This month, ARG is polling every state in the presidential contest. Recently, they released the first 20 of these polls and the results looked pretty good for Kerry. How much faith should we put in these polls? How well did their polls turn out in 2000 when they also polled all 50 states?
Alan Abramowitz has looked at ARG’s track record and here’s what he found:

My analysis of ARG’s September, 2000 poll of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia indicates that, in general, the poll was highly accurate. On average, the state by state results yielded an average lead for Al Gore of about 1 percentage point in September. On Election Day, Gore actually lost the average state by an average margin of 3.6 percentage points even though he narrowly won the national popular vote. This is due to the equal weighting in the average of heavily populated states and sparsely populated states. Gore carried 6 of the 9 most populous states while Bush carried 15 of the 20 least populous states.
The 4.6 point shift to Bush between the ARG poll and Election Day can easily be explained by the fact that the poll was conducted at a time when Gore was leading in almost all of the national polls, before the first presidential debate. By Election Day, of course, the race had narrowed to a virtual dead heat.
The ARG September poll accurately predicted the winner of 45 of the 50 states, missing only Missouri, West Virginia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. I am, of course, counting ARG’s poll showing Al Gore leading George Bush in Florida as a correct prediction since Gore did actually receive more votes, or at least intended votes, than Bush in Florida.
The correlation between the ARG September poll results and the actual election results is a very impressive .95. This means that the results of the ARG poll explain about 90 percent of the variation in the state-by-state election results.
The ARG 50-state poll, done well before Election Day, provided to be a much more reliable predictor of the actual results of the 2000 presidential election than the Gallup tracking poll which gyrated wildly in the weeks leading up to the election, sometimes showing sizeable leads for Bush, sometimes showing sizeable leads for Gore, and sometimes showing a close race. Indeed, only 10 days before Election Day, Gallup’s tracking poll had George Bush leading Al Gore by 13 points–similar to Bush’s lead over John Kerry [among likely voters] in Gallup’s most recent 2004 poll.
Therefore, we can have a good deal of confidence in the accuracy of ARG’s 2004 50-state poll which, based on the first 20 states that have been released thus far, seems to indicate that, contrary to some (but not all) recent national polls, we have a very close presidential contest. Kerry is leading by a comfortable margin in every blue state. More importantly, he is leading in 4 of the 5 battleground states included in the first wave and is only trailing by 1 point in Colorado–a state that George Bush carried by 9 points in the 2000 election. Another very recent newspaper poll in Colorado shows the same thing.
My advice is watch the rest of the ARG state polls as they are released….I predict that they will continue to show a very competitive battlefield in the 2004 presidential election.

ARG releases the rest of their state polls on September 22. Stay tuned.

As Chris Bowers of MyDD points out in his insightful new essay, “Rapid Poll Movement is a General Election Myth“, the new CBS/NYT poll is actually a lot worse for Bush than the CBS News poll released a week earlier, even though both polls gave Bush a 50-42 lead among RVs. That’s because, since the current poll is substantially more Republican than the earlier poll (which actually had a slight Democratic edge), Bush should actually have performed better than the earlier poll on the horse race and on indicators like job approval and right/direction wrong track in this poll, instead of about the same. That also means that if we adjust the current poll to correct the apparent surplus of Republicans, Bush’s performance on these indicators should actually decline below the measurements of the earlier poll.
Since CBS News thoughtfully provides the overall result and the result broken down by party ID for each and every question in their survey, it is possible to estimate what Bush’s ratings would have looked like if there weren’t so many Republicans in the sample. Here are some examples, based on reweighting the current poll to the 2000 exit poll distribution of partisanship:
Overall job approval: 49 percent approval/44 percent disapproval
Economic job approval: 42/52
Iraq job approval: 45/51
Campaign against terrorism job approval: 57/37
Right direction/wrong track: 40/53
In every case, these ratings are worse than they were a week ago, making the idea that the race is tightening up more plausible.
Of course, Kerry needs not just a tight race, but to pull ahead. Given Bush’s continued vulnerabilities, which these data highlight, Kerry’s got the opening to do so. I’ll address this issue in future posts.

John Harwood has a front-page article in the Monday Wall Street Journal that does an excellent job of summarizing and discussing the debate that has been unfolding around the problems with recent polls. Of course, here on DonkeyRising I have discussed these problems in detail and defended the proposition that, once these problems are taken into account, the Presidential race is close to tied.
Or, as the article puts it:

If the CBS and Pew surveys are adjusted to reflect comparable numbers of Republicans and Democrats, their results would have been virtually identical.
Indeed that’s precisely what liberal polling analyst Ruy Teixeira did on his Web log, called Emerging Democratic Majority. As the New York Times report of the poll carried the headline “Bush Opens Lead,” Mr. Teixeira’s blog declared, “CBS News/New York Times poll has it close to even.”
…Mr. Teixeira argues that the Democratic edge Mr. Kohut [of the Pew Research Center] found is realistic, since exit polls from the 1996 and 2000 campaigns indicated that in both cases four percentage points more Democrats than Republicans showed up to vote. Slightly more self-described Democrats than Republicans voted in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 elections as well.

Nice to see some of the these very important arguments escaping the blogosphere ghetto and entering the mainstream press.

Well, that is if you weight their data to conform to the 4 point Democratic party ID lead which we have good reason to believe is the underlying distribution in the voting electorate. As many have already heard, the new CBS News/New York Times poll, conducted September 12-16, gives Bush an 8 point lead (50-42) among RVs–but also gives the Republicans a 4 point edge on party ID. Reweight their data to conform to an underlying Democratic 4 point edge (using the 39D/35R/26I distribution from the 2000 exit poll) and you get a nearly even race, 47 Bush/46 Kerry.
Nearly even. That goes along with the the 46-46 tie in the Pew Research Center poll (which gave the Democrats a 4 point edge on party ID without weighting) and the 48-48 tie in the Gallup poll (once weighted to reflect an underlying Democratic 4 point edge). Not to mention the two other recent national polls (Harris, Democracy Corps) that show the race within one point.
Perhaps all this is just a coincidence, but the pattern seems striking. Once you adjust for the apparent overrepresentation of Republican identifiers in some samples, the polls all seem to be saying the same thing: the race is a tie or very close to it.
Note: this entry has been revised from the original to correct the CBS reweighted horse race from 46-46 (original) to 47-46 (corrected).

Even as Bush has opened up a small lead in the national polls–and I’ve tried to offer some evidence in my posts that this lead is underwhelming–evidence has been accumulating that he remains weak among the kind of independent and swing voters he needs to form an electoral majority.
In fact, the Annenberg Election Survey has just released data that indicate, while Bush made some small gains among the overall electorate when comparing the pre-GOP convention and post-GOP convention periods, he has actually lost ground among “persuadable voters” (those voters who are undecided or who say there is a “good chance” they could change their mind about the candidate they currently support).
For example, Bush’s favorability rating fell from 47 percent favorable/30 percent unfavorable among persuadables in August (August 9-29) to 43/33 after the GOP convention (September 3-12). And Kerry’s rating among this group actually has gone up: from 36/25 to 43/25 (now somewhat better than Bush’s).
In addition, Bush’s overall job rating among persuadables is now 44 percent approval/49 percent disapproval; his job rating on the economy is 32/63 and his job rating on Iraq is 34/59. Even his job rating on terrorism is only 50/41. And all of these ratings are now lower among persuadables, not higher, than they were in August
Bush has also lost significant ground among persuadables since August on some key candidate characteristics including “cares about people like me”, “shares my values”, “out of touch with people like me”, “stubborn” and “arrogant”. These voters are now more liikely, not less likely, to think the positive attributes apply to Kerry and the negative attributes to Bush.
In short, the persuadables aren’t persuaded and appear to be ripe for Democratic gains. What’s the key? One possibility is Iraq. Persuadables are now less convinced than ever that Bush has a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion–just 17 percent now think so. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of persuadables think Kerry has such a plan–not much of a difference and not even one in Kerry’s favor.
Make that difference a big one in Kerry’s favor and Bush’s weakness among persuadables could translate into big gains for the Democratic ticket.

It would be hard to find a Democrat right now who doesn’t think that the attacks during August by the Swift Boat critics were extremely damaging to John Kerry and that a much earlier and more combative response to the accusations would have substantially reduced their impact. With reports of new smear attacks on the horizon, many democrats consider the two generalizations above as the unquestioned basis for planning the democratic response.
But, surprisingly, the evidence for both of these conclusions is not as clear as it might seem. The analyses that have advanced this view have generally said something like the following: “Well, Kerry’s poll support fell during August and the Swift Boat attacks were the biggest news story that month so the one must have caused the other”
For example, Newsweek’s summary of its most recent poll argued,
Kerry’s campaign, on the other hand, may have been hurt by the television ad campaign launched against him by Vietnam veterans who question his record. Just 45 percent of all voters view Kerry favorably (down from 53 percent in late July) and 46 percent view him unfavorably (up from 37 percent).
This direct jump from the swift boat ads to the level of Kerry’s popularity is, to put it mildly, a pretty breathtaking leap of statistical inference (and one that is probably not a good idea to try out in Stat 101). But, if you look closely, many commentators argue along pretty much the same kinds of lines.
Commentators get away with this kind of “seat of the pants” thinking because, like most people, they rely heavily on gut, instinct and experience to reach conclusions and frequently use polling data more like decoration for their ideas then as actual proof.
But if Democrats want to make serious use of public opinion data in planning their political strategy, they need to begin by examining the data in a different way, focusing on results that can actually inform choices between alternative strategies.
In the case of the swift boat ads there are three key questions a practical political strategist would want answered: how effective actually was the attack, how much of an effect did the delayed response of the Kerry campaign have, and what impact, if any, did the attacks and the controversy have on the image and reputation of Bush and the Republican party.
1. How effective were the ads?
On the first question – how successful were the attacks – it is important to distinguish between public opinion about Kerry’s participation in the anti-war movement after he returned from Vietnam and the specific challenges the Swift Boat critics raised about his military service. As noted previously, Kerry’s anti-war activities during the early 1970’s had always been certain to anger and alienate a significant number of veterans and families of men who had died in Vietnam. According to an August 23-26 poll by the Annenberg Center for Public Policy, some 60% of the veterans who were familiar with John Kerry’s anti-war statements disapproved of them.
But in regard to the specific allegations raised by the Swift Boat critics that Kerry did not actually deserve his medals, the Annenberg study found that only 24% of the sample agreed in contrast to 55% who thought Kerry did indeed deserve them. In fact, even a majority of traditionally conservative groups such as men and veterans agreed with Kerry rather then his critics on this issue. It was only among Republican partisans and in the closed conservative media environment created by talk radio and cable TV that the percentage of those who thought Kerry did not deserve his medals ever rose above 30%.
Even after the Republican convention this negative view of the ads has persisted. In a Sept 3-5 Gallup survey, only 21% of the respondents felt the ads were “generally accurate” in contrast to 40% who felt that they “distort the truth” (another 40% were either unfamiliar with the issue or had not formed an opinion)
It is unquestionably disturbing that the Fox/Talk Radio/Republican Party media machine can convince 20% of the American people of charges that are rejected by most other Americans. But, while the attacks clearly twisted media coverage of Kerry in a negative direction during August and prevented Kerry from focusing attention on “his” issues, as an attempt to actually damage John Kerry’s image and reputation with voters outside the loyal Republican base, the data from the Annenberg survey (and other polls as well) indicate that the smear campaign was essentially a failure.
2. Would a faster response by the Kerry campaign have prevented the smear from taking hold?
The Annenberg survey also calculated day by day data during mid-August which showed that the number of people who doubted that Kerry deserved his medals gradually rose from about 20% on August 10, when the advertisements had been in the news for about 6 days, up to 30% by August 18th when the Kerry campaign first forcefully responded. After that, the percentage of doubters then sank back down to about 20% by August 26th as an increasing number of eyewitnesses, documents and editorials in major newspapers appeared supporting Kerry’s version of events.
Given the 10% decline in the percentage of people who doubted Kerry’s earned his medals that occurred once the Kerry campaign and the media began firmly challenging the attacks, it would indeed appear that an earlier response might have prevented the smear from gaining traction in the first place. But, before accepting this conclusion it is necessary to consider that significant sympathy for Kerry was created by the perception that he had been the victim of a two-week long, totally one-sided attack. Had the Kerry campaign responded furiously to the charges the same day they were launched, the counterattack would almost certainly have been spun by the critics as an attempt to “hide the truth” “create a cover-up”, “bully Vietnam veterans” or “prevent an honest debate”. This accusation, in turn, would then have been used to demand that the mainstream media criticize both camps for “negative politics” rather then just the Republicans and could easily have weakened the very categorical rejection of the accusations that finally appeared in the editorial comments of major newspapers like the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune.
This does not mean that the slow response of the Kerry campaign was the right strategy. But it does illustrate that, in responding to smears, there are often significant trade-off’s between conflicting objectives that have to be taken into consideration.
3. Did the controversy damage the Republican Party’s image and reputation?
Regarding this final issue, the Annenberg study found in late August that 46% of the respondents believed the Bush campaign was behind the ads, in contrast to 37% who did not. By the time of the Republican convention an increasing perception of the party’s behavior as generally unfair had clearly taken hold. In the September 3-5 Gallup poll noted above, a majority of 52% of the respondents felt that Republicans had “attacked John Kerry unfairly” in contrast to only 42% who did not. (The democrats, in contrast, were seen by most voters as not having attacked Bush unfairly). Similarly, 50% of the Gallup sample felt the Republicans had spent too much time criticizing the Democrats during the convention in contrast to only 39% who thought they had maintained the right balance.
Lessons for next time
There are several conclusions suggested by this data, conclusions that go beyond the currently popular view that democrats should respond to any future smear attacks as rapidly, forcefully and aggressively as possible.
First, it is probably impossible to prevent smears from taking hold within the conservative “echo chamber” of Fox and talk radio and it may be a misuse of resources to attempt to achieve that goal. The more important and achievable goal – preventing the smear from spreading beyond that audience – is probably best pursued by energetically demanding that the mainstream media fulfill their journalistic obligations by emphatically and categorically labeling false accusations as baseless on their editorial pages rather then attempting to debate the issues directly with the smear group itself.
Second, while a very rapid and aggressive response to new accusations can clearly be desirable, it must still be balanced with the need to appear fair, unruffled and unafraid of open and honest debate. A shrill or intemperate counterattack, even if launched at the earliest possible moment, can have little effect or even be counterproductive.
Finally, Republicans have significantly damaged their image and reputation among many moderates and opinion leaders by embracing an essentially dishonest, “win at any cost” approach during this campaign. This tarnished reputation is an asset democrats should energetically exploit. Not only does it reduce the appeal and legitimacy of Republicanism in general, but it makes it easier for Dems to successfully deflect future smear campaigns. Ronald Reagan’s famous response, “There you go again”, with which he portrayed Jimmy Carter’s repeated challenges to his character as tiresome evidence of unfairness, provides one model of how such a strategy can be successfully executed.

Well, those horse race data keep coming in so let’s see what they tell us about the state of the race. Here are the Bush leads in the polls released since the end of the GOP convention. I use Kerry-Bush results and, in the one case where the 2-way race is not available (the Washington Post poll), I estimate a result based on their 3-way race margin and how the 3-way and 2-way races compared in their previous poll.
I use RVs intead of LVs where both are supplied for reasons I have dwelt on extensively. But where only LVs are available I use LVs. In these cases, based on what we know about the relation between LV and RV results this year, the results should actually be better for Bush than if the RV results had been available (though with Zogby and Rasmussen, since they party-weight, it’s hard to know how the two factors (LVs vs. party-weighting) net out).
Zogby, September 8-9 LVs: +2
Rasmussen: September 7-9 LVs: +2
Democracy Corps, September 6-9 LVs: +3
Fox News: September 7-8 LVs: +2
CBS News, September 6-8 RVs: +8
Washington Post, September 6-8 RVs: +4
Gallup, September 3-5 RVs: +1
Conclusion: Bush is ahead but probably not by much. September 6-8 was apparently a good period for him, relative to the immediate post-convention period covered by the Gallup poll, but he appears to be fading a bit based on the pattern of surveys covering slightly later time periods.
As for the idea that Bush has surged into a commanding lead: not in this universe anyway.

Another nugget from Alan Abramowitz:

If you assume that Democrats, Republicans, and independents in their LV sample voted about the same way as Dems, Reps, and indies in their RV sample (see their “dissecting the vote” analysis on the Gallup website), which was 90-7 Kerry for Dems, 49-46 Kerry for indies, and 90-7 Bush for Reps, in order to have the overall result come out 52-45 Bush there would have to be about a TEN point Republican advantage in party id among LVs. (If you assume 30 percent Dems, 40 percent Reps, and 30 percent indies, for example, with those Bush and Kerry percentages, you end up with almost exactly a 52-45 Bush lead.) Now that is ridiculous. Does anyone really believe that Republicans are going to have a 10 point advantage among 2004 voters?

I sure don’t and you shouldn’t either. In 2000, the Democrats had a 4 point advantage over the Republicans. That advantage, in my view, is likely to remain stable in 2004, though it’s certainly possible that it might diminish some (or increase!). But turn into a 10 point GOP advantage? No way. The fact must be faced: Gallup likely voters look pretty darn unlikely and give a distorted picture of political reality.
Perhaps it’s time for a re-think on this one over at Gallup headquarters.

OK, horse race fans, when last we picked up the story (September 3-5 Gallup poll), Bush had a one point lead on Kerry among RVs.
Today we have three different polls released covering about the same period with three pretty different horse race results.
1. CBS News, polling September 6-8 among RVs, gives Bush an 8 point lead.
2. ABC News/Washington Post, polling September 6-8 among RVs, gives Bush an estimated 4 point lead. Why do I say “estimated”? Because, now that Nader is becoming an ever-less-viable candidate, the WP poll has decided only to ask the three-way horse race question and not the followup for Nader voters that allows you to construct a 2-way race. Makes a lot of sense, right?
Since, in their last poll, the 2 way race knocked 2 points off Bush’s lead, I do the same thing in this poll and estimate that Bush’s 6 point lead in the 3 way race translates into a 4 point lead in the 2-way race.
3. Finally, Fox News, polling September 7-8 among LVs (no RV data available), gives Bush a 2 point lead.
Kinda confusing, huh? Why would September 6-8 be a better period for Bush than September 3-5, right after the convention? And could Fox’s polling period, which does not include September 6, mean they missed Bush’s best day and he was starting to go downhill a bit?
Stay tuned! There’ll be more polls coming at us shortly, I’m sure.

As Alan Abramowitz has pointed out to me in another missive:

Gallup’s new poll in Ohio appears to have the same problem as their latest national poll–there is again a huge discrepancy between their results for registered voters (Bush 48, Kerry 47) and their results for likely voters (Bush 52, Kerry 44). Based on the numbers of registered and likely voters in the Gallup sample, this means that they are projecting that 90 percent of Bush supporters will vote but only 78 percent of Kerry supporters will vote. Again, this seems way out of line with evidence from previous elections and with other polls. In contrast, in Pennsylvania and Washington, Gallup’s results for registered and likely voters are much more similar, and in line with other recent polls.