Tag Archives: Fox News

Johnson, Stein Likely Out

By JIm Ellis

Aug. 17, 2016 — The Commission on Presidential Debates has now provided more specific criteria pertaining to who will be invited to participate in the four presidential and vice presidential debates that are scheduled to begin Sept. 26.

Long ago, the commission members decided that the main qualification for national debate series participation is an arbitrary standing derived from a number of previously undetermined political surveys. Earlier reports indicated that only candidates obtaining 15 percent popular support as determined from the designated polls would be included.

Yesterday, in little way of surprise, the commission members announced that the official debate polls will be: ABC News/ Washington Post, CBS News/New York Times, CNN/Opinion Research, Fox News and NBC News/Wall Street Journal.

These polls, all using the same methodology in terms of sample size – normally around the 1,000 registered voter mark nationally – will likely continue to produce similar numbers. Therefore, it will be very difficult for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, and almost impossible for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, to consistently reach the 15 percent plateau.

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Bloomberg’s Polling Report

By Jim Ellis

July 5, 2016 — Often, people want to know which are the most accurate pollsters within the huge volume of data being released into the political marketplace. Bloomberg Politics reviewed the 2016 presidential pollsters who routinely release their numbers into the public domain and publicized their ratings late last week. They isolated a dozen polling firms and corresponding media organizations that picked the presidential primary winner in at least 70 percent of their studies. Polling frequency and reliability stats were also recorded.

The firm projecting the primary winner most often — 95 percent of the time — was Gravis Marketing, which conducted 19 surveys in 12 different states. The students who comprise the Emerson College Polling Society in Massachusetts, who have fared very well in previous performance review studies despite being amateurs, placed a close second in win predictability, proving correct 94 percent of the time. They polled 16 times in eight states. Completing the top five are Opinion Savvy (91 percent winner accuracy; 11 polls; eight states), NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist College (90 percent winner accuracy; 29 polls; 15 states), and the Survey Monkey (90 percent winner accuracy; 10 polls; eight states).

But capturing the correct victory margin proved to be another story for all 12 pollsters. None of them came within the average polling error margin pertaining to victory spread projection in relation to their cumulative polling average.

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The Race Tightens — or Does It?

By Jim Ellis

July 1, 2016 — New recently released national and specific state polls are providing differing views about the presidential campaign’s current status. Though the conclusions vary among the publicly released surveys in terms of margin, all find Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump nationally and in the key states. It the modern political era the early election cycle has always favored the Democratic presidential candidate so the fact that Clinton has the initial advantage is not unusual or unexpected.

Quinnipiac University (June 21-27; 1,610 US registered voters) just released their latest national survey, and find Clinton’s advantage over Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson has slipped to just 39-37-8 percent, an indication that the gap is closing even though many establishment Republican leaders continue to make anti-Trump public statements.

The new Fox News poll (June 26-28; 1,017 US registered voters) finds Clinton to be in a bit stronger position than does Quinnipiac, however. Fox forecasts a 41-36-10 percent Clinton edge over Trump and Johnson.

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Cruz, Sanders Storm Wisconsin

By Jim Ellis

April 6, 2016 — The closing polls consistently found a tightening of both the Badger State Republican and Democratic races, but they were wrong. The data from Marquette University Law School and Fox News that revealed a widening spread, and reported more than a week ago, proved more accurate.

Last night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) easily won the Wisconsin primary and took 36 of the 42 Republican delegates in the Winner-Take-All by congressional district format. His popular vote margin was 48-35-14 percent over Donald Trump and Gov. John Kasich (R-OH). Trump won CDs 3 and 7, located in the state’s western sector, giving him six delegates. Gov. Kasich, despite being favored in Madison-anchored District 2, failed to win any delegate votes.

The result was a major setback for Trump’s quest for a first-ballot victory. Early national delegate projections suggested the Republican front-runner needed a Wisconsin victory to secure the nomination on the first convention roll call.

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The Real Super Tuesday

March 11, 2016 — March 1 earned the billing of “Super Tuesday” because 13 states held a primary or caucus that day, but the real deciding date at least for Republicans is next week’s Tuesday, March 15.

The true action in the coming days is on the Republican side despite Sen. Bernie Sanders’ upset Michigan victory earlier this week. Should Donald Trump win both the key Winner-Take-All states of Florida (99 delegates) and Ohio (66), he would isolate himself as the only candidate able to win a first ballot victory.

If Trump converts Florida and Ohio, and places first in the proportional states of North Carolina (72 delegates) and Illinois (69), as polling currently suggests, while taking a significant share of the Missouri congressional district Winner-Take-All format (52), he will likely fall into the range of committing approximately 712 delegate votes by next Wednesday morning. This means he would need 53.4 percent of the 983 available delegates from the 22 post-March 15 remaining voting entities in order to secure a first ballot victory.

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Iowa Democrat Candidates:
The Polls Can’t Predict

Jan. 27, 2016 — Now less than a week before the Iowa Caucuses, five new polls of the Democratic presidential contest, all conducted within the same time period, arrive at very different conclusions. Three of the surveys find Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-D/VT) leading former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while two arrive at the opposite result.

All five polls — from CNN, the Emerson College Polling Society, CBS/YouGov, Fox News, and the American Research Group (ARG) — studied the Iowa Democratic electorate from Jan. 15-24. The sampling universes ranged from 258 likely Democratic Caucus attenders to 490 projected participants.

The Emerson College Polling Society, which is a group of students from Emerson College in Massachusetts who have established such a record of accuracy that the American Association of Public Opinion Research has granted them membership, employs the smallest sample size at 258 self-identified Democratic voters, while CBS/YouGov’s 490-person polling universe was the largest.

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Kasich Surging in New Hampshire; Sanders’ Lead Clear

Jan. 21, 2016 — The new American Research Group (ARG) poll (Jan 15-18; 600 likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters) finds Ohio Gov. John Kasich forging his way into second place for the Feb. 9 New Hampshire Republican primary, and narrowing the gap between he and leader Donald Trump.

According to the data, Trump’s support has risen to 27 percent on the ARG scale, while Gov. Kasich has soared to the 20 percent mark. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) leads the group in the middle, but by only a single point: 10-9-9-8-5 percent, over Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), respectively.

The survey reveals Kasich’s strongest showing to date in a place outside of Ohio. The Buckeye State chief executive has been working hard in New Hampshire, virtually forsaking Iowa in hopes of scoring a better-than-expected performance in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Should this late polling trend be verified, it would appear that he could achieve such an objective.

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