PrintApril 20, 2012
The Generic Ballot Bomb
At this point in a presidential election year, Americans are inundated with polls. Often these polls provide no real information at all, except the bias and the population samples of the polling organization.
As one example, consider this polling data released for April 16 showing the matchup between Obama and Romney. Depending upon the polling organization, Romney leads Obama by 2 (Gallup), trails Obama by 9 (CNN/Opinion Research), trails Obama by 4 (Reuters/Ipsos), or leads Obama by 3 (Rasmussen).
Presidential match-up polls are notoriously unpredictable six months before an election. Will the recent scandal involving Secret Service agents and prostitutes -- some perhaps even underage prostitutes -- during the president's visit to Colombia suppress his approval for a few weeks? Probably, but that is highly unlikely to swing a presidential election. Moreover, it is almost certain not to have much effect on the other races in 2012 -- Senate races,...(Read Full Article)
