This may shock you.
According to Aaron Blake of The Washington Post, "Either we’re at a turning point in the 2012 election, or a lot of pollsters are getting it wrong."
Apparently the small bump in polling in Obama's favor following the party conventions did not hold out just as many thought they wouldn't, and nationally, Obama and Romney are still showing basically at a tie. However, several other polls that were conducted at the state level showed a slightly different story than national polls did. Blake continued:
"Almost every state-specific poll in the last few days has shown progress for Democrats — both at the presidential level and in the very important contest for the Senate — with some showing unprecedented leads for the blue side in the the most important states.
Swing-state polls from CBS News, the New York Times and Quinnipiac University released Wednesday morning in three key states — Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin — showed Obama either gaining since last month or, in the case of Virginia, holding his lead.
And Fox News polls released Wednesday evening showed Obama with a solid lead in the three biggest swing states; he’s up by seven points each in Ohio and Virginia and five points in Florida. The results confirm polls from NBC News and Marist College in the same three states last week.
A Washington Post poll released Tuesday confirms the movement in Virginia, with Obama up by an unprecedented eight points. And a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday supports the idea that the race in Wisconsin has shifted, with Obama leading by an astounding 14 points.
Even if some of these margins seem a little big, just consider that even the best polls for Romney haven’t shown him with that kind of lead in these states — or really anything close to it. In fact, Nate Silver points out that, of the 16 live-interview swing state polls conducted in the last two weeks, Obama is leading in all of them except Colorado by at least four points.
Prior to this week, it was rare that polls showed Obama leading by five points or more in any swing state; in those 16 states, he leads by an average of 5.8 points.
And just as much as the presidential race, the battle for the Senate appears to be moving toward Democrats.
As The Fix’s Sean Sullivan reported Wednesday, multiple polls in top Senate races in Massachusetts, Virginia and Wisconsin in recent days show the Democratic candidates in those states gaining big — larger shifts than any we’ve seen so far this cycle. If Democrats can win even two of those states, it will put a sizeable dent in the GOP’s chances of gaining the three or four seats they need to take control of the Senate — an outcome that was very attainable for Republicans at the start of the cycle.
The question from here is whether these swing-state and Senate polls reflect a momentary bounce and spike in enthusiasm among Democrats or whether they show a more lasting shift in the electoral landscape. Only time will tell.
What’s clear to this point, though, is that the movement has been significant in the states that matter most."
If this apparent swing in polls disturbs you, then perhaps you just have to wait a couple years. Blake also said Thursday in another article that whatever the outcome of this election, the GOP shows strong promises of becoming the senate majority following the 2014 elections.
Of course, you could point to pollsters and say what do they know. This doesn't take away from the importance that is attributed to polls every election.
Comments
Can I not even trust Fox News? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/19/obama-has-edge-over-romn... what if this is true and by ignoring it its allowed to continue?
They are over polling Democrats on an average of 9%.