The winners of Tuesday’s top-two primary for the Washington state Senate race were Sen. Patty Murray (D) and real estate speculator (and perennial candidate) Dino Rossi (R). Little surprise there. Late last week, Washingtonians got a double dose of post-primary polls matching up Murry and Rossi.
Rasmussen released this poll on Thursday showing Murray leading Rossi 48% to 44% in a poll taken the day before (18 Aug). The sample of 750 is large for Rasmussen—their samples are typically 500 likely voters.
On Friday, Survey USA released a poll taken on the 18th and 19th of August, on a sample of 618 likely voters. The results? A stunning 52% to 45% lead for Rossi!
What is going on? First let me wander off-topic for a minute to point out that in my analyses of past elections, I have found both Rasmussen and Survey USA to be pretty good polling firms for head-to-head general elections. Rasmussen has a bad reputation among liberals, but that is mostly based on their presidential approval tracking poll that IS biased slightly in favor of Bush and against Obama (relative to comparable polls) for the seven years that I have been following it. But approval tracking polls are not the same type of poll as a head-to-head election poll, and Rasmussen does just fine with the latter. Survey USA is sometimes dissed as a liberal polling firm by conservatives. Whatever…their track record is pretty good. Going on just the numbers from state polls during to 2008 presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections, I can’t really tell Survey USA and Rasmussen apart.
During the 2010 election season, some big differences I see is that Rasmussen has greatly increased the number of statewide polls they do; Survey USA has decreased the number of statewide races polled. I have no idea what to make of it. Anyway, onto the race.
Since these two polls were in the field simultaneously, I’ll simply combine them and do my usual Monte Carlo analysis to determine the relative probabilities of each candidate winning based on these polls. Of the combined 1,368 “votes”, Murray and Rossi got 1,289 of them; 46.6% went to Murray and 47.6% went to Rossi. When we normalize these so that they sum to 100%, Murray gets 49.5% and Rossi gets 50.5%. Even with this relatively large sample size, this is clearly a statistical tie.
After simulating a million elections using the observed frequencies and sample sizes, Murray wins 392,801 simulated elections and Rossi wins 599,396 simulated elections. In other words the two polls suggest Murray has a 39.6% probability of beating Rossi. Here is the distribution of wins:
Objectively, those are the results. But, as a Murray supporter, I am not overly daunted. This graph of the polling in this race shows why:
Notice anything odd?
Both of the Survey USA polls conducted for this race favor Rossi uncharacteristically strongly. Most other polls either tend to favor Murray, or show a very slight advantage to Rossi. That’s odd. In fact, when the first Survey USA poll came out, neither camp believed it. I wonder if the Rossi camp believes it now?
Personally, I’m skeptical about the poll. It seems like something is going wrong for Survey USA. And looking at the cross tabs doesn’t help. As N in Seattle points out in the Horses Ass comment threads:
If you take a look at the very last column in the survey’s crosstabs, you’ll see that they show Murray and Rossi tied in “Metro Seattle”.
Really? Murray and Rossi tied in Metro Seattle? I doubt it. N in Seattle shows why:
Based on the population proportion, I assume that means King/Pierce/Snohomish Counties.
We’re now counting a rather more comprehensive “survey”, the primary election. In those three counties, Patty has 53% of the vote to Dino’s 30%. SUSA is asking us to believe that in the general election:
a) about 10% of Patty’s primary voters will switch to Rossi, and
b) every primary voter who chose someone other than Patty will vote for Dino, and
c) the voters who sat out the primary but will vote in the general election (about 1/4 of the electorate, and more strongly Democratic than primary voters) will follow the same pattern as in a) and b)
All of the above would have to happen in “Metro Seattle” for Dino to tie Patty here. It ain’t gonna happen. In fact, it ain’t even gonna happen in the rest of Democratic western Washington either.
I suspect even Dino Rossi would agree with N’s analysis.
Notice that there are two other fairly recent polls on the graph. The earliest is another Rasmussen poll of 750 likely voters taken on 28th of July, and showed Murray up 49% to 47%. That is pretty close to tied. The second (in blue) is from Public Policy Polling (PPP) taken on 27th of July to the 1st of August on 1,204 registered voters. This poll showed Murray leading Rossi, 49% to 46%.
The PPP poll surveyed both the primary election and the general election, which gives us the chance to do a little accuracy-checking. For the primary, PPP found that Teabagger Clint Didier would get about 10% of the vote, Murray would get 47% and Rossi would get 33%. As of Sunday evening, Diddier is at 12.6%, Murray is 46.4% and Rossi is 33.3%. Pretty much spot on, considering it was taken about 18 days earlier.
One last exercise for your consideration. If we combine all four polls taken within the last month, and do the same Monte Carlo analysis, things turn around. There is a total of 3153 votes for either Murray or Rossi, Murray gets 50.6% of them,and Rossi gets 49.4%. Now, Murray wins 682,212 simulated elections, and Rossi wins 313,150 of them. In other words, these four polls give evidence that Murray would win with a 68.5% probability. And that includes the Survey USA poll! Here is the distribution…
The take-home message is that the contest, at this point, is pretty close. But I think the more interesting question that arises from all this is…what the hell happened to Survey USA?!?
(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)
Darryl, thanks for the detailed analysis.
Regarding ‘what happened to Survey USA?’, when I looked at it one thing jumped out at me.
The Tea Party favorable shows 33%.
Anecdotally, this seems high for the nation and very high for WA.
Seems like Survey USA may have simply netted a right shifted distribution in their sample.
Key message for Murray supporters from this poll should be the importance of GOTV.
Darryl–
Libs hate Rasmussen because they poll for FoxNews. The Leftist Paranoia gets in the way of the facts. Rasmussen actually has a slight Democrat bias. Look at the recent Scott Brown/Martha Coakley race where Rasmussen had it a toss-up and Brown won by 5. Christie in NJ also won by more than Rasmussen predicted. So did the Republican Governor in Virginia.
Libs don’t like the results so generally dismiss the polls….present company excluded of course Darryl.
Murray needs to work. The Lefty’s who have predicted a Murray double-digit victory have tremendous faith that Americans are happy with the direction America is headed and that Washingtonians ocerwhelmingly love all the things Patty voted for..Porkulous, ImamObaMaoCare, the list goes on & on.
Rossi is wise to stick to her voting record and stay away from sideshow stuff like the fact Senate staffers repeatedly voted her the 99th or 100th Smartest Senator year after year.
@1
From looking at SurveyUSA polls over the years, what I’ve noticed is that their results seem to favor more libertarian positions (anti-tax sentiments in particular). But when it comes to head-to-head candidate polling, they’ve always been considered pretty accurate.
I wonder what Patty’s position is on the Mosque?
Monday, August 23, 2010
Check out the Political Class disconnect with Mainstream. It’s simply amazing.
Rossi has been running adverts about how he pushed a broom during college, or something like that. There is enough footage of him in his business “how to make money off the housing bubble” guise to offset that.
Once Murray ends up defining him as someone who was throwing people out of houses, he won’t be able to run for dog catcher.
Just waiting on Murray to roll it out.
*taps foot*
@2 We don’t “hate” Rasmussen. We yawn at it.
@4 What mosque? You wingnut idiots still can’t tell the difference between a community center and mosque? Yawn. Why do you care anyway? For that matter, why do you care whether two gays in Massachusetts marry? Don’t you retards have anything better to do than mind other people’s business? Go fuck your goats!
Rossi has nothing going for him except the kind of name familiarity that people on the police blotter have. He hasn’t held a public office in years. Before that, he was a one-term state senator whose sold claim to fame was attaching his name to a budget that Gary Locke wrote. He’s best known for the sleazy real estate magnates he hangs out with (and works for). His best professional accomplishment was supervising a part-time janitor for a short time when he was a college student. In other words, Rossi is all hoopla and no substance. The notion that this dramatically underqualified wannabe could displace Patty Murray in the U.S. Senate is just plain silly. Ain’t gonna happen!
sole not sold
Darryl
Great POST!
This time around, I want to take a hard look at polling conducted right before the election, and compare it with the actual election results. I want to see if there is any proof that the inability of pollsters to call cell phones is skewing the poll results. Of course, most young people (30 and under) don’t have land lines, and those numbers are increasing.
@10 rhp6033 on 08/23/2010 at 8:12 am,
While I’d love to consider myself young, or to think others might, our household has not had a land line for more than 5 years.
Nearly all of the folks I know that have moved to a new residence in the past few years don’t go through the hassle of installing a land line.
Don’t know if that would skew, but I think it makes telephone polling quite difficult.
Franken got shot at for having the temerity to suggest that “muslim point guards” were to be trained at the “Victory Mosque” errrr COMMUNITY CENTER…complete with prayer room…or like a CHAPEL for you dopey dumbshits. Glad cheap-labor money sluts like “thjesusownbutthole…mr.cynical” and the ever amusing “lostinhisownasshole” don’t go after the real corporate villians in our little melodrama. Nahhh…like good little lemmings they dive off the cliff behind their masters at Faux News.
So much for critical thinking.
@5, Yeah, maybe that’s why Dino’s tied in the “metro Seattle’ area. Because he had a job in college. Gawd, who couldn’t love an uber-mensch, super-individual-liberty-filled, star-spangeled morsel like him?
Here are the lyrics to an incredibly popular new Country song. City slickers need to read it very carefully. It will help educate you about the beliefs & values of rural America.
So go ahead & sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic, suck up the exhaust fumes and pretend you can relate. 100.7 plays this pretty often.
It’s called “Way Out Here” by Josh Thompson.
He loves God & Freedom!
[Copied Material Deleted]
I hope Rasmussen does this Poll in Washington.
62% in Ohio Favor Extension of Bush Tax Cuts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
So 54-55% Nationally want these tax cuts extended. What Washington thinks will have a huge impact on this election. I’m sure Rossi will focus on this. Voters will trust him to vote to extend. They will not trust Murray.
The issues are many…and a clear choice.
From Porkulous to Bailouts to ImamObaMaoCare to Taxes———-
No wonder you Leftist Pinheaded KLOWNS want to talk about Didier!
Rossi needs to stick to these issues.
No sideshows.
The Dems can only win if they deflect attention to sideshows and away from the key issues.
Cynical–
Can’t copy lyrics to a song where we give credit to the author??
Well, here is the 1st verse-
And here is a link to the whole song
“Way out Here” by Josh Thompson….a REAL American!
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/ly.....29252.html
Mr. Cynical @ 16,
“Can’t copy lyrics to a song where we give credit to the author??”
You cannot copy the entire lyrics for a song unless you have permission of the copyright owner.
Even then, you would likely be violating the HA Comment Policy that prohibits “Large chunks of cut-and-paste from copyrighted works or other blogs and comment threads.”
And even if not violating the “large chunks” part of the policy, you would be OFF TOPIC. (This IS NOT an open thread–keep it on topic, please)
I will take your scolding like a man Darryl.
Points well taken.
I wonder however, if Patty Murray is willing to claim VICTORY in Iraq like the V-P JOE BIDEN?
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....down-iraq/
Biden & Murray seem to have a lot in common…starting with their double-digit IQ’s!
When the ImamObaMao/Pelosi/Reid/Biden/Murray Regime claims victory in Iraq–at the same time, this happens!
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2.....onths-ago/
The anti-ImamObaMao sentiment will hurt Murray..although her voting record and past statements are enough to set her up for defeat.
It’s bad for the Progressive BowelMovement–
Heck, even Spike Lee is pissed at ImamObaMao!
The anti-ImamObaMao sentiment will hurt Murray..although her voting record and past statements are enough to set her up for defeat.
It’s bad for the Progressive BowelMovement–
Heck, even Spike Lee is pissed at ImamObaMao!
OUCH!
Yeah, that’s what we need, a psychotic KLOWN sorting out who is and isn’t a “REAL American”.
It cracks me up to see wingbutts calling Didier supporters “Didiots” over in the (un)SP comment threads. I take it that Didiots aren’t REAL Americans either. In fact, there’s a claim that the Didier is really a socialist who was a Democratic plant. heh- When is Rasmussen going to get around to doing a daily tracking poll on the right’s self-destruction?
“ImamObaMao”
The second largest shareholder of Fox News owner Newscorp is a Saudi Prince who also donates funds to the “terror mosque” in New York. You got a nickname for that, KLOWN? ImamFox?
“OUCH!”
Yeah, I bet that hurts. Of course, Fox gives money to Rasmussen. heh- ImamRasmussen?
What’s Rossi’s position on ImamNewscorp funding the “terror mosque”?
BoyScout @ 11: Well, I’m in my 50’s, and I’m seriously considering ditching the land line myself. The only thing I like about it is that (a) I can call home and if ANYBODY’s home, I can reach them, without having to call multiple cell phones; (b) In case of an emergency (such as a fire or break-in), I can call 9/11 and simply drop the phone or hang up, and the police will still arrive – I don’t have to waste time talking to the 9/11 operator.
But I’ve really got to ask whether, at $45.00 per month for a no-frills line, it’s worth it.
Alan Grayson sums it up better than anyone:
There is yet another factor: Those Murray supporters who, like me, voted for Clit Diddler. We were confident that Murray could win the Primary without us and it is fun to know that our votes are among the 16% that Diddler is now using to bash Dino Rossi into further oblivion. Our vote for Clit was a vote for cheap entertainment, but we will all be voting for Patty Murray in November.
# 24: It seems the Republican National Committee only raised $5.5 million in July, less than half of the 11.6 million raised by the DNC.
But what’s intriguing is that of that 5.5 million, almost a million dollars – $900,000 was in the form of an insurance claim payment by AIG. The details are part of a confidentiality agreement. AIG denies it has anything to do with the bailout of AIG last year.
I’m guessing the “insurance claim” has something to do with the organization’s top financial officer being fired in 2008 as reports were coming in with regard to missing money that the GOP thought they had, but didn’t. The Republicans swept it under the rug, and we didn’t hear about it again. But I’m wondering if some campaign cash wasn’t being “laundered” through the RNC before being distributed to other campaigns. If so, the source of that cash should be revealed.
Forgot the link:
Democrats hold financial advantage over GOP
@27
Democracy at its finest…Im sure this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind.
A comment on “strategic voting” for Didier in the primary:
No, but an obvious consequence of
Sam Reed’s wetdreamthe top two primary.2 Cyn
Yeah, Patti’s so stupid that she’s made mincemeat out of every Republican who has faced her.
28 rhp
The RNC under Michael Steele is not the political GOTV organization it once was, but instead has transformed itself into a useless pustule.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of goys.
14 Cyn
Who gives a fuck about that? No one lives there. We live in the cities (about 80% in the US).
Fuck “rural America.” Just like Clint Didier, they’re living off our money!
@30 I am he, the formless one on 08/23/2010 at 12:26 pm,
Not sure what the founding white guys had in mind (I’m not an original intent séance attendee), but we know how they politicked in a top 2 vote in the electoral college in 1800.
Let’s hope no one gets shot in a duel in WA.
Goldy—
WTF is the P90X Home Fitness Ad all about?
The leftist pussy’s would cry after 30 seconds of use.
It’s funny how little evaluation is done in placing these ads.
Something to ponder.
9 points is pretty significant.
Monday, August 23, 2010
It’s got to be because of the cellphone bias!
I love it when wingies start pissing on each other:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/08.....z0wzh6tQm3
Another poll where “guilt by association” and being 100% in line with ImamObaMao might hurt Murray–
Monday, August 23, 2010
Extreme is bad.
Mainstream does not necessarily mean in the middle.
“ImamObaMao”
ImamNewscorp’s second largerest shareholder is a Saudi Prince who gives to the “terror mosque”. ImamNewscorp, ImamFox News and ImamRasmussen. You’re too fucking funny, ImamKLOWN.
Cynny
Obama’s politics are nowhere near extreme. They are, in fact, very much in the mainstream. That can be shown objectively with regard to issue after issue. So, what that poll shows is that far too many Americans are believing the distortions and lies that your ilk are spewing. That does not speak well for the American people. It speaks even less well for lunatics like you who eschew truth in your unprincipled quest for ideological victory.
# 41: That’s why the wingnuts spend so much time lying about Democrats. They know that Democrats do a far better job of protecting their interests than the Republicans do, so an honet evaluation would give the Republicans about 18% in any election. Their job (the trolls) is to create staw men – a perception that Democrats are far-left leaning islamic/athiests/communist/fascists/whatever.
They just hold some focus groups and throw out every word in the dictionary, and whichever ones are identified as creating a “strong adverse feeling”, those are the ones they try to pin on the Democrats.
Facts, of course, have no basis in this strategy. They just use repitiion, and when confronted try to out-shout the other guy. Even when proven to be completely wrong, they just wait a couple of days, and start it all over again.
The wingnut’s entire strategy to obtain victory is dependent upon the average voter being ill-informed and not too bright. Taking on such a task must be either (a) depressing, or (b) require no moral conscious.
41. proud leftist spews:
Seems like the majority of American Voters do not agree with you.
rhp–
Pretty laughable when you talk about ignorant voters. Look at who voted for ImamObaMao?
Cynny:
“Pretty laughable when you talk about ignorant voters.”
There are a lot of them out there, Cynny, and you would be one of them.
November will tell you what the people (not politicians) feel about the current administration.
45. proud leftist spews:
Voting for a Kommunity Organizer with ZERO Administrative experience aka Barry ImamObaMao wasn’t exactly intelligent pl.
Glad Barry ImamObaMao had his pic taken with the little troll Patty–
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Lots of racists, huh?