Hurricane Sandy is interfering with polling—Rasmussen Reports notes that
Rasmussen Reports is based in Asbury Park, New Jersey and we were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. We are operating on battery power and have limited access to the Internet. However, our survey interview calls are placed from a different location, so data gathering was able to continue. Today, we will release only data from the Presidential Tracking Poll.
VDARE.com operates on a similarly distributed model, and some of us are suffering from power problems, too, but we’ll try to get you the results of what polls we have. Rasmussen Reports did release, only, their Presidential Tracking Poll, which shows
"Mitt Romney attracting support from 49% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns the vote from 47%"
Subscribers to their Platinum Service will learn from the crosstabs that the racial breakdown looks like this:
Candidate | White | Black | Other |
Romney | 58% | 11% | 31% |
Obama | 39% | 87% | 64% |
The white share, Rasmussen version, is where it was yesterday, well below the 61% that Romney needs to win, and pathetic compared to, say, Reagan’s 64% in 1984 and Richard Nixon’s 67% in 1972. (More white share comparisons here—scroll down).
In other poll reports, NPR’s polling company was sensitive to the weather:
They report Romney +1 over Obama, but while I can see they asked about race and Hispanic origin, I don’t see racial breakdowns.
Pew Reports still calls it a tie, under the headline “Presidential Race Dead Even; Romney Maintains Turnout Edge”. That’s because turnout favors Romney voters over Obama voters for demographic reasons—white voters are more patriotic and socially engaged than minority voters.
The Obama camp would say that minorities have reasons—white racism, minority resentment, et cetera—to be less patriotic, but the effect is the same. Minorities are less likely to see voting as part of their civic duty, to be done despite snow, rain, heat, gloom of night, or post hurricane malaise.
That’s another reason why anything that would fire up Mitt’s white base would be so effective—and why his pathetic white share is so harmful.
