"Obama Campaign Polls: How The Internal Data Got It Right"

[applegrove]

Obama Campaign Polls: How The Internal Data Got It Right

by Mark Blumenthal at Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/obama-campaign-polls-2012_n_2171242.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

"SNIP...........................................

• Battleground Polls. The Obama campaign never conducted a nationwide survey. For a broad overview of public opinion, it relied on lead pollster Joel Benenson to survey voters across 11 battleground states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin) at regular intervals throughout the campaign.

Benenson conducted the aggregated battleground polls once every three weeks during the spring and early summer of 2012, every other week during the late summer, and twice a week for the final two months of the campaign. These surveys were used to test messages and to glean overall strategic guidance, but not to make individual state assessments.

• State Tracking Polls. To gauge the battleground states, the campaign conducted state-specific tracking polls on a similar schedule, shifting to three-day rolling-average tracking in each state after Labor Day, with sample sizes ranging between 500 and 900 likely voters every three days. The surveys were conducted by a team of Democratic pollsters: John Anzalone, Sergio Bendixen (among Latino voters), Cornell Belcher, Diane Feldman, Lisa Grove and Paul Harstad. These surveys helped drive message testing and strategy but also tracked the standings of Obama and Mitt Romney in each state.

• Analytics. Overseen by its internal analytics staff, the campaign also conducted parallel surveys in each state to help create and refine its microtargeting models and to provide far more granular analysis of voter subgroups. These surveys used live interviewers, very large sample sizes and very short questionnaires, which focused on vote preference and strength of support, with no more than a handful of additional substantive questions. During September and October, the campaign completed 8,000 to 9,000 such calls per night.
...........................................SNIP"

[Laura PourMeADrink]

1. I would love to know if they thought they would get NC

[John2]

2. I thought

they had a good chance of getting North Carolina. President Obama ended up getting 2,178,000 and some votes. Democratic registration shows some 2,872,000 registered voters. This was the same case in 2008. He got 2,142,000 votes in 2008. Either a lot of Democrats stayed home or something is wrong with the overall numbers.

On the other hand, the Republicans again went over their overall registration numbers. Romney got 2,275,000 something votes. In 2008, McCain got about 2,114,000 votes. The over all registration for voters were something like 6,600,000 which indicates well over 2,000,000 people did not vote. Maybe the Democrats need to check their voter registration rolls and locate these voters. They had enough registered voters on the rolls, to get more than they got in 2008 or 2012. I think North Carolina's voting system needs to be checked out too. We did have voting irregularites with voting machines. Nathan Sprull also set up operations in the State. The Democratic counties also reported votes more slower on election night than the Republican counties which was strange to me.

[RDANGELO]

3. I did a lot of canvassing and phone calls here.

In my opinion, people who didn't vote, were whites who didn't like either candidate. They thought they knew something , but I would consider them low information. They were more concerned about debt reduction than job creation or wealth distribution. If the economy was better, they probably would have voted for Obama.

[DFW]

4. I met with David Simas for about half an hour in July

He was aware of just about every county in the USA, and he told me that at some time in either September or October, Romney would pull even or slightly ahead in the national polls. He said that he would be pulling his hair out, but that the rest of us shouldn't. He foresaw the win pretty much as it happened, and this was in July!! He said we wouldn't get it for free, but only with a lot of hard groundwork, since we'd never match the Republicans' budget, but he saw it coming together pretty much as it did. He was introduced as THE master number cruncher of the Obama campaign. It looks like his rep was only too well deserved.

For that matter, when Prince of Darkness Frank Luntz went on with Bill Maher, and Maher asked him straight out who would win the election, even Luntz admitted, that if he had to give a straight answer at that moment (it was maybe a month before the election), he'd have to say that Obama would be re-elected.