Missouri is a quadrennial battleground state; almost always, whichever candidate can win the Show Me State, also wins the White House. One of the few times since World War II that this did not occur was in 2008, when McCain won the state in a squeaker over Obama.
In 2012, it is easy to anticipate that the economy will be the pre-eminent issue in Missouri. Like much of the rest of the nation, the state has high unemployment, a high poverty rate, and a high foreclosure rate. Conservatives in the state are also concerned about the mushrooming federal deficit, which has expanded greatly in the last four years. Because of the large percentage of the state’s population who are elderly, the Democrats can be expected to try to make a case for the threats to Social Security and Medicare if Romney is elected.
Missouri has one of the more interesting political demographics in the nation. It has a high percentage of African-Americans, some major cities, and a high percentage of union members. Each of these factors works to the benefit of Obama. There are not very many Hispanics residing in the state, yet. However, it also has a high percentage of evangelicals, which works to the benefit of Romney.
Missouri, as has much of the rest of the South and the Border States, has tended to become more Republican in recent times. As shown below, the GOP has won every Presidential election in this century. It has a Democratic Governor; one Senator is a Republican and one is a Democrat. The Democrat, Claire McCaskill, is up for re-election and presumably faces a difficult match-up. The Republicans must win her seat to take over the Senate.
| Recent Missouri Presidential General Election Match-ups | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election Year | Republican | Democrat | ||
| 1996 | 41% | 48% | ||
| 2000 | 50% | 47% | ||
| 2004 | 53% | 46% | ||
| 2008 | 49% | 49% | ||
Here is the current polling from Real Clear Politics. Romney currently has a 5% lead.
| 2012 Presidential Polls, Missouri, General Election Match-ups | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polling Date | Polling Company | Mitt Romney (R) | Barack Obama (D) | |
| 7/24 | WeAskAmerica | 49% | 40% | |
| 6/7 | Rasmussen | 49% | 42% | |
| 5/24-5/27 | PPP | 44% | 45% | |
This looks like a likely win for Romney. Obama is probably only going to expend money to GOTV, not expend much on advertising.
July 27th, 2012 at 9:46 am
The tables say Florida. Is that Florida data or Missouri?
July 27th, 2012 at 10:27 am
I’m so bad with these things. I’ll correct this one and look at all of the rest to see if they’re messed up, too.
July 27th, 2012 at 10:42 am
ok, I repaired the titles for all of the poll tables, I think. Good catch, thanx.
July 28th, 2012 at 4:41 am
Let us not forget that when folks in MO voted on Obama Care, they rejected it by a massive margin. Put MO in the Romney column. No worries there!
July 28th, 2012 at 5:08 am
My old stomping ground! I hope everyone is well here. Nice to see you post McCain. Long ago, I stopped worrying about MO. That could be a double digit win. No last minute, let’s keep the St. Louis precincts open until 1am, strategy.
Congrats on keeping this going for so long. Is Right Celebrity still around?
July 28th, 2012 at 5:13 am
Guys – my theory is that PPP isn’t even making any calls right now. I think Tommy J is just putting down the results he would like to see. Once in a while, he will mix it up with a somewhat favorable R result. This way he gets to save money and push an agenda. This reminds me so much of R2K and Ali.
When it gets close to an election, PPP does well on the whole. However, I smell something rotten with all these polls now. My instincts are usually pretty good on this stuff.
July 28th, 2012 at 5:41 am
Yeah, PPP’s results this early are, I think, useful only in Dem primaries. Ras sometimes has the opposite problem. The models have the exact same problem, figuring out who will actually vote. PPP tends to set it up so that a really high percentage of registered voters cast ballots; Ras does the opposite.
So, in 08, when a lot of people were energized, PPP was closer that Ras. This year, where few people in swing states on either side are ecstatic, and ads will be overwhelmingly negative on both sides, Ras may be closer (like in 04).
btw, MD, last night I went to hhr just to see what issues you guys were talking about. So, you and judy blue eyes are in love?
July 28th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Hey MDefl !
Hope alls well, good to see you.
July 28th, 2012 at 11:17 am
Hey ron – for some reason Judy thought she could play in the bigs. Now, she has slunk back to her hole. A cyber bully who picked on one of the classier posters on the internet and upset her. I wasn’t going to take any crap.
Keep in mind that Ras was spot on in 08. Many R’s were critical of his party ID but that turned out to be accurate. The scam that Tommy is pulling at PPP is somewhat subtle. The initial polls for any election always push the Dem hard. It is a clear agenda. Look at NC from 10. First hispanics were going to save the day for Marshall, then it was advertising. In the end, Tommy J’s last poll or two will be very close t the real results. This is how some can say he slightly skews R. He last poll or 2 generally will do that. Not always though. Over time, he is starting to show his true colors. Look at his last poll for the WI recall. The D’s could win IF turnout is like O8? What kind of polling is that? It is just a matter of time before he is exposed as a fraud. At least for his early polls.
July 28th, 2012 at 11:17 am
Micky – good to see you as well. I am doing very well. How about yourself?
July 28th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
@ MDefl
Tryin to behave.
Or to be more on point and friendly and get this place jumpin again.
But, present moonbat participants make this challenging.
The conversations/debates need to be elevated, smartened up…
we need you around more often.
WTF you been ?
July 28th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
I hang out at the Hedgehog Report. I travel a ton for business and they have an easy site to navigate for mobile use. I will stop by more often. I think my first article I wrote was in early 2006. Time flies.
July 28th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Everybody’s “first article” is one they wish had never been written. I won’t subject you to ridicule by finding it now.
Arriba my recollection is that voters were fairly well energized on both sides in 2004. Was a high turnout election wasnt it?
July 28th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Yeah, McCain. Pretty much all Presidential elections have a turnout rate of 80-90% of registered voters. I assume that this one will too. A lot of people have somehow built it into their system that if they vote once every 4 years, they’ve fulfilled their political duty. But to your q, I sorta think that the % has consistently increased in the last bunch of elections, at least back to Bush vs Tank Man.
The interesting thing, at least to me, is that this will be the first pres election in my life where both sides will go predominantly negative. Given my first paragraph, I don’t know how that will work. It is a really effective tactic in years like 06 and 10, obviously.
July 28th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
As far as Ras, what I’ve heard that they’ve done is have a high % of their Dems come from the South. The problem with that is, for example, here in LA, I believe that the Dems still have an overwhelming registration advantage, even though no sober person actually believes the Dems could win any statewide election in which their candidate is not named Landrieu.
So, even if they have an accurate projection of the national % of D-R-I, they’ll underestimate the Dem vote. I won’t even get into the problems PPP has had, since their polls are sort of silly until at least the middle of October, when they try to guess right.
There used to be a writer here and at HHR named Frank. He might still be at HHR for all I know. He was a good guy and knew a lot; we used to discuss the problems with Ras not releasing state/regional results for his national polls, but neither of us was able to figure out a way to extrapolate the ‘real’ projections from what Ras provided.
July 28th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Yeah, Seems he worked pretty hard, lot of numbers,Frank always had the right numbers.
Instant reference. I miss that
July 29th, 2012 at 4:41 pm
LOL! I did look up my first article. It was bad. I did improve over time but, boy, was I awful at first.
July 29th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
MDefl, like fine wine it should never be drunk too early.
Arriba, what is your take on Rasmussen state polls. They also favor the GOP, say in Wisconsin or wherever. Seems their turnout model is somewhat differently projected than the others, or do you think they are just generating PR?
July 30th, 2012 at 3:53 am
McCain,
As we know, when poll numbers are released, the firms tell us if they are looking at registered voters or likely voters, Registered voter polls are actually pretty alike, no matter who is taking the poll. Unfortunately, the results are useless until we have a law that forces people to vote, even if they can’t name either of the presidential candidates.
The trick is to put together a likely voter model that accurately guesses who will vote, and who will not. In a typical election, the tighter you make the test, the better the GOP does. The looser it is, the Dems do better.
So, for example, if the firm asked ‘Do you intend to vote?’, that’s a pretty loose model. If a firm asked ‘Who are the 2 candidates running for Sen (in a Sen poll)?’ that would be a tight model. Typically, a firm will have 3-4 q that they ask to set up their frame.
As you note, Ras in state polls thus far tends to favor the GOP compared to other firms.They’re just gambling that less people will vote. I’m naive enough to believe that they’re honest in this, mainly since when a firm is consistently biased in a cycle, it hurts their reputation for a long time. I personally don’t trust Ras or PPP this early, but that’s because their reps have been damaged in previous election cycles.
July 30th, 2012 at 8:26 am
Yeah sometimes I forget they are doing likely voters whereas most others are registered voters (fairly useless).