Numbers that count

The race for president is locked up, a death match.

In daily tracking numbers, both Obama and Romney have polled either 45 percent or 46 percent every day in the last two weeks. It’s either a one-point margin one way or the other, or it’s tied.

Back when Obama announced his long-awaited and much dilly-dallied-over support for same-sex marriage on May 9, I wondered whether it would have a positive or negative effect on Obama’s approval numbers and the race for president. I figured an analysis of those numbers would make an interesting column once we had enough daily tracking data to really be able to tell.

So I sat down the other day and compiled all the daily tracking data for the month before and after the announcement of Obama’s support for allowing gays to really annoy conservatives by depriving them of the sanctity of their heterosexual — but no doubt somewhat closeted — marriages. (Because let’s face it, why else would they be making a fuss?) If that announcement had any notable positive or negative effect on the numbers, we would see it in the comparison of the data sets.

There was absolutely no difference. It was dead even for the month prior, dead even for the month after. So there goes my column. What the heck am I going to write about now? How about them Yankees?

Well, as always, the story’s inside the numbers. Right now, 45 percent of the country intends to vote for Obama, 45 percent intends to vote for Romney and 10 percent are just chronically indecisive.

In an Associated Press poll conducted from June 14-18, the question was asked: “Regardless of how you might vote, do you think President Barack Obama will be re-elected or do you think he will be voted out of office?” The question was first asked by AP in December 2011 in the midst of the Republican Clown Show.

The results back then? They were 49 percent re-elected, 48 percent voted out of office. The results now? Fifty-six percent re-elected, 35 percent voted out of office.

That is quite a shift. It seems the emergence of Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee caused millions of people around the country to go “Mitt Romney? You’ve got to be kidding me.” And it is significant because there is a subconscious tendency for voters to gravitate toward the person they think is going to win.

So what are the motivational factors that have caused this shift? You’d have thought, as the national economy continues to struggle, eyes would turn to the Republican candidate to come in and fix things up, right?

Well, sort of, but not exactly. In the same AP poll: “Regardless of whom you support, who do you trust to do a better job of handling the economy?” It was 46 percent Obama, 45 percent Romney. They don’t exactly see Romney as a savior, do they?

In all fairness, in other polls, Romney does have an advantage on the issue of the economy. In a Pew poll done earlier in June: “Regardless of who you support, which one of the presidential candidates — Barack Obama or Mitt Romney — do you think would do the best job of improving economic conditions?”

In this one, Romney held an 8-point lead. In a Fox News poll, the economy question showed a 7-point advantage to Romney.

So, for those of you hanging on to the old maxim that it’s the economy, stupid, there’s your reason for hope.

But Romney gets hosed on just about everything else.

In that same Fox News poll — Fox News for crying out loud — “Fighting terrorism,” the ground zero issue for Republicans, shows a 13-point advantage for Obama.

Back in the Pew poll, “Would show good judgment in a crisis” is 13 points to Obama. “Honest and truthful” is 14 points. “Willing to work with leaders from the other party” is 17 points.

How about “handling health care,” surely that filthy Marxist scheme Obamacare is just a lodestone around the president’s neck, ready to drag him down to certain defeat. Nope. Nine points to Obama.

But here’s the bugaboo, the big one: “Connects well with ordinary Americans.” How do you think that one went? Some of you might argue that it doesn’t matter, that it comes down to issues and capabilities, not whether a candidate can do the touchy-feely stuff. But I’d beg to differ.

From the most local level of politics all the way up to president, voters have a fundamental disillusionment with politics and politicians; politicians who’ll say and do anything to get elected, but once they’re in office it’s like you never existed’ politicians who exert their power supporting moneyed interests and pay no attention whatsoever to the little guy, the individual, you.

Politicians who can connect in a fundamental, personal way have a profound advantage over those who don’t. They have the ability to convey to people that they matter, that they are understood, that this person who is about to become the most powerful person on the planet has a real understanding of their problems and their pain.

“Connects well with ordinary Americans” is 59 to 28 percent to Obama, a landslide.

The economy, stupid? No, I don’t think so.

Ivan Moore is a public opinion pollster who lives in Anchorage and works for a variety of clients — political, corporate, public sector or just plain curious — around Alaska. His opinions, which appear in the Frontiersman every two weeks, are his own. He can be reached at ivan@ivanmooreresearch.com.