Will ARG Still Have a Reputation After This is Over?
By Erick Posted in 2008 — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I have to wonder if the American Research Group will still have a reputation after this contest is over. Michigan, which I think Romney will win, is going to be the test.
I wonder because ARG has been decidedly pro-McCain for the past year. They have detected levels of strength for McCain that no other poll has. Now, it's been all well and good in New Hampshire, where ARG showed McCain winning by 7% when he won by 5%. But, remember Iowa? ARG showed Fred Thompson had bottomed out at 2%, behind Ron Paul, and McCain had surged. Their December 19th poll showed 28% for Huckabee, 20% for McCain, 17% for Romney, and 5% for Thompson.
Then ARG released a poll on December 28th that showed Huckabee with 23%, Romney with 32%, McCain with 11%, and Thompson with 7%. The day before the Iowa Caucus, ARG showed Huckabee with 29%, Romney with 24%, McCain with 11%, and Thompson with 13%.
In fact, ARG has been doing this frequently -- they release a lot of polls showing increasing strength for John McCain and then produce a poll just before the election that actually did a pretty good job.
Read on . . .
Back in the March through May period of 2007, every pollster was showing McCain bottoming out. In fact, in the January-February period, all the polls, including ARG, had McCain in the lead. From March to May, however, while everyone else showed McCain bottoming, ARG showed McCain at 23% to Romney's 17%, then 29% to Romney's 24%, then, when all the polls started showing McCain below 20%, ARG came out with a poll showing McCain 30% to Romney's 23%. Only over the summer, when every single other poll had McCain below 20% did ARG's polling reflect that.
Things stayed normal until the end of the year with ARG tracking closing to everyone else's polling. Then, shockingly, while the other polls started showing McCain having a 4% to 6% lead at the end of the year, ARG showed him with a 10% to 14% lead. Ultimately, McCain had a 5% margin of victory with ARG showing a 7% margin of victory.
All of this is reflected in national polling too. During the summer when other polls showed McCain at 10% to 15%, ARG had McCain at 20%.
This brings us to Michigan. Every poll out in the past week has shown a very close race except for two -- Mason-Dixon, arguably the best polling firm in the nation ,has Romney up 8%, and you guessed it, ARG has McCain up 7%. Compare that to the RCP Average, which has Romney up 0.9%.
I am not alleging a conspiracy. While some people are circulating the fact that several of McCain's people are tied very closely to ARG, I suspect ARG just really sucks this year. But one cannot help but notice that ARG is always the last to show a McCain dive in the polls and usually the first to show a McCain surge in the polls. That was fine in New Hampshire where it came close to reflecting the outcome, but all it did in Iowa was give McCain loyalist Mike Murphy (allegedly) an opportunity to spread the "Thompson is dropping out" story. And in Michigan, it may impact Mitt Romney.
We may want to take ARG results with a bottle of salt.
« Dueling June Obama fundraising claims? — Comments (2) | First Rule Of Holes: Stop Digging — Comments (7) »
Will ARG Still Have a Reputation After This is Over? 15 Comments (0 topical, 15 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
"Will Mason Dixon Still Have A Reputation After This is Over?"
Honestly, swap out ARG and Mason Dixon, along with Romney for McCain, change around a couple words, and you could have the exact same post except it would imply that Romney is benefiting from a polling firms "results."
Except that Mason-Dixon with the exception of one poll has largely tracked all the other polling groups instead of showing wild swings to and from McCain -- not to mention that historically, Mason-Dixon has been at the very top of the list of credible pollsters and ARG has been consistently at the bottom.
Fight On!
I thought they were one of those psychic groups that do predictions for the Weekly World News.
I really don't care whether ARG or Mason Dixon have credibility or not. I do care about the meaning of a Romney win in Michigan. None of it, I'm sorry to say, brings any good to the Republican cause. He's changed views so many times, the media and Democrats will eat him alive. That's just my opinion though.
First, if Romney wins, Hugh Hewitt and the rest of the establishment will once again try to force feed Romney down our throats. I would support him in the fall, but he would almost certainly lose and lose by quite a lot. A recent Survey USA poll shows him only TIED with Hillary in ALABAMA. The over/under on how many states Romney wins in a general election is 15.
Second, a Romney win would throw the Republican race into chaos. That's good for Huckabee and that's good for Guiliani's big state strategy. That's not good for the conservative movement. Huckabee is a liberal on all things other than abortion and Rudy is complete and total social liberal. I also think Rudy is a disaster waiting to happen.
Third, a Romney win would severely wound John McCain. Now I know a lot of people swear they won't vote for him, but poll after poll shows he can win in November. In a year that is so strongly against Republicans, a win would be monumental. There is a conservative case to be made for McCain and it starts with his judicial voting record. Even Manny Miranda agrees with that. There's absolutely no reason to believe the most ineffective majority leader of the last 100 years, Frist, would have been able to pull of the nuclear option.
I write this as a Fredhead, but I also write this as someone who, above all else, wants to win in November. The Supreme Court is at stake and we don't want to blow this opportunity. We did in 1992 and it got us Ginsburg and Breyer. I believe Romney will, regretably, lead to another missed opportunity. As I said, I write this as a Fredhead willing to vote for Romney if it comes to that.
"I believe in grace, because I have seen it. In peace, because I have felt it. In forgiveness, because I needed it."
-George W. Bush
Now I know a lot of people swear they won't vote for him, but poll after poll shows he can win in November.
That's because he's leading the Republican pack at the moment. When Rudy was leading the Republican pack, Rudy was winning the match-ups with Hillary. If John's popularity goes down, those favorable match-ups against Hillary will disappear as well.
I'm convinced that whoever we pick, we can trounce Hillary (though maybe not with Mike and certainly not with RP). Let's not crown McCain most able to win the general solely because he's leading the GOP at the moment.
Also, I don't feel like getting into it since others here have said it repeatedly and better than I, but there's also a very strong conservative case to be made against McCain. He's abandoned conservatives too many times in the past to be trusted now.
---
Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.
Mike Dukakis leading George H. W. Bush by 14 points.
McCain will destroy the Republican Party and set back the Conservative movement for years.
Enough!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------
“Be prepared! Find the bastards. And pile on!”
Karl Rove - "(T)he motto on the unit coin of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Blackhorse."
....and I don't even disagree with your assesment of Frist's incompetence, but the nuclear option was a done deal and McCain blew it up. His promises to appoint constructionists is meaningless to me because there WERE constructionists already nominated and he tossed them under the bus.
He has a penchant for being petty, vindictive and sticking his finger in our eyes when he will get the most publicity. We in the conservative movement have to be smoking major hemp to believe that under the screeching of the Times and Post to nominate a 'consensus' judge that John will nominate a strict constructionist.
It'll be a Kennedy at best, more likely a Souter.
"All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"Rudy is complete and total social liberal"
Rudy is a strong advocate of school vouchers which is a conservative stance on education, part of the social platform. My guess is that the only thing you know about Guliani's social policies is that he is pro-choice and unfortunately for many people that alone makes someone a liberal.
Romney is not as weak as you seem to imply either. The fact that he has flipped on abortion doesn't mean he is going to suffer the same fate as John Kerry. Kerry simply mishandled his campaign.
Guliani, Romney & Thompson are all acceptable conservative candidates in my eyes, but for those who can't suffer a pro-choice candidate, Romney and Thompson are more than conservative enough to not 'redefine' the Republican Party.
This is why I generally stick to the RCP average rather than put too much stock in individual polls. A little number crunching of my own that cuts out the two outliers (ARG and Mason Dixon) puts Romney up 1, which matches right up to the RCP average of 0.9 for Mitt.
He is unlikely to to get enough momentum to win South Carolina.
Fred has to win SC to continue. Assuming he doesn't we're finally down to a four way for Florida. I think this probably is slightly to Rudy's advantage, though I think he also benefits if both Mitt and Fred are out and he's the only fiscal conservative in the race. Mitt is dark in Florida and in fourth place. If he comes third in SC after winning Michigan, I'm not sure he has time to overtake the whole field.
Is ARG picking up something that none others are. With the Dem Primary having no meaning because it has been striped of all delegates and all democrats not campaigning there the Independents will vote in the Republican Primary and how many other Moderate Democrats vote in the Republican Primary?
If the Independents turn up in large numbers and the polling from Independents hold up McCain could have a very Big day.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777