37% among young voters and, for the for the first time, 63% among evangelicals. He also is polling well now among frequent Wal-Mart Shoppers (54%-41%). The minor party candidates can have a major impact as it brings Romney and Obama into a tie (at 45%). Libertarian Gary Johnson polls 5% among 18-29 year old voters, Green Jill Stein polls 2% and Constitution Virgil Goode 2% among these young voters. The storm is hitting land as I write and could have an unpredictable impact. Will lower income and minority voters be the last to have their power restored? That could weigh heavily on Obama. Or perhaps he emerges looking presidential?”

Pollster John Zogby: “Florida has been very close since 2000. The president won a squeaker in 2008 and his base looks solid: 68% of Hispanics, 86% of African Americans, and 50% of Creatives. He has tightened up the race in the I-4 Corridor and leads among independents 54% to 37% and among Catholics 51% to 43%. All of that to get into a 1 point lead. In a multi-candidate race, the race is all tied up.”

Pollster John Zogby: “The silver lining for Obama is if there are two states to be leading, best that they be Ohio and Florida. In Ohio, the president seems to be pulling away among independents with a 15 point lead. He is still upside down in his re-elect 43%-46%. Obama is comfortably ahead among 18-29 year olds (60%-39), and in a 5-way race, the president leads by 14 points: 51% to 37%, with Johnson polling 2%, Jill Stein with 4%, and Virgil Goode 5%. While his lead holds, these candidates can drain support from a key constituency for the president.”

Readers Comments (0)

Comments are closed.