David Paul Kuhn at the Politico.com did some research and consolidated the Gallup poll results for the past fifteen elections at around this time of the Election year to see how well those poll results compared to the final results. For simplicity, here are the polls Gallup released around the time of July 4th, according to Kuhn, and what the final result turned out to be for every election since 1948.

2004
Poll - Kerry 46% - Bush 44% (Dates 6/21-6/23)
Final - Bush 51% - Kerry 48%

2000
Poll - Bush 45% - Gore 36% (Dates 6/23-6/25)
Final - Bush 48% - Gore 48%

1996
Poll - Clinton 51%- Dole 35% (Dates 6/27-6/30)
Final - Clinton 49% - Dole 41%

1992
Poll - Bush 32% - Clinton 31% - Perot 28% (Dates 7/9-7/10)
Final - Clinton 43% - Bush 37% - Perot 19%

1988
Poll - Dukakis 47% - Bush 41% (Dates 7/8-7/10)
Final - Bush 53% - Dukakis 46%

1984
Poll - Reagan 50% - Mondale 40% (Dates 6/29-7/02)
Final - Reagan 59% - Mondale 40%

1980
Poll - Reagan 40% - Carter 38% (Date 6/24)
Final - Reagan 51% - Carter 41%

1976
Poll - Carter 49% - Ford 28% (Date 6/22)
Final - Carter 50% - Ford 48%

1972
Poll - Nixon 42% - McGovern 31% - Wallace 19% (Date 6/13)
Final - Nixon 60% - McGovern 37%

1968
Poll - Humphrey 34% - Nixon 32% - Wallace 17% (Dates 6/26-7/01)
Final - Nixon 43% - Humphrey 42% - Wallace 13%

1964
Poll - Johnson 74% - Goldwater 19% (Dates 6/25 - 6/30)
Final - Johnson 61% - Goldwater 39%

1960
Poll - Kennedy 46% - Nixon 41% (Date 6/28)
Final - Kennedy 50% - Nixon 50%

1956
Poll - Eisenhower 58% - Stevenson 36% (Date 7/10)
Final - Eisenhower 58% - Stevenson 42%

1952
Poll - Eisenhower 56% - Stevenson 34% (Date 7/10)
Final - Eisenhower 55% - Stevenson 44%

1948
Poll - Truman 40% - Dewey 39% (Date 7/14)
Final - Truman 50% - Dewey 45%

You can get more commentary from Kuhn here. Two things I get from this are that in four of the past five elections, Gallup’s poll at Independence Day has shown the eventual loser ahead in their poll. The only time it was right was 1996, when Dole never even put up a fight against Clinton. I will also note that excluding the earliest elections of 1948/1952/1956 and the 2000 election, Gallup has always underestimated the support of the Republican candidate. Every poll, the Republican candidate always wins by a bigger margin, loses by a smaller margin, or in some cases wins when trailing in the July polling.

By the way, the Gallup daily tracking poll released on July 4th claim Barack Obama would win by a 47%-43% margin.

For what it is worth….

From The Los Angeles Times.

As Barack Obama continues his focus on states that usually vote Republican in presidential elections, word comes that he may campaign at a NASCAR event. Why? Well, to paraphrase a supposed Willy Sutton line that he robbed banks because that’s where the money is, if Obama needs white working-class voters in the fall, there are few better places to find them than at a NASCAR event.

Probably not a bad idea for him. I will say, I have always liked Richard Petty but I like him even more when I read this in the LA Times article.

Bill Clinton tried that tack in September 1992, campaigning at the Southern 500 Stock Car race in Darlington, S.C., but drew jeers and catcalls and insults about his lack of Vietnam War service. That was the year Richard Petty was retiring, and the staunch Republican and racing icon told track officials he wouldn’t drive the pace car — part of his retirement-year sendoff — if Clinton was in the parade.

Clinton lost South Carolina by 8 points. And more recently George W. Bush actively courted NASCAR fans — getting a much better reception.

I don’t know if Clinton was actually ever in that parade.

Of course, nothing will top President Bush’s appearance at Daytona 500 in 2004. Here was the great picture of Air Force One leaving half-way through the race.

Still one of the greatest pictures ever.

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July! I have a feeling polling will be sparse this weekend due to the holiday, but we did have a few polls taken pre-holiday that came out yesterday. A new poll in Rhode Island shows Barack Obama should have no problems in this northeastern state. from Rhode Island College.

PRESIDENT - RHODE ISLAND (RIC)
Barack Obama (D) 53%
John McCain (R) 25%

This poll was done June 18-27 among 500 registered voters. And in Georgia, Insider Advantage/Poll Position is sticking to their guns and claiming the race in Georgia is going to be close.

PRESIDENT - GEORGIA (IA)
John McCain (R) 46%
Barack Obama (D) 44%
Bob Barr (L) 4%

So far, out of the eight public polls that I know about from Georgia, only two have the McCain’s lead in Georgia as low as 8%. Those two are the two polls from Insider Advantage, that have given McCain leads of only 1% and 2%. Either Insider Advantage is clueless or seems to know something nobody else does about Georgia. This poll was done July 2nd among 502 likely voters.

Also, how symbolic is it that a great American like Jesse Helms left this earth on the day we celebrate the anniversary of America’s birth, just like previous great Americans John Adams and Thomas Jefferson?

Defying the wishes of The Philadelphia Inquirer, I am going to celebrate Holiday weekend and birth of this great nation.

If news warrants, I might come back, but otherwise, enjoy your weekend!

Well isn’t this interesting. Scott Rasmussen is claiming Barack Obama is ahead in the state of Montana.

PRESIDENT - MONTANA (Rasmussen)
Barack Obama (D) 48%
John McCain (R) 43%

One thing to keep in mind, Montana did vote for Bill Clinton over George HW Bush in 1992, albeit with the help of Ross Perot taking 26% of the vote. And Montana right now has two Democratic US Senators and a Democratic Governor.

This poll was done July 1st among 500 likely voters.

An interesting article from The Washington Post this morning.

Question: Do you think your Google habits — your random, untethered wisps of thoughts manifested as search terms like “unexplained hives” and “Kate Beckinsale single?” — can be bundled together to paint an accurate representation of your morality?

This was the question floating around the periphery of a recent obscenity case, in which a Florida attorney planned to argue that Google records of pornographic searches were an indication of community values.
….
Because the real trick in making use of Google search terms is figuring out how to interpret them.

Does the fact that more people Googled “pomegranate” than “watermelon” in early 2008 mean that more people were eating pomegranates?

Or does it mean that everyone was researching the wunderfood’s antioxidant properties? Maybe people hate pomegranates and everyone was rushing to blog about those weird seeds.

Do more people in Pensacola really have orgies than go boating?

Read the whole thing here.

This leads me to do something I haven’t done in a while, look into my web statistics and find out what terms people use in search engines to find this website. Of course, different amalgamations of “Hedgehog Report” and my name along with “polls” and “electoral college” top the list. My favorite was this one:

“hedgehogs are hot”

In honor of Rush Limbaugh’s $400 million deal to keep yapping until 2016, I had this particular search phrase pop up:

“snerdley is an uncle tom”

I’d love to know what this one is about:

“sockobama”

I almost feel sorry for this particular person who typed in this phrase to find my site.

“can you draw unemployment if you quit a job due to harassment”

Did you ever want to know how far it is from El Paso to Chihuahua? Well apparently you can find it my site somewhere because someone typed this phrase into a search engine and it led to this site.

“distance from el paso to chihuahua”

But the best search phrase in the past month has to be this one.

“airport ticklish patdown”

Hmmm…I don’t know what is worse, that someone actually is searching for that phrase or that this phrase somehow caused a search engine to point to this website….

So are you what you Goggle?

Whoops. I knew I was going to be out all day and thought I had put up an Open Thread this morning, but alas it was not to be. Anyway, looks like I did not miss much on the polling front today as the only state polls I can find were two polls from Connecticut and, if don;t have enough of them already, yet another poll from New york. I start with this morning’s poll from Quinnipiac University that shows Obama cruising in the home state of Joe Lieberman.

PRESIDENT - CONNECTICUT (Quinnipiac)
Barack Obama (D) 56%
John McCain (R) 35%

This poll was done June 26-29 among 2,437 likely voters. Scott Rasmussen also felt the need to take a poll in Connecticut.

PRESIDENT - CONNECTICUT (Rasmussen)
Barack Obama (D) 52%
John McCain (R) 35%

This poll was done July 1st among 500 likely voters. And now the useless poll from New York.

PRESIDENT - NEW YORK (Rasmussen)
Barack Obama (D) 60%
John McCain (R) 29%

Apparently Rudy Giuliani’s support of McCain doesn’t mean much in New York. This poll was done June 30th among 500 likely voters. Finally, Public Policy Polling shows the race for Governor in North Carolina will be a battle until the end.

GOVERNOR - NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
Bev Perdue (D) 42%
Pat McCrory (R) 41%

This poll was done June 21-22 among 1048 likely voters.

The polling gods giveth, the polling gods taketh away. Some late night polling results to chew on.

Obamabots were probably excited about this morning’s poll from Public Policy Polling that showed Barack Obama ahead in Florida. A new poll from Strategic Vision done basically over the same time period gives John McCain a huge 8% lead.

PRESIDENT - FLORIDA (Strategic Vision)
John McCain (R) 49%
Barack Obama (D) 41%
Bob Barr (L) 1%

This poll was done Done June 27-29 among 1200 likely voters. So let’s see, Rasmussen says McCain leads by 7% and Strategic Vision says McCain leads by 8%. Public Policy Polling claims Barack Obama leads. One of these polls is not like the other…. Public Policy Polling, trying to get a foothold in the polling world, really needs to explain why their poll is so much different from the other polls done at the same time if they want to be considered a reputable pollster in this election year.

This poll moves the state of Florida back into John McCain’s column in the THR Electoral College Watch.

For more polls from Florida, click here.

Strategic Vision has a new poll out for the state of Georgia that shows John McCain with a lead of 8% while hometown Georgian Bob Barr can only manage a whopping total of 3%.

PRESIDENT - GEORGIA (Strategic Vision)
John McCain (R) 51%
Barack Obama (D) 43%
Bob Barr (L) 3%

Meanwhile, Saxby Chambliss should have no problem holding onto his US Senate.

US SENATE - GEORGIA (Strategic Vision)
Saxby Chambliss (R-inc) 57%
Vernon Jones (D) 27%

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc) 58%
Dale Cardwell (D) 29%

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc) 57%
Jim Martin (D) 28%

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc) 58%
Rand Knight (D) 28%

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc) 58%
Josh Lanier 25% (D)

This poll was done June 27-29 among 800 likely voters. Okay, can we please stop polling the state of Georgia now?

For more polls from Georgia, click here.

Survey USA is out with another poll for a US House race in Kentucky. This time, the news is better for Republicans as sitting incumbent Geoff Davis holds a commanding double-digit lead.

US HOUSE - KENTUCKY CD-4 (Survey USA)
Geoff Davis (R-inc) 54%
Michael Kelley (D) 41%

Bush won this district in 2004 with 63% of the vote. This poll was done June 28-30 among 550 likely voters.

Polls from Survey USA in New York and Rasmussen Reports in Massachusetts show Barack Obama with 20% leads over John McCain in each state.

PRESIDENT - NEW YORK (Survey USA)
Barack Obama (D) 57%
John McCain (R) 37%

PRESIDENT - MASSACHUSETTS (Rasmussen)
Barack Obama (D) 53%
John McCain (R) 33%

Meanwhile, the man who Democrats claimed in 2004 was qualified to be President simply because he fought in Vietnam (which according to Democrats, this is no longer the case) is cruising to re-election.

US SENATE - MASSACHUSETTS (Rasmussen)
John Kerry (D-inc) 63%
Jeff Beatty (R) 25%

Remember, this is the state the preferred GOP candidate Jim Ogonowski, failed to make the Republican primary ballot because he couldn’t get enough signatures. The Survey USA poll was done June 27-29 among 531 likely voters. The Rasmussen Reports poll was done June 30th among 500 likely voters.

What a waste of time polling these states….

There must be two states called Florida in this country because that is the only thing that explain why on the day after Scott Rasmussen releases a poll showing John McCain with a healthy 7% lead in the state of Florida that Public Policy Polling claims Barack Obama is ahead.

PRESIDENT - FLORIDA (PPP)
Barack Obama (D) 46%
John McCain(R) 44%

This poll was done June 26-29 among 723 likely voters. This poll does move the state of Florida into Obama’s column and puts John McCain back below 200 electoral votes in the THR Electoral College Watch. It remains to be seen whether tomorrow’s poll from Strategic Vision that is being reported by Political Wire moves this state right back into McCain’s column tomorrow.

For more polls from Florida, click here.

A new poll from Southern Media & Opinion Research gives John McCain a huge double-digit lead in the state of Louisiana while Democratic US Senator Mary Landrieu has seen her lead over Republican John Kennedy cut in half.

PRESIDENT - LOUISIANA
John McCain (R) 52%
Barack Obama (D) 36%

US SENATE - LOUISIANA
Mary Landrieu (D-inc) 46%
John Kennedy (R) 40%

This poll was done June 26-28 among 600 registered voters.

For more polls from Louisiana, click here.

Public Policy Polling is out with a new poll for the state of North Carolina that shows John McCain hanging on to a 4% lead while Elizabeth Dole is cruising to re-election.

PRESIDENT - NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
John McCain (R) 45%
Barack Obama (D) 41%

US SENATE - NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
Elizabeth Dole (R-inc) 51%
Kay Hagan (D) 37%

Now according to the backup numbers for the poll, Public Policy Polling used a partisan breakdown of 49% D / 36% R / 15% I. Like Arizona, North Carolina publishes the voter registreation statistics on the NC Secretary of State of website. As of June 28th, this was the demographics of North Carolina.

NORTH CAROLINA PARTY REGISTRATION

Republicans	1,931,764	33.2%
Democrats	2,631,329	45.3%
Other/3rd Party	1,244,796	21.4%

Using the above actual party breakdown for North Carolina along with the breakdown of the vote by party in the Public Policy Polling poll, you would actual get a slightly closer race than PPP is claiming.

POLL BREAKDOWN

DEMO	McCain	Obama	Barr	Undecided
GOP (33.2%)	83%	6%	4%	7%
DEM (45.3%)	20%	67%	4%	9%
OTH (21.4%)	31%	43%	12%	14%
Total	43.3%	41.6%	5.7%	9.4%

Based on this, Public Policy Polling is actually helping McCain somewhat with their partisan breakdown.

Now one other item of note. Looking back to the voter registration numbers in North Carolina on January 5th, Democrats and Unaffiliated voters have increased their share of the voting public by 0.5% each while Republicans have dropped 1% in their share of the North Carolina registered voting rolls.

There are a few congressional polls out. One I missed from a few days ago is for the 10th congressional district in North Carolina currently held by Republican Patrick McHenry done by Public Policy Polling.

US HOUSE - NORTH CAROLINA CD 10 (PPP)
Patrick McHenry (R-inc) 49%
Daniel Johnson (D) 38%

McHenry won re-election in 2006 by a 62%-38% margin and President Bush won this district in 2004 by a 67%-33% margin. This poll was done June 21-22 among 1,109 likely voters.

Meanwhile, the news is not as good for Republicans in the open 2nd congressional seat in Kentucky. A new poll from Survey USA for this seat shows the Democratic candidate leading the Republican candidate.

US HOUSE - KENTUCKY CD 2
David Boswell (D) 47%
Brett Guthrie (R) 44%

In 2004, Bush won this district with 65% of the vote, yet Survey USA claims the partisan breakdown in this district to be 54% D / 41% R / 4% I. This poll was done June 27-29 among 545 likely voters.