Jonathan Bernstein has some pretty bad advice for poll watchers and other presidential election prognosticators. He has come up with five “myths” that contradict conventional wisdom. The first myth is that we should watch the state polls and ignore the national ones. His reason is that elections generally track with the national polls and there are a lot more of them (a bigger sample size) than any particular state poll. My answer to this is that national polls contain a bunch of irrelevant information. I simply don’t care how Obama is doing in Texas or Romney is doing in California. And I have no reason to believe that those two states cancel each other out. I want to know how the candidates are doing in the states where they are putting their resources. The only thing national polls can tell me is if one candidate is making some kind of generalized progress against the other. If you think about it, if a candidate is spending a ton of money to win New Hampshire and nothing to win Texas, you should see almost no correlation between a national poll that surveys many Texans, and a state poll of the Granite State. If you are picking up support in New Hampshire but not in much larger states that you’re conceding, the national polls will show nothing. Al Gore can tell you what the popular vote is worth.
Bernstein next tells us the vice-president candidates don’t have much impact. But, of course, they do. Sarah Palin was very harmful to John McCains’s campaign, even as she gave it a temporary spark. Dan Quayle did Poppy Bush no favors. The selection of a running mate is important for the challenger because it allows the public to judge them on at least one presidential decision. But, it’s true that picking, say, a Marco Rubio because you think he can help you win Florida is a high risk/low payoff decision. At best, Rubio might buy you a point or two, but it’s more important that he’s a crook with an embarrassing record of unethical behavior.
Bernstein’s third myth is derived from a single study that contradicts the common wisdom that people form their opinions of the health of the economy by the ease or difficulty of obtaining a job in their community, and not by watching Lou Dobbs and other media figures pontificate about the economy. I want to see quite a bit more than one study before I believe that.
Bernstein’s fourth myth is basically true. The list of swing states isn’t constant, and just because an election was close in a state 4 years ago or 8 years ago doesn’t mean it will be close this time around. Bernstein would be less impressed with himself over this if he paid more attention to state polls, which tell him things he might not expect, like the president is still strong in North Carolina and the Dems have the frontrunner in the North Dakota Senate race. In any case, the two campaigns know which states are swingy this time around and are using their resources accordingly.
Bernstein’s last myth is that the Republicans can’t win the general election without winning Ohio. He then uses the example of Romney winning California, and points out that if Romney wins California then he will have won in a giant landslide. Somehow this is supposed to happen without Romney winning Ohio? We should think of this saying that the GOP can’t win without Ohio as meaning that Ohio is a bellwether. If Romney loses it, you can forget about him becoming president. This isn’t a mathematical thing. If Obama loses Vermont, he’s toast. I could just as easily say that if Obama wins Missouri, he’s going to be reelected, even though Obama doesn’t need Missouri at all.
In any case, this is pretty crappy advice from Bernstein, all down the line.