Suffolk poll puts Florida, Virginia and North Carolina safely in Mitt Romney’s column
Date: October 10, 2012
http://archive.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/10/10/suffolk-polling-center-puts-florida-virginia-and-north-carolina-safely-mitt-romney-column/hQzH5It1ANgkYxbFcA1NJL/story.html
The Suffolk University Political Research Center has determined Mitt Romney is a lock to win the battleground states of Florida, Virginia and North Carolina and will not conduct additional polls there during the final four weeks of the presidential election.
The three states are generally considered to be competitive battlegrounds with uncertain Election Day outcomes.
“In places like North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, we’ve already painted those red,” David Paleologos, the center’s director, said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night. “We’re not polling any of those states again. We’re focusing on the remaining states.”
The announcement appeared to surprise conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly, who paused his interview with Paleologos to ask, “your polling agency is convinced that Florida, North Carolina and Virginia are going to go for Romney?”
“That’s right,” Paleologos replied, “and here’s why: Before the debate, the Suffolk poll had Obama winning, 46-43, in the head-to-head number [in Florida]—a poor place to be for a couple of reasons. Number one, his ballot test. His head-to-head number was under 47 before the debate, and it’s very difficult when you’re the known quantity, the incumbent, to claw your way up to 50, so that was a very, very poor place for him to be. And so we’re looking at this polling data, not only in Florida but in Virginia and in North Carolina, and it’s overwhelming.”
Head to head polls in June lack significant predictive power especially when within margin of error.
Ground game also makes a difference. Hillary will have a great one. Trump won't have one at all.
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