Presidential polling numbers from swing states are getting wall-to-wall coverage on FOX news. These claims deserve some scrutiny, and a response. Is the race really close enough so that under-the-radar efforts by Christian Right groups could swing the election at the last minute?
The polls:
1. In Colorado, Romney leads Obama 50% to 47%. (Rasmussen survey, October 29)
2. In Minnesota, the conservative American Future Fund poll shows Romney leading Obama by 46% to 45%. The poll is called an NMB Research Poll by Fox dated Oct. 30-1, obscuring its conservative origins.
3. In Michigan, the the FMWB poll shows Romney leading Obama 47% to 46%. The The poll by Foster McCollum White Baydoun was dated October 30-1, and if accurate would be a 5 point swing from a CNN poll a couple days before.
4. In Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review shows a dead heat, with the candidates tied at 47%. Again, the survey was conducted on October 30-1.
While some are quick to dismiss any FOX news numbers as biased, I hesitate to do so. Even if Obama is up by 2 points in all of these states, that is not enough for the following reasons:
* The small “bounce” that Obama received from his quick response to last week’s hurricane could be erased if conservative media are able to rewrite the history of the White House response to the hurricane. Fox has already claimed that the President is responsible for long gas lines reminiscent of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that FEMA’s response was as bad as it was during Hurricane Katrina.
* PAC and C-4 groups supporting Romney can create enough momentum to swing the race by 3 points in a single state, as they did when Scott Brown won in 2010. Last minute campaign strategies by groups like Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom coalition and Reagancoalition.com are designed to create this momentum. The most dangerous of these strategies are not robocalls or TV ads, which everybody knows about. The bigger danger are the “stealth” tactics that have long been employed by the Christian Right like the distribution of 40 million voter guides to evangelicals. More recently, the Right has improved its capacity to virally spread disinformation about issues like Medicare, unemployment, the budget deficit, and national security via Facebook and Twitter.
Pure statistical analysis of poll numbers (such as the New York Times blog by Nate Silver) will not take into account the potential effect of this last-minute activity on independent voters.
Besides getting out our own vote, what can we do about this at this late date? Well, besides working to get out the vote by contacting people you know, it could help to go onto Facebook later tonight to counter some of the last minute material the Right is circulating.
Fyi, here is a copy of the Ralph Reed voter guide distributed yesterday at chuches in Maine, in opposition to tomorrow’s gay marriage ballot initiative.
