PPP MA Senate poll finds Warren rising same percentage as increase in sample party spread
A surge in support, or just a surge in sampling?
A just released poll by PPP shows that Elizabeth Warren’s lead in Massachusetts has increased by 4% to 6%:
Warren leads Scott Brown 50-44. The big change over the last month is that Brown’s image is finally starting to take a hit. His approval rating is now a +7 spread at 49/42, down a net 14 points from mid-September when he was at 55/34. There’s an increasing sense that he’s been more a partisan voice for the national Republican Party (45%) than an independent voice for Massachusetts (44%). That’s a 10 point shift from our last poll when voters thought 49/40 that he’d been more of an independent voice.
A Warren surge? After all, the last PPP poll of this race found Warren up by only 2.
The surge appears to come mostly from an increase in the percentage spread between Democrats and Republicans included in the poll, and in both cases PPP oversamples. The last poll has a sample of 38% Democrats, and today’s poll has a sample of 41% Democrats. PPP also decreased the Republican percentage from it’s last poll to this poll from 17% to 16%.
The actual Massachusetts party registratin as of the latest official data was slightly over 35% for Democrats and 12% for Republicans.
But comparing PPP’s polls, Democrats increased by 3% in the sample and Republicans decreased by 1%, and voila, Warren rises by 4%.
It may be that there is an enthusiasm gap or something similar which would justify PPP’s numbers, but they give no explanation. Since PPP also finds Obama declining (but still comfortably winning), it’s hard to say there is a Democratic enthusiasm surge.
By contrast with PPP which is off on both Democratic and Republican samples, WBUR just released a poll showing Brown up 4% using a sample which follows actual party affiliations. Pete DaTechGuy has a good explanation of the history of WBUR closely tracking party affiliation.
Warren’s surge appreas to result from an increase in PPP’s increase in the spread between Democrats and Republicans in its sample.. It makes good headlines for Democrats, and it will increase enthusiasm for Warren. A self-fulfilling prophecy, as so much of polling is these days.
Update: Stunning PPP poll asks if conservative media wants white people to think Obama hates them.
And, note this comment by Cassie in the Tip Line:
The chickens are coming home to roost. Elizabeth Warren’s real tribe – women earning over $100,000 a year – has seen her for what she is and abandoned her.
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Comments
It’s a well-documented phenomenon that party identification changes with candidate preferences. Polls that renormalize to a pre-determined party identification ratio actually tend to be less accurate. There’s tons of data on this which you could look up.
Romney is rising in MA. I believe this will give Brown a bounce.
But I sure hope he attacks her more in the final debate.
Well here we go again. Another poll skewing DRI sampling. Just like the NBC/Marist polling as well as most alphabet media. Look at Ohio’s polling this morning from NBC, it is D+11, apparently Democrats are more enthusiastic than ever to vote in this election, even than in 2008.
PPP is just as bad, they are usually the only ones showing Republicans losing or very close with independents, which ALL other polls show them winning by large margins.
We will see in November what is really happening.
I believe if you replace the P in the middle of the PPP poll with OO you will have a far more relevant poll sample for that empty stool.
LOL!
Wait until you see what I do with the exit polls. 😉
So you guys think that many Democratic Massachusetts voters will split their votes..one for Obama and one for Brown?
They seem to want to do that for Bill Nelson in Florida, vote for Romney for Prez and Nelson for Sen. Same thing in MO and OH.
The New York Times had a front page story last weekend about how women who were voting for Obama were also voting for Linda Mcmahon in the Connecticut senate.
Well I hope that Brown wins. But this is Massachusetts and it seems unlikely. I think they will go into the polling stations and pull for straight Democratic.
Yes – I do think people will split their vote, if they think Scott Brown is the better candidate.
Honestly, it’s hard to say what is going on with these polls. They are all within the margin of error in terms of who is in the lead and it can be almost impossible to get a fix on an ever-changing situation.
However Massachusetts voters have a history of bucking the polls, so I am not too worried about the day-to-day stuff. And people can be more independent (and more cagey?) with their voting patterns than pollsters like to admit.
Two examples:
1) In 2008, the entire MA political establishment came out in support of candidate Barack Obama – the Kennedys, John Kerry, Mayor Menino, the entire Congressional delegation: it was a sweep. They all endorsed Obama. Multiple polls during this time had Obama up by twenty points. In the Massachusetts Democratic primary a few weeks later, though, Hillary won the state by 16 pecentage points.
2) In 2010, there was the infamous Boston Globe poll that put Martha Coakley 17 points ahead, but there were also a few other polls showing a Coakley lead, and one showing Scott Brown up by a point. Brown won by almost five points.
So all these polls where the outcome can change with the tiniest tweaks in sampling methods are to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
PPP…
Patent Push Polling.
I’m already cynical about politics, but I’m astonsihed that Warren is ahead in this poll or any poll. Does anybody know about the Warren and Brown camps’ internal polling?
Rasmussen today has Warren up by two, which sounds more like it. 49-47.
And local Democrats wonder why it is not Warren 80/Brown 20…
BTW, have you guys noticed how short tempered the Dems have become? It’s remarkable how tough it is to be around them. Everybody’s a liar…Brown, Ryan, Romney…except their guys.
Sean Hannity talked about PPP doing “advocacy” or better known as push polling mentioning his name. The North Carolina Plott Hound website also has an article about this. They are asking pollees whether conservative media has made people believe that Obama hates white people!!!
Pollsters and MSM – both enemies of the American people.