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Obama Regains Lead in the Gallup Daily Tracking
Objective: Obama now is ahead 48-45% in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/105529/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Edges-Ahead-Clinton.aspx
My Analysis
It seems that Obama has weathered the harshest storm he has seen to date. Not only did he stem the tide, the speech he gave and the Richardson endoresement likely puts him at an upswing as the week starts.
While I hate to place any importance on polls, especially daily tracking polls, its all we got. In medicine, we use Evidence Based Medicine. Often our decisions are guided by rote learning, but when there is any studies published to guide our decision making, we refer to them. The studies are graded Level I to Level III Evidence, with I being randomized, double blinded, controlled trials. II being generally well done cohort retrospective of prospective randomized studies and III being published case studies or series without randomization.
Polls work the same way, I feel.
Level I - large sample size, representative sample, well correlated to results in elections.
Level II - smaller sample size, represenstative sample, mildly correlated to results.
Level III - Daily tracking polls and the like.
To me, thsi is Level III evidence. Its not somethign great, but its better than Pat Buchanan's opinion or any other person's opinion for that matter.
Taken as such, I think that Obama will gain greatly as more SD's come out for him and more endorsements come his way - not saying it will, but if it does.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/105529/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Edges-Ahead-Clinton.aspx
PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama has quickly made up the deficit he faced with Hillary Clinton earlier this week, with the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update on Democratic presidential nomination preferences showing 48% of Democratic voters favoring Obama and 45% Clinton.
Obama's campaign clearly suffered in recent days from negative press, mostly centering around his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Perhaps as a result, Clinton moved into the lead in Gallup's Wednesday release, covering March 16-18 polling. But Obama has now edged back ahead of Clinton due to a strong showing for him in Friday night's polling, perhaps in response to the endorsement he received from well-respected New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former rival for the nomination. (To view the complete trend since Jan. 2, 2008, click here.)
My Analysis
It seems that Obama has weathered the harshest storm he has seen to date. Not only did he stem the tide, the speech he gave and the Richardson endoresement likely puts him at an upswing as the week starts.
While I hate to place any importance on polls, especially daily tracking polls, its all we got. In medicine, we use Evidence Based Medicine. Often our decisions are guided by rote learning, but when there is any studies published to guide our decision making, we refer to them. The studies are graded Level I to Level III Evidence, with I being randomized, double blinded, controlled trials. II being generally well done cohort retrospective of prospective randomized studies and III being published case studies or series without randomization.
Polls work the same way, I feel.
Level I - large sample size, representative sample, well correlated to results in elections.
Level II - smaller sample size, represenstative sample, mildly correlated to results.
Level III - Daily tracking polls and the like.
To me, thsi is Level III evidence. Its not somethign great, but its better than Pat Buchanan's opinion or any other person's opinion for that matter.
Taken as such, I think that Obama will gain greatly as more SD's come out for him and more endorsements come his way - not saying it will, but if it does.
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Irrelevant. The fact that Senator Obama has not yet been able to win the Democratic nomination, despite the fact that he has had more than a year to do so, raises serious concerns about him.
March 22, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't you afraid the real Mark Penn is going to sue you for putting silly words in his mouth? I suppose it would be a hard suit for him to win, since he says so many silly things on his own.
The fact that Senator Obama has not yet been able to win the Democratic nomination, despite the fact that he has had more than a year to do so, raises serious concerns about him.
But the fact that Hillary has not yet been able to win the nomination ... and the fact that she's way, way behind in fundraising ... and the fact that she's behind in the popular vote even if you include Michigan where Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot ... etc. ... etc. ... etc. ... raises no concerns at all.
March 23, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
March 27, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mark Penn, that's absoultely the best picture I've ever seen of you. Glamour Shots?
March 22, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark Penn,
Your "more than a year" comment seems irrelevant to me. Obama came into the presidential primaries with no one knowing anything about him. Pretty much only the people in his home state of Illinois knew his name. HRC came in with name recognition, a known past (which she has capitalized on so far. Obama has been in legislation longer than her, she's been in the public eye longer than him.), and solid views. Hillary Clinton is an extremely strong candidate and she appeals to many people across the board. That is a clear fact and no one can fairly dispute that.
But the fact is that there is a large amount of people who identify with the more inspirational candidate. HRC and Obama are very close to each other on the issues. Both are extremely smart people (FAR FAR FAR more prepared than John McCain is), but the question now is who has gotten the people interested? Who has been able to finally articulate the pain and discontent in this country that has existed for so long? And who has been able to "pull themselves up by the boot straps", come out of nowhere and appeal to a broad spectrum of new voters, independents (a base we will direly need in November, especially against Senator McCain. Without them we lose. Period.), and cross over republicans?
To me, that's Obama. It's amazing what he's done so far and it's amazing how receptive the American people have been.
March 22, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Senator Obama has utterly squandered that microtrendic advantage, instead choosing to go for meaningless macrotrends. The momentum, therefore, has clearly shifted to Senator Clinton relative to this time last year.
This raises serious questions about Senator Obama.
March 22, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
These polls are usually based on rolling three-day averages.
That means in Thursday's 47-45 Clinton poll, and Friday's 48-45 Obama poll, two thirds of the data was identical (Wednesday and Thursday's numbers). To get from Thursday's poll, made up of numbers from Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; to Friday's poll, made up of numbers from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Tuesday's numbers are dropped, and Fridays are added. Assuming that roughly one-third of each day's rolling poll is counted from each day's numbers, that means that the difference between Tuesday's numbers and Friday's would have to be a change of fifteen percent net advantage, as it would be averaged in with two days' data identical to the previous poll.
So by Friday, Obama does fifteen percent better v. Clinton than he did on Tuesday. No matter what the rolling margin of error, the daily will be no more than double that, so the MoE would be no more than 7-9%. This indicates that there has been definite positive movementfor Obama since the speech.
Frankly, I did not expect the rolling Gallup to show Obama ahead until next Tuesday or Wednesday. To me this is an indicator that people are paying closer attention than I expected, and I am broke overestimating the American people, which would seem to be a good sign for Obama--his "engage the conversation" policy looks to have merit.
March 22, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink