Gallup : No Increase in Proportion of First-Time Voters

[Wretched Excess]

this is a big deal.  The BarackStar!'s whole strategy has been centered upon "dramatically expanding the base".  these
numbers seem to indicate that this simply isn't happening.  and I have seen enough poll internals to know that the pollsters'
turnout models were factoring in a massive increase in first time voters.

all we need now is for the notoriously unreliable youth vote to fail to show up at the polls again, and these 10 point leads
that BHO has in various polls officially ceases to exist.

and I assume that the conflict bewteen the zero net increase in real new voters and the staggering numbers of new
registrations must mean that the registration fraud being perpetrated all over the country is much, much bigger than we
even thought.


interesting, interesting, interesting.

No Increase in Proportion of First-Time Voters
Thirteen percent of registered voters say they will be voting for first time

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup finds 13% of registered voters saying they will vote for president for the first time in 2008. That matches the figure Gallup found in its final 2004 pre-election poll.



The current data are based on interviews with more than 2,700 registered voters as part of Oct. 17-19 Gallup Poll Daily tracking. Gallup asked these voters a question it had asked in its 2004 election polling: whether this would be the first time they had voted in a presidential election, or whether they had voted for president before. Despite much discussion of the possibility of large numbers of new voters in 2008, the percentage of "first time" voters in Gallup polling this election cycle is no higher than it was at approximately the same time in 2004.

The estimate of first-time voters is slightly lower, 11%, using Gallup's expanded likely voter model. Under this model, Americans who are registered to vote, who say they plan to vote, who indicate they have given "quite a lot" of thought to the election, and who rate their chances of voting as a "9" or "10" on a 10-point scale are deemed likely to vote. Gallup's traditional likely voter model takes into account past voting behavior as well as current voting intentions, but because it adjusts for voters who were too young to vote in past elections, it still estimates that 8% of likely voters will be voting for the first time.

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[Jim]

oh thats a first class ****in hoot !  thx WE !  made my day !

[Chris_]

Of course there's no increase in first time voters:

Mickey Mouse and G.I. Joe and the corpse of Alfonse Capone have all voted many times before.

[Tess Anderson]

Hmmm, this actually dovetails quite nicely with the NYT's news today that ACORN overestimated the number of new voters they registered by almost a million:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/us/politics/24acorn.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

They exaggerated the number of new voters by 65% - I'm sure that affectes the number of voters they've been sampling.

[Wretched Excess]

Hmmm, this actually dovetails quite nicely with the NYT's news today that ACORN overestimated the number of new voters they registered by almost a million:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/us/politics/24acorn.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

They exaggerated the number of new voters by 65% - I'm sure that affectes the number of voters they've been sampling.

people sometimes mistake my fascination for polls to be faith in polls.  nothing could be farther from the truth.  I have zero confidence
in most of the numbers that I have been seeing, I just wanted an actual reason as to why they are crap.  now I think I have my head
around it . . . .

I think that playing with polls are fun because it's an attempt to express the real world scientifically, or in this case, mathematically. that's
always a challenge.

[franksolich]

people sometimes mistake my fascination for polls to be faith in polls.  nothing could be farther from the truth.  I have zero confidence
in most of the numbers that I have been seeing, I just wanted an actual reason as to why they are crap.

That's exactly what had happened, sir.

I was worried you were really believing them, and we don't need pessimistic conservatives making life more dreary than it has to be.

Now I'm considerably comforted, and I thank you.

[Willow]

that sounds like good news. let's hope so anyway!

[Chris]

One of our local guys covered this today (or it may have been Rush.  They're on at the same time).  His argument is that while the percentage of new voters has not changed, the race/income/age demographics of new voters has, and they are more favorable to Obama than new voters from previous elections. 

I don't know what he was using as a source.  Sorry.

[miskie]

Hmmm, this actually dovetails quite nicely with the NYT's news today that ACORN overestimated the number of new voters they registered by almost a million:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/us/politics/24acorn.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

They exaggerated the number of new voters by 65% - I'm sure that affectes the number of voters they've been sampling.

Im sure it has. Basic facts time -

Facts and unbiased actions by pollsters.

Party Id for presidential elections in the USA never exceeds a 4 point differential
2006 was a perfect storm for the Dems, and the Party ID advantage was an unheard of 5 points
ACORN over registers, and they exaggerate the numbers - add to Dem Party ID
Operation Chaos generates a ton of crossover votes - add to Dem party ID
Obama energizes the Dems, they don't know how to measure it, so they add to Dem Party ID

So, when you look at most polls internals, the Dem sample is 10 or more points higher than the Republican

Facts and biased actions by pollsters..

Sarah Palin enters the race, they don't know how to measure it, and do nothing since she is only the VP.
Bradley Effect - Though they have a rough idea on how to measure it, they figure the Obama effect will kill it, and they do nothing.
First Time Voters - they know how to account for this, but instead of using the standard RV-LV models, they make a new 'expanded' LV model.

Now there are polls that are coming out that show a much tighter race than expected, data that ACORN inflated its number of registrations, and now this - that the percentage of first time voters seems to be unchanged. As Ive said before in other posts, don't buy the polls. there seem to be significant problems with the numbers and methodology.

[Wretched Excess]

That's exactly what had happened, sir.

I was worried you were really believing them, and we don't need pessimistic conservatives making life more dreary than it has to be.

Now I'm considerably comforted, and I thank you.

no.  it finally dawned on me that folks could be thinking that, and that is why I posted that comment.  but it isn't the case.

public opinion polls are an attempt to apply abstractions and models to predict the behavior of the real world.  that is terrifically interesting to me (and was part of my major course of study), that is why I seem to obsess over them, frank.  but, no, I don't put any faith into them beyond the trends that may be discerned from them.  and sometimes not even then.