The absurd over-sampling of Democrats has been one of the MSM’s favorite tools during the campaign, no doubt believing that they can resurrect the “inevitability” meme of other campaigns in the service of Obama’s re-election. As Pat Caddell has pointed out, not only are they commissioning polls that seem to produce the desired result, they’re spending a lot of time and effort trumpeting the ones that support their favored narrative. So in the interests of balance, here is some evidence that things are moving in Romney’s direction.
First, in Virginia, two new likely-voter polls have Obama up by 2, not by the larger margins earlier reported.
And in Pennsylvania, a new poll commissioned by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has Obama up by 2, not by the double-digits or high single-digits that we’ve seen recently. If true, this would be a shocking result, and one that would call into question Pennsylvania’s status as a safe Obama state.
Now in the interests of fairness, we should point out that the internals of this one are more favorable to Republicans that voter registration numbers would suggest. The poll has 50% Dems, and 43% Republicans, which, according to the latest voter registration numbers from the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, significantly over-sample Republicans. Actual voters registration is 50% Dem, 37% Rep, 7% Independent, and 6% Other, so the poll essentially ends up assigning all the Other to the Republican category. Since the “Other” contains Libertarians, Greens, Constitution Party, and others, it’s probably more reasonable to assign that 50-50 in a two-race, which would put Obama up by 5 rather than 2.
That said, assuming this isn’t the R-leaning outlier we’ve all been waiting for, a significant result. If combined with the Virginia polls, suggests that either the campaign may be moving back to the status quo ante the conventions, and means that contrary to our doomsayers and their cheerleaders, this isn’t over yet by a long shot.
