Leave it to a Democrat pollster to spin poll numbers in favor of Obama. The new Public Policy Polling poll, out earlier this week, has Obama up 5 in the Buckeye State. That much is enough for the polling outfit to call the state for Obama:
“It’s hard to see a path to victory for Mitt Romney without Ohio,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.
Hard to see, huh? I guess she must have missed the fact that Romney leads among Republicans and Independents, who made up 59% of those polled.
PPP has Romney doing what he needs to do with the GOP vote, as he pulls in a 83% of the Republicans polled (37% of those surveyed). That will only go up as Election Day grows near. But Romney’s also taking care of business among Independents too (22% of those surveyed), where he leads Obama 46% to 44%. That’s a twelve point swing for Romney since PPP last polled Ohio, where he was down 39% to 49% among Independents.
Twelve points in just one month. Care to reevaluate your statement, Ms. Debnam?
Of course, that’s not even the whole picture, given PPP’s skewed sample. Much has been made of it’s +4 Democrat advantage being roughly what could happen come November. Turnout won’t be even, like in 2010, and it certainly won’t be +8 Democrat, like in 2008. So +4 seems to be in the middle, so the poll could be accurate, right?
Except for their projected 41% Democrat turnout. That outperforms their amazingly high turnout in 2008 by two points and is four points higher than their ten-year average. Of course Obama is going to do well in a poll based on completely implausible turnout projections.
And, as stated above, that ignores the fact that he’s behind with the 37% of Republicans AND the 22% of Independents, for a whopping 59% of Ohioans, a majority of which favor Romney. Put simply, Obama can’t win when he’s floundering among 3 of every 5 Ohio voters.
Putting history in context, and using a ten-year average of voter turnout, Obama’s “lead” shrinks to 48% – 46%, within the poll’s three point margin of error. Much more reflective of what the poll truly shows…
Obama’s losing the middle. And that’s no way to win an election.
