In 2008, I used the Tarrance Group‘s Battleground Poll to do comparisons. In the end, the Terrance Group wasn’t the most accurate, but they were in the top 5 for accuracy. I’d stick with it this time around but they’re apparently not updating as much this election cycle. So I’ll use Rasmussen Reports from here on out. It was around this time in 2008 that the race really started to break for Obama. By the end of September Obama had the election wrapped up.
Without any further delay let’s get this started. I’ll try to update this once a week.
2008
McCain – 48%
Obama – 47%
Undecided – 5%
On September 17, 2008, McCain’s bounce from the RNC was in its final days. The financial crisis was literally the death blow to the McCain campaign. Here is the breakdown on September 17, 2012.
2012
Romney- 47%
Obama – 45%
Undecided – 4%
All the polls should start running closer together as we get closer to the election. Most of the other polls (even Gallup) are still all over the place as they change their voter methodology from poll to poll. I’ve seen this over and over throughout the years so I don’t understand why pundits never learn. It’s a close election right now with an incumbent candidate in a weak economy. That almost always favors the challenger. The dynamics of the race haven’t changed.
It’s risky and costly do daily poll tracking. That’s why there are so few that do it. Pew nailed the results in 2008, but they don’t do daily tracking. Until that point Pew’s polls were all over the place. When it mattered Pew was correct. We’ll see… election polling always lends itself to debate, but Rasmussen has a huge opportunity to silence a lot of critics if they’re accurate again this cycle.
