Will Romney pay an electoral price for his “47 percent” gaffe?
Re: 47%: You’ll win most bets in the end by assuming media has overplayed the importance of a gaffe. It could matter, but want to see polls.
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) September 19, 2012
And yet, Romney feels like he’s playing a strategy where his pitch maxes out at 47%-49% of voters.
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) September 19, 2012
In other words: not sure that 47% will give Obama much immediate help in polls. But could lower Romney’s ceiling.
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) September 19, 2012
Wisconsin first place we’ve polled since Romney’s comments came out, pretty strong sense among voters there that they were inappropriate
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) September 19, 2012
Obama also looking better on the first night of our Wisconsin poll than he has on our last two surveys there
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) September 19, 2012
Is the wise course to underplay the impact?
Yesterday the White House race was dominated by Mitt Romney’s so called gaffe after his comments about the 47% of Americans who do not pay income tax and his heavy suggestion that these are Obama supporters beyond his reach.
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The question now, as the White House race moves into its final six weeks, is what the impact is going to be.
Will it underpin the small but significant gain that Obama got from the conventions or are the consequences being over-stated?
Above are some Tweets by my favourite US polling analyst, Nate Silver, in which he underplays, in my view correctly, their impact.
So far there’s been little polling reaction. This will take time to filter out. About the only thing we’ve got are a couple of Tweets above from Public Policy Polling about a survey overnight in the swing state of Wisconsin.
The firm, helpfully, provides a running commentary on Twitter while its surveys are being carried out and from what is being Tweeted there does seem to be negative response for Romney.
On Betfair, meanwhile, the flight from Romney continues. The last trade on him winning in November was at 3.3/1 or a 23.25% chance. Before his convention speech earlier in the month he was on 37%.