The Roanoke College Poll has been released and now has Mitt Romney over Barack Obama by five percentage points, 49 to 44 percent, in Virginia.
Romney now leads among men (52% - 39%), Republicans (95% - 4%), Conservatives (87% - 9%), and those aged 50-64 (55% - 37%), 65 or older (61% - 36%), and white voters (61% - 33%). Obama still holds strong leads among Democrats (94% - 2%), Liberals (89% - 8%), younger voters 18-34 years old (55% - 28%), and African-Americans (89% - 6%), but his lead among women has statistically disappeared (48% - 47%).Romney leads among those who identify themselves as Independents (59% - 33%), but Obama leads among self-described political moderates by a similar margin (54% - 35%). More than half of Independents (52%) think of themselves as Moderate, while 34 percent are Conservative, and 9 percent are Liberal. A plurality of Moderates (42%) are Democrats, while slightly fewer (40%) are Independents, and only 14 percent are Republicans. A plurality of Independents (47%) are moderate, while one-third (35%) are conservative and only 13 percent are liberal. This helps to explain why Obama leads among Moderates but trails among Independents.
Yet another poll from CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac partnership has Obama up by two.
The difference is their sample for Virginia was eight percent more Democrat than Republican, but if one believes eight percent more Democrats will vote in 2012 than Republicans, then feel free to take the poll to heart.
Ed Morrissey sees a large contradiction in the sample and in the results:
In each of these three states, the CBS/NYT/Q-poll shows Republicans at a lower percentage level of turnout than in the 2008 election. If one makes that assumption, it’s not too difficult to be guess that Obama might be ahead. However, that’s exactly the opposite of what all other polls rating enthusiasm are telling us what the electorate will look like on Tuesday. In fact, it’s not even what this poll shows, with Republican enthusiasm +16 over Democrats in Florida, +14 in Ohio, and +7 in Virginia.
So, according to their own internals, Republicans in Virginia are seven percent more enthused than Democrats about the election and since October 11, 2012, Democrats have become nine percent less enthused and Republicans have become eight points more enthused, making a 17 point shift in enthusiasm, yet eight percent more Democrats will vote in Virginia?
Something definitely smells hinky here.
[Update] Worse when the Quinnipiac Ohio data is delved into?
Gay Patriot dug a little deeper in the Ohio numbers and found that Quinnipiac was changed to change the final outcome of the poll:
Via the Gay Patriot:
So, I tallied the raw totals (unweighted frequency above) and came up with a sample size of 1,110. This means, the Republican total of 343 represents 30.9% of the sample, the Democrat 35.7%. Thanks to Quinnipiac’s ratings, suddenly presto-chango a D+4.7% sample becomes D+8 sample, pushing the race 3.3 points toward the president’s party.
It seems that the raw numbers only had Obama up by a point. Guess Quinnipiac just didn’t like that result.
