Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Electoral College Map (9/4/12)

The gavel has dropped in Charlotte on the Democratic National Convention, and on the day the convention got underway, a paltry three new polls were released in three swing states.

New State Polls (9/4/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Colorado
8/31-9/2
+/- 3.1%
1001 likely voters
46
44
4
+2
+2.82
Florida
9/2
+/- 2.7%
1288 likely voters
46.7
48
5.2
+1.3
+0.39
Michigan
8/31-9/2
+/- 3.4%
815 likely voters
51
44
5
+7
+4.37


Polling Quick Hits:
Colorado:
In the Centennial state, Obama maintained his earlier lead in the latest PPP survey. The poll was consistent with previous surveys in Colorado, but saw Romney gain ground relative to the early August trial heat that includes Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. That did very little to move the needle in a Colorado race that was already hovering around the two to three point range in the president's favor.

[Note: I will add a footnote on the numbers without Johnson when I am not tethered to my iPad here in Time Warner Cable Arena.]

Florida:
The new Gravis Marketing poll of the Sunshine state is yet more, though still scant, evidence that the Tampa convention was no polling boon for Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. The latest survey has Romney ahead in Florida but by a margin that is slightly smaller than it was previously and only ever so slightly closes the gap between the former Massachusetts governor and the president in the FHQ averages.

Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, PPP turned in something of an outlier compared to some other recent polls in the state that had shown the margin there shrinking. It is not so much the seven point gap that is out of the ordinary, but rather the fact that the survey shows the president over the 50% mark in Michigan. The Romney share on the poll, then, is in line with other Michigan polling data, but the president's share of support is overinflated in the context of other summer polling there.



Despite new data from three toss up states, neither the map nor the Electoral College Spectrum was altered in any way on Tuesday. All three states are competitive to different degrees, but the emerging pattern is that Florida is basically a tie, Colorado favors the president by a couple of points and Michigan is an even further electoral college reach for Mitt Romney (though the gap is drawing closer).

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(160)
MI-16
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
RI-4
(10)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
ND-3
(49)
HI-4
(14)
NM-5
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
MT-3
(140)
AL-9
(46)
NY-29
(43)
MN-10
(187)
VA-13
(297/254)
IN-11
(137)
KY-8
(37)
IL-20
(63)
CT-7
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(126)
KS-6
(29)
MD-10
(73)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(117)
AK-3
(23)
CA-55
(128)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(109)
OK-7
(20)
MA-11
(139)
NV-6
(227)
TN-11
(191)
AR-6
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
MO-10
(180)
WV-5
(98)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
WI-10
(241)
SD-3
(170)
TX-38
(93)
UT-6
(6)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 281 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics.

3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.


The Watch List? It too was unchanged on Tuesday even with polls in two states on the list.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Connecticut
from Lean Obama
to Strong Obama
Florida
from Toss Up Obama
to Toss Up Romney
Michigan
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Minnesota
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
Montana
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Wisconsin
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.



Please see:


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Monday, September 3, 2012

A Brief Note on 2016 Democratic Nomination Rules

Unlike Tampa, there is not much going on in Charlotte regarding the rules governing the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. The Rules and Bylaws Committee met in Charlotte on Saturday, completed their business and will make their report presentation to the convention tomorrow. But the bottom line is that the real work on 2016 will take place on the Democratic side next year and into 2014. The RBC report will likely involve the creation of a commission to examine the rules procedures, which will in turn make any recommendations for changes to the system to the Rules and Bylaws Committee. That will happen in 2013 and the RBC will act -- if any changes are to be made -- the following year.

I was fortunate enough to have run into RBC co-chair Jim Roosevelt in the Charlotte Convention Center yesterday while picking up my media credentials for the convention. He confirmed that the RBC report was done and would be presented on Tuesday at the convention. I also asked him for his thoughts on the rules changes the Republican Party seems to have made. He, too, had not seen the final language on the rules that was passed in Tampa (thus limiting either his or my ability to do anything other than speculate on what has been reported), but agreed with me that the proposed stiffer penalties represented a hopeful step toward calendar order in 2016.

FHQ will have more on this from the convention tomorrow when the RBC gives its report.


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The Electoral College Map (9/3/12)

FHQ has been playing catch up since Tampa, so let's update the electoral college map, shall we? We'll add in new data from Florida and North Carolina -- four new polls -- released last night and this morning in addition to some leftovers from late last week and before. In total, there are ten new -- to our dataset -- surveys from six states.

New State Polls (9/3/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Florida
8/31-9/2
+/- 2.5%
1548 likely voters
48
47
4
+1
+0.47
Illinois
7/16-7/22
+/- 4.7%
600 adults
51
31
14
+20
+23.11
Illinois
8/17-8/23
+/- 4.7%
600 adults
55
29
16
+26
--
Michigan
8/28
+/- 2.6%
1200 likely voters
49
46
5
+3
+4.18
North Carolina
8/25-8/30
+/- 3.0%
1089 likely voters
43
47
6
+4
+1.13
North Carolina
8/26-8/30
+/- 4.3%
543 registered voters
43
46
6
+3
--
North Carolina
8/31-9/2
+/- 3.1%
1012 likely voters
48
48
4
0
--
Virginia
7/31
+/- 4.0%
797 likely voters
44
40
16
+4
+2.68
West Virginia
4/25-4/28
+/- 4.8%
410 likely voters
37
54
10
+17
+14.98
West Virginia
8/22-8/25
+/- 4.9%
401 likely voters
38
52
10
+14
--

Polling Quick Hits:
Florida:
One poll does not a bounce make. The Public Policy Polling survey of the Sunshine state conducted in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention in Tampa showed no movement toward Mitt Romney as compared to the previous poll PPP had in the field there. Yet, FHQ would wager that the jury is still out on that. Does PPP show a bounce? No, but that does not mean that it will not show up somewhere else. Romney not winning Florida makes the electoral college math extremely difficult because if Obama is winning in Florida, then the president is likely winning in Iowa, Virginia, Colorado and Ohio as well. Those four states are all on the other side of the partisan line -- behind Florida -- for Romney.

Illinois:
I don't know how much stock to put in the two IPSOS polls of Illinois. On the one hand, they confirm what we already know: Obama will be victorious in the Land of Lincoln. However, these are polls not of registered or even likely voters, but of adults. Obama will win Illinois, but these two surveys may not give us the best idea of how much the president is ahead there.

Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, Romney improved his share of Michigan respondents in the latest EPIC/MRA survey while Obama maintained both his share and the overall lead in the state. Romney's growth relative to the last poll by the firm cuts into the president's lead there, but is consistent with the most recent polling in Michigan. The margin has shrunk, but still favors Obama. Michigan is one of those states that in 2012 would be what North Carolina was to Obama in 2008: the cherry on top of an already winning electoral college tally.

North Carolina:
The trio of polls in North Carolina collectively show a slight stretching of Romney's advantage in the Tar Heel state. Consequentially, Romney holds a three point edge among registered voters in the update to last week's High Point University poll. That margin would likely be wider among likely voters. Taken with the new Elon poll, then, those two fall in line with other recent polling in North Carolina better than the tie that PPP found in the state. That isn't to say it isn't close in North Carolina -- it is -- but Romney holds an advantage that is going to be difficult for Obama to overcome. The Old North state is in the exact same position it was four years ago. If Obama wins North Carolina, he is adding to an already healthy electoral college vote total. The difference in 2012 is that the trajectory of the polling in the state is not moving in the president's direction.

Virginia:
This Gravis Marketing poll is old. FHQ hinted at it back in early August, but we did not have the requisite information to include it in our averages at the time. After talking with the folks in the polling firm, however, we do now have that information. This is obviously a pre-Ryan poll and is -- at Obama +4 -- consistent with the other polls released around the same time. But there are a lot of undecideds in that poll. That isn't a criticism, but one wonders how those folks would break; particularly since some are likely leaners that were not included in the candidates' totals.

West Virginia:
About all you can say about this pair of polls is that we now have some polling data for West Virginia. That is a good thing. Up to this point -- with no polls -- FHQ was reliant on the previous three elections' results as a means of calibrating where West Virginia fit into the Electoral College Spectrum. And since  West Virginia was "competitive" in 2000 and 2004, the average was quite a bit closer than it is in reality in 2012. The two surveys from Repass confirmed that Romney is a step above Obama in the Mountain state.


Despite the influx of data, the map remains unchanged. The Spectrum,  on the other hand, witnessed a bit of a shake up if not self correction. West Virginia, as alluded to above, shifted deeper into the Romney half of the Electoral College Spectrum, jumping five states almost to the bottom of the second column over from the right. Illinois, too, saw a broadened margin upon the introduction of new data, but for the president. But those are both safe states for their respective candidates. In the states that are consequential to determining the winner of the electoral college, the new data only served to confirm the preexisting state of the race. Obama has a lead in Michigan, small lead in Virginia, a smaller one in Florida and trails Romney in North Carolina. Romney could push things to Virginia on the Spectrum and still come up short without Ohio or Ohio and Colorado if the order below were to hold in terms of vote margins on election day.


The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(160)
MI-16
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
RI-4
(10)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
ND-3
(49)
HI-4
(14)
NM-5
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
MT-3
(140)
AL-9
(46)
NY-29
(43)
MN-10
(187)
VA-13
(297/254)
IN-11
(137)
KY-8
(37)
IL-20
(63)
CT-7
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(126)
KS-6
(29)
MD-10
(73)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(117)
AK-3
(23)
CA-55
(128)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(109)
OK-7
(20)
MA-11
(139)
NV-6
(227)
TN-11
(191)
AR-6
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
MO-10
(180)
WV-5
(98)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
WI-10
(241)
SD-3
(170)
TX-38
(93)
UT-6
(6)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 281 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics.

3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

The Watch List, like the Spectrum, saw some alterations. Significantly, North Carolina slides off the list which is a small win for Romney. Again, North Carolina is close, but it is now not within a point of moving over toward Obama. Florida is still the closest state and while the Sunshine state is in Obama's column now, it is within range of moving over toward Romney (as it has in several other accountings of the state of the electoral college). Thankfully, West Virginia also moves off a list it never really had any business being on. The Mountain state was never at risk of being just a lean state for the former Massachusetts governor. It just wasn't.

Now if we could just get some polling in the field in Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, we would be good to go. Each is a little closer than might otherwise be the case if we had more roust -- or just more -- survey information.


The Watch List1
State
Switch
Connecticut
from Lean Obama
to Strong Obama
Florida
from Toss Up Obama
to Toss Up Romney
Michigan
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Minnesota
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
Montana
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Wisconsin
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Please see:



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Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Electoral College Map (8/30/12)

This week has not been the busiest week for state-level, trial heat polls in the presidential race. There just were not that many surveys in the field in the lead up to the Republican Convention (apparently) and it has shown. Through the first four days of the convention only ten polls have been released. In other words, the pre-convention data was pretty well settled heading into the week and we have our state-level baselines set in terms of looking for any bumps following the conclusion of the festivities in Tampa.

New State Polls (8/30/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Missouri
8/28-8/29
+/- 3.9%
621 likely voters
41
53
6
+12
+6.65

Polling Quick Hits:
Missouri:
The Todd Akin situation has fueled some volatility in the polling of the Show Me state over the last couple of weeks. However, the PPP survey released today is in line with the larger Romney advantage the firm showed in the immediate aftermath of the Republican senate candidate's comments. A ten point margin last week has given way to a 12 point lead this week, but those two are consistent with each other (and to some extent the wider gap Gravis Marketing found in the state), but differs from some other polls indicating a much closer race on the presidential level. The Akin variability will give way to the convention-charged volatility and the we'll al quickly move on. Missouri, as FHQ has mentioned on several occasions as it has flip-flopped to and from the Toss Up and Lean categories on the Romney side of the partisan line, is going to be, at best, just out of the Obama campaign's reach if not completely out of it.  Neither campaign is devoting much time to the state and that is probably our best indication of how much Missouri figures into the quest for 270 electoral votes.


For once, Missouri did not jump categories upon the introduction of new polling data. In fact, the wider margin in this PPP survey pushed the Show Me state deeper into the red beyond Tennessee (the quirkiest of red states in terms of the polling there. Nothing in the recent or not too distant past gives any indication that the Volunteer state is going to be anything but reliably and deeply red.). We do, then, see some change in the Electoral College Spectrum below, but with only one poll -- and one poll in a Lean Romney state -- that is the extent of the change today. The map above remains just as it was a day ago.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(160)
MI-16
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
RI-4
(10)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
ND-3
(49)
HI-4
(14)
NM-5
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
MT-3
(140)
AL-9
(46)
NY-29
(43)
MN-10
(187)
VA-13
(297/254)
WV-5
(137)
KY-8
(37)
MD-10
(53)
CT-7
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
IN-11
(132)
KS-6
(29)
CA-55
(108)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
SC-9
(121)
AK-3
(23)
IL-20
(128)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
LA-8
(112)
OK-7
(20)
MA-11
(139)
NV-6
(227)
TN-11
(191)
NE-5
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
MO-10
(180)
AR-6
(99)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
WI-10
(241)
SD-3
(170)
TX-38
(93)
UT-6
(6)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 281 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics.

3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

Shifting to the Watch List, it too repeats the same line up as yesterday: a collection of blue states that, other than Florida, are closer to changing to Lean Obama states than to Toss Up Romney states. That is an important group of states to keep tabs on in the weeks to come. This is particularly true if we begin to witness and sort of bump for Romney-Ryan on the state level. But with the Democratic Convention following so closely on the heels of the Republican get-together in Tampa, that may blunt the impact of the Republican Convention to some degree. Regardless, the expectation is that the Republican ticket will get something of a bump out of its gathering.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Connecticut
from Lean Obama
to Strong Obama
Florida
from Toss Up Obama
to Toss Up Romney
Michigan
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Minnesota
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
Montana
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
North Carolina
from Toss Up Romney
to Toss Up Obama
West Virginia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Wisconsin
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Please see:



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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

In Response to The Paulite Mess

Jonathan Bernstein had a nice piece up earlier today on the fracas -- if you really want to call it that -- at the Republican Convention on Tuesday. I agree with and am sympathetic to the argument that the Romney/RNC led convention may have committed an unforced error in drawing a line in the sand with  the Ron Paul delegates on the seating of the Maine delegation, the overall 2016 primary rules changes and/or nominating Paul at all. Yet, having followed this story closely all year and being here in Tampa and taking it all in yesterday, I could not help but think that the convention orchestrators would have been damned if they did allow Ron Paul to be nominated and his delegate votes to be tabulated in the roll call and damned if they didn't.

In a lose-lose situation, the majority faction with the power -- in this case, Romney and the RNC -- chose the most convenient loss: squashing the revolt and keeping an already condensed convention on pace to finish sometime before, well, today.

Now, some may ask why I consider that the choice set Romney and the RNC faced contained two losses. Indeed, as Bernstein asks, what's the harm in allowing Paul to be nominated? Well, the best and worst quality of the Ron Paul supporters -- and the designation depends on who in and out of the Republican Party you ask -- is their passion. That applies across the board. What doesn't is what each Paul delegate individually wanted out of the convention. There may have been some that may have been content with Rand Paul as a speaker at the convention. There may have been others who would have been satisfied by a rules compromise. Still others may have gone along quietly following a simple nomination of Ron Paul. But there are some who would not be content unless Ron Paul was installed as the Republican Party standard bearer.

Yes, the roll call would ultimately have put that to rest.

...eventually.

And that's kind of the point. Faced with the unknown of just how many Paul delegates fell into that all or nothing category, the RNC and Romney did what majority factions do in convention settings: they employ their superior numbers and stomp out dissent. To open the door to them in further compromises or allowing the issuance of minority reports or whatever parliamentary procedure the savvy Paul delegates had up their sleeves would have meant delay, irritation and perhaps much greater than necessary tumult at the convention.

Anjeanette Damon's piece on the Paul folks within the Nevada delegation is instructive. The Paul folks used the rules to their advantage until the avenues the rules provided were gone. And then they broke the rules.

Look, this is a counterfactual. We don't know what would have transpired had the convention allowed Paul to be nominated. But we do have plenty of evidence of how far the Paul folks were willing to go -- within the rules -- at state conventions.

...and the RNC and Romney wanted nothing to do with that possibility whatsoever.

So the party -- rightly or wrongly -- ripped the band-aid off quickly and moved on with the evening. After the recess, everyone was ready to move on to "We built this", and here in the building there were only sporadic pro-Paul-themed comments thereafter. It was a fun afternoon of drama, but it was convention business as usual in the evening.



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