The Myth Of Obama's "Suburban Women" Problem

by Josh Orton, Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 01:12:19 PM EDT

Last night's NBC/WSJ poll includes a sub-group that has talking-heads worked up in a tizzy: among "white suburban women," the poll shows McCain defeating Obama 44 percent to 38 percent, even though Obama beats McCain among women generally by a 52-33% margin.

But the numbers are flimsy.

Singer called foul this early this morning, and now the Huffington Post confirms it(emphasis mine):

MSNBC has now provided The Huffington Post with more information on its "suburban women" finding showing a 44-38 McCain lead over Obama. "This is within the margin of error of 9.34 percent based on a sample size of 110 within the larger poll," an MSNBC source wrote over email. (That's three times the margin of error for the entire poll.) This means McCain's 44 percent figure of support among suburban women could actually be as low as 35 percent, while Obama's 38 percent figure could rise as high as 47 percent. Alternatively, McCain could be leading Obama 53-29. Bottom line: that much variance renders the finding of little statistical use.

So this new conventional wisdom is based on a poll of 110 people with a margin of error approaching a whopping 10%. These numbers can't be trusted.

Tags: Barack Obama, Election 08 (all tags)

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15 Comments

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thank you for debunking this annoying meme

by slinkerwink 2008-06-12 01:19PM | 0 recs
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"Suburban Women"

Although this may be a big nothing, I think anything that is problematic at this point needs to be taken seriously and investigated.

I was wondering if a reverse economic factor fed into this; tax policy, where I think Obama's is excellent, but upper and upper middle income "soccer moms," might disagree.  That, or possibly the national security thing where McCain still comes out ahead in some recent polling.  

I hope this is an aberration, but am not prepared to look at any negative information complacently.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200 8/06/12/poll-obama-has-the-edge-on-the-e conomy/

by mady 2008-06-12 01:32PM | 0 recs
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Tax policy's mostly a wash for them

Unless by "upper income soccer moms" you mean households making significantly over $200,000 a year.  That might be a message issue, though.  They might have heard rumors that Obama is going to increase taxes on the middle class and are worried about their own tax bill, so we'll need to combat it.

by BishopRook 2008-06-12 01:51PM | 0 recs
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Re: Tax policy's mostly a wash for them

That's what I was thinking.

by mady 2008-06-12 01:56PM | 0 recs
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Re: "Suburban Women"

the point here is we dont even know if there IS a problem, a MOE of nearly 10% is terrrible and MSNBC shouldn't even be talking about the numbers with that bad of a MOE, or at least they SHOULD have mentioned that MOE.

but ofcourse they didn't they just wanna create contraversy.

by TruthMatters 2008-06-12 01:52PM | 0 recs
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Haha...

Maybe Obama's having trouble with suburban woman like Maria "We're talking about people who make over $200,000. That's not rich." Bartiromo. But luckily she's not a major voting block.

by recusancy 2008-06-12 02:18PM | 0 recs
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Maria Bartiromo... Righty

She appeared on the short-lived Dennis Miller Show a couple of yrs back, and said she supported privatizing Social Security - when Bush was hawking that one.

Since then, I have little respect for her expertise.

by susie 2008-06-12 08:54PM | 0 recs
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Re: The Myth

I'm putting this in the stupid polls of sub-sub-demographics are meaningless category.

by AIegra 2008-06-12 02:23PM | 0 recs
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MOE

Not sure why everyone's suddenly concerned to debunk this finding. Most of the sub-samples e.g. AAs, Latinos, age 18-35 etc have a similar MOE but the results (e.g. from exit polls) have been taken previously as gospel.

The fact that we have 44-38 vs 52-33 is indeed significant. I'm not sure the Huff Po poster understands how MOE works when they say Obama's 38 percent figure "could rise as high as 47 percent". It could be as high at 77%. The MOE they usually quote is based on a probability of 95%. It doesn't mean the error can't be more than 9.34%. But it also doesn't mean it's anywhere nearly as likely to be as much as 9.34% wrong as, say, 1% wrong. So from what we know Mccain is very likely to be leading  Obama with white suburban women and almost certain to be significantly ahead of him with women overall.

by zebedee 2008-06-12 02:49PM | 0 recs
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Re: MOE

Last sentence should read ...significantly behind him with women overall.

by zebedee 2008-06-12 02:52PM | 0 recs
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I think you are mistaken, or mistyped

you wrote "So from what we know Mccain is very likely to be leading  Obama with white suburban women and almost certain to be significantly ahead of him with women overall."

But Obama is leading 52-33 among all women in the poll, which is presumably approximately half the entire sample, so we can certainly say the opposite.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25096620/

also:

However, Obama has a seven-point advantage (46-39) among all white women.

In any case, I think you are getting a little overconfident in the numbers.  If one looks for a very small subsample where McCain has a surprisingly large lead, which plainly is how the MSNBC article is written, then one is very likely to pick a subsample which is by the MOE.

by John DE 2008-06-12 02:58PM | 0 recs
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Re: I think you are mistaken, or mistyped

Sorry, I had just corrected it as you typed your reply.

My point really is that we shouldn't ignore this evidence because of the MOE although the smaller the subsample (and the higher the resultion 95% MOE) the less reliable the result. But my (corrected) conclusions still stand and should be a cause of some concern until other evidence indicates otherwise.

by zebedee 2008-06-12 03:12PM | 0 recs
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Re: 44%-38%

suburban women don't necessarily vote en masse with democrats.

by ab03 2008-06-12 03:11PM | 0 recs
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Where's Obama's Bounce?

Just out moments ago:

Hotline/FD 06/05 - 06/08 806 RV 44 42 Obama +2.0

2pts!  What happened?

by mikeofminnesota 2008-06-12 03:34PM | 0 recs
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Hmmm

It will be interesting should McCain invite HRC to join his ticket.

by usedmeat 2008-06-12 07:28PM | 0 recs

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