How did Gallup end up being one of the most inaccurate pollsters of the 2012 cycle? In a word, they earned it. Obviously the mammoth lead Gallup showed for Mitt Romney once they moved to a ‘likely voter’ screen caused considerable heartburn for Democrats while seriously heartening Republicans. They crept back to something like the consensus after taking a week off polling after Sandy. But how did they end up getting the election so wrong?
It ends up there’s a very simple and I think even unitary answer: race. Gallup somehow seemed to think the electorate would be much whiter than it ended up being. Read More
Kyle Leighton looks at the makeup of Team Obama’s winning coalition from 2012:
A look at which Members of Congress who went through this cycle under ethical clouds managed to win re-election — and which did not.
Looking back we’re likely to see what we might call the Unskewed Poll or Poller Truth movement as a late-breaking and somewhat hard-to-explain-in-retrospect part of the 2012 campaign cycle. But lets note some of the tie-ins to our everyday and on-going political lives. Read More
I’m just posting this video because it’s bizarre. Glenn Beck on his new private web TV network just before the election talking about the Benghazi cover-up conspiracy. Good times. Read More
Republicans have won the popular vote for president once in the last six presidential elections.
Jon Stewart dissects the Fox News meltdown on election night. So good.
From The Post:
Late Wednesday afternoon, as sleet fell in Boston’s North End, Romney visited his campaign headquarters for one final staff meeting. He thanked his aides and said goodbye. His Secret Service detail gone — and with it his code name, Javelin, after a car once made by his father’s company — Romney was spotted driving off in the backseat of his son Tagg’s car. His wife, Ann, was riding shotgun.
CNET looks at each of the poll aggregators this season and how they ended up doing. 538, TPM, Pollster and RCP.
The big story is that each were actually quite consistent and quite accurate. But who did best? Nate got first. And after Nate? TPM. Check it out.