John Kerry at the DNC 2012

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One of the speakers that was amusing to hear during the 2012 Democratic National Convention was Senator John Kerry's speech because he made statements that approached satirical proportions. One of the reasons why the failed, presidential candidate's speech is ironic is because he criticizes the current Presidential challenger, Mitt Romney, when in fact Kerry had just as much political baggage as a candidate for President. What's most interesting about reading the transcript of the speech is that the speech is just about foreign policy. The senator starts off his speech as:

Holding Obama's Polling to a Higher Standard

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Lately, Obama's been getting some numbers in the polls that reveal he's losing the bounce from his 2012 DNC. Indeed, Nate Silver from the New York Times predicted that the President would lose his edge near the end of the month. Here's Silver's model predicting how the Convention bounces for each party will fade after two or three weeks:

Obama's Lead Tenable?

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I forgot to mention on my last post that Silver also pointed out in Saturday's article that it was not whether President Obama would get a boost from the Democratic National Convention, but how long his boost will persist. Though, the NYTimes blogger pointed out that Presidential candidates get boosts from their conventions; he also pointed that poll volatility (how sensitive the poll numbers are or how they shift towards one candidate) for this election is low, meaning that perhaps convention boosts may linger beyond two or three weeks. What is interesting about the volatility table that Silver put together is that elections that had high volatilities were elections that resulted in ousting an incumbent, thus, making the incumbent an one term president (James Carter and George H.W. Bush). If high volatility implies that an incumbent will get ousted, then this year's volatility implies the incumbent President will win reelection. 

On the other hand, Silver argues that in order for Governor Romney to win the General Election Romney will need to rely on just more than turning out his base in large numbers. In fact, the blogger points out that the Challenger's strategy of turning out his base isn't enough because of results from the past two General Election turnouts. The former Governor will need to gain ground among minorities to get a more defined victory come November. Moreover, among three hypothetical turnouts for November, The Times Columnist uses his third table as the one that will likely be result for the General Election because the President won't be getting as much support from white voters as in 2008. Still, under two of the three scenarios that Silver points out the President seems like he'll win reelection.

Update on Presidential Polls

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Nate Silver just published an article on his blog wherein he points out the state of the Presidential race. Three national tracking polls released their findings on the race: Gallup, Rasmussen, and Ipsos with Obama leading with Gallup and Ipsos, but losing in Rasmussen's poll. The case that Silver makes is that the polls were conducted in the interim period between conventions, meaning, that the pollsters are giving data that looks bad for Romney. In fact, what makes matters worse is that Rasmussen and Gallup have given Romney an edge because of their "house effects," so that means the race looks to be heading towards an Obama victory (The FiveThirtyEight forecast has Obama winning the Electoral College with 314 votes, the Popular Race with 51.3%, and the probability that the President wins re-election is 78.1%).

Polls on the Presidential Race: Romney vs. Obama

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I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Nate Silver, the NYTimes' Columnist/blogger who analyzes polls, but today he posted an article that argues that President Obama is the favorite to win the election in November. It's important to note how the blogger makes his prediction, so here's a blueprint as to how he works: the way that Silver makes his prediction is by taking an average of all polls leading up to an election wherein he assigns a certain "weight" to each pollster, that is, according to each pollster's methodology and its "house effects," meaning the model takes into account a pollster's credibility and any bias a pollster has. The model also includes other variables that affect the presidential race such as: Economic Indicators, State Polls, and National Polls. Needless to say, Silver does a better job at explaining his forecast model; so, I won't try to do what he does best.

What's more important from Silver's number crunching are his findings because traditionally candidates have gotten, on average, about a four point boost from their Convention. In regards to the Republican National Convention, Romney is not faring too well. In fact, after Silver averaged out the polls released after the RNC he found that Romney is just below average with a 3.1 point bounce. Moreover, when the columnist compares Romney's poll numbers Romney is likely to lose the race in November.

Romney fans might be disappointed if President Obama gets a good bounce from the Democratic National Convention. In fact, if the President gets a bounce above 4 points, then Romney will have something to worry about. For anyone interested in betting who's going to be president your chances might be with Obama.