Looking Back at the Frontier

As NASA's Curiosity rover roams Mars' surface, pushing man's frontier into space, the Census Bureau looks back at the American Frontier with its graphic representation of the population growth from the late 18^th to late 19^th century.  In 1790, the population extended up and down the eastern seaboard - from southern Maine deep into South Carolina - but the frontier remained close to the Atlantic Ocean.  

By the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the frontier extended into the western portion of the U.S., and population centers on the East Coast expanded rapidly.  In the middle of the 19^thcentury, Americans pushed the limits of civilization well into the Midwest and established burgeoning cities throughout the region.  The frontier remained at borders drawn in the Louisiana Purchase, but the populace was well on its way to filling in the gaps from the East Coast to the Midwest.  When the gold rush caught the attention of millions of Americans, the frontier finally reached the West Coast, and people across the nation tried their luck in the gold-rich rivers of California. Moving onto the late 19^thcentury, the population’s reach extended throughout the entire continental U.S., and though gaps remained in the Midwest, the Superintendent of the Census declared the frontier to be nonexistent.

Negative Press Coverage Plagues Front-Runner Romney

According to the Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Mitt Romney is receiving more negative press coverage than at any other point in the GOP race.  Romney, who won the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, will compete against remaining GOP candidates in South Carolina's primary on Saturday.

According to Pew's analysis, this increase in negative coverage for Romney may reflect opponents' efforts to attack the current frontrunner through negative advertisements.  In particular, negative discourse regarding Romney revolved around his career at Bain Capital.  According to an article on the Politics and Government Blog of the New York Times, GOP candidate opponent Newt Gingrich described Romney's work at Bain as "rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company."

According to the same report, Ron Paul is currently receiving more positive coverage than any other candidate.  Almost half of the coverage of Ron Paul over the past week has been positive; according to the report, Paul has been described in many press accounts as "having little chance of winning the nomination." 

Of all GOP candidates, Rick Perry currently is criticized the most, with his negative coverage nearly double his positive coverage.  Coverage of President Obama from January 9, 2012 to January, 15, 2012 included fewer positive mentions than any of the GOP candidates.  Only 10% of coverage regarding Obama was positive.  These data come from an analysis of more than 11,000 news websites and mentions on Twitter.

Gingrich Surging in South Carolina

Nate Silver unequivocally answers a question he posed yesterday--does Newt Gingrich have momentum in South Carolina?--in his FiveThirtyEight blog post today: "Yes, Mr. Gingrich does have momentum — and a lot of it." He writes, "Six different South Carolina polls have been released so far today, and they show a split in their results." Three of them, automated polls by Rasmussen Reports, Public Policy Polling and InsiderAdvantage, "have Mr. Gingrich in the lead...by margins ranging from 2 points to 6 points."

The polls strongly indicate that Mr. Gingrich's performance at the Monday debate has contributed to his rise in the polls. Marist for NBC News, one of the more traditional polls conducted by live interviewers, "showed Mitt Romney leading by 10 percentage points." But when Marist "split its results," it appeared that the debate did indeed give Mr. Gingrich some momentum with South Carolina voters. Mr. Silver writes, "Mr. Romney’s lead was smaller — 5 points — in the post-debate sample." Further, the aforementioned automated polls that show Mr. Gingrich in the lead "were conducted on Wednesday, after the debate and the qualified endorsement Mr. Gingrich received from Sarah Palin."

The FiveThirtyEight forecast model suggests that Mr. Gingrich is, in fact, gaining significant momentum. According to Mr. Silver, "The model now shows a virtual tie in the race, with Mr. Gingrich projected to get 34 percent of the vote and Mr. Romney 33.6 percent and each candidate having about a 50 percent chance of winning."

Most of Mr. Gingrich's gain, however, does not appear to be connected to a drop in the polls for Mr. Romney. Mr. Silver notes, "Mr. Gingrich has gained ground in the polls more than Mr. Romney has lost it. Two days ago, our forecast had Mr. Gingrich with 22.6 percent of the vote, so he has gained about 11 points since then. Meanwhile, Mr. Romney’s projection has declined less than 3 points — to 33.6 percent from 36.1 percent — over the same interval."

So where is Mr. Gingrich getting his new projected votes? According to Mr. Silver, "Mr. Gingrich’s gains have come from Rick Santorum and Rick Perry (who dropped out of the race today and endorsed Mr. Gingrich), as well as from undecided voters." Mr. Silver does go on to acknowledge that automated polls, because they usually do not call cell phones and "also generally have lower response rates than traditional polls," may not be the best source.

For now, Mr. Silver anticipates that the Saturday primary could yield a number of different results. He writes: "Our research shows that high levels of volatility and disagreement in the polls make polling aggregation methods less reliable. In other words, the margin of error on the forecast is especially high, enough so that either Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich could emerge with a clear victory by the time that the vote takes place on Saturday."

Early Polls Show Romney's Lead in South Carolina Shrinking

Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog writes that the first South Carolina GOP primary poll contradicts his earlier prediction that Mitt Romney would increase "his modest lead in the South Carolina polls once his victory in New Hampshire was reflected in the surveys there." Instead, the poll, an automated survey from InsiderAdvantage, "shows Mr. Romney’s lead contracting in South Carolina," though Silver "urge[s] a lot of caution in interpreting it."

The poll "was conducted on Wednesday and shows Mr. Romney with 23 percent of the vote, just 2 points ahead of Newt Gingrich at 21 percent. The poll has Rick Santorum and Ron Paul tied for third place at 13 percent, with Jon M. Huntsman Jr. having moved ahead of Rick Perry for fifth place."

But Silver is not completely sold on InsiderAdvantage. He writes, "InsiderAdvantage has a mixed track record and rates fairly poorly in the FiveThrityEight pollster ratings, which is one reason to interpret these numbers with some care. In addition, Matt Towery, the head of InsiderAdvantage, formerly served as the head of Mr. Gingrich’s political organization from 1992 until Mr. Gingrich left Congress."

Silver does note, however, that "another polling firm that rates more highly, Public Policy Polling, said in a series of Twitter messages that it has also detected a tight race between Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich in South Carolina, with little evidence of favorable momentum for Mr. Romney following his New Hampshire victory."

Negative early news for Romney in South Carolina is partially offset by early polling in Florida, however. Silver writes: "Confusing matters further is that a poll of Florida, from Rasmussen Reports, did show some gains for Mr. Romney. The poll, conducted on Wednesday, showed Mr. Romney with 41 percent of the vote there, better than he has done in any prior survey of the state. The poll also showed Mr. Gingrich’s numbers on the decline." Silver predicts that "if the initial results from South Carolina and Florida are confirmed by other pollsters, they would suggest that Florida could play a backstop role for Mr. Romney, in somewhat the same way that New Hampshire did for him relative to Iowa."

However, at this stage Silver suggests that we wait before attaching much weight to the early poll results from either South Carolina or Florida.