With just 36 days until election day, ten new polls were made public from nine states. The picture looked largely the same with Obama stretching his leads across the majority of these polls in blue states. The lone holdout was North Carolina, which has remained in the Romney column albeit in a somewhat tenuous fashion. In other words, there was no Obama lead to strengthen, but Romney's hold on the Tarheel state continues to be rather small.
New State Polls (10/1/12)
|
State
|
Poll
|
Date
|
Margin of Error
|
Sample
|
Obama
|
Romney
|
Undecided
|
Poll Margin
|
FHQ Margin
|
|---|
Colorado
|
|
9/25-9/27
|
+/- 2.8%
|
1273 likely voters
|
49
|
46
|
4
|
+3
|
+2.77
|
Florida
|
|
9/29-9/30
|
+/- 3.4%
|
914 likely voters
|
49
|
48
|
3
|
+1
|
+1.25
|
Iowa
|
|
9/25-9/27
|
+/- 2.8%
|
1273 likely voters
|
48
|
44
|
7
|
+4
|
+3.04
|
Massachusetts
|
|
9/26-9/28
|
+/- 4.4%
|
504 likely voters
|
60
|
32
|
6
|
+28
|
+20.51
|
Michigan
|
|
9/25-9/27
|
+/- 3.1%
|
1064 likely voters
|
52
|
40
|
7
|
+12
|
+6.04
|
New Hampshire
|
|
9/27-9/30
|
+/- 4.0%
|
588 likely voters
|
54
|
39
|
4
|
+15
|
+5.00
|
New Mexico
|
|
9/25-9/27
|
+/- 2.85%
|
1258 likely voters
|
51
|
41
|
5
|
+11
|
+10.06
|
North Carolina
|
|
9/27-9/30
|
+/- 3.1%
|
981 likely voters
|
48
|
48
|
4
|
0
|
+0.87
|
North Carolina
|
|
9/28-9/30
|
+/- 4.0%
|
600 likely voters
|
46
|
50
|
3
|
+4
|
--
|
Ohio
|
|
9/27-9/30
|
+/- 3.3%
|
897 likely voters
|
49
|
45
|
7
|
+4
|
+3.83
|
Polling Quick Hits:
Colorado:
Rare are the Colorado polls that have a wide lead for either candidate and/or find the president below about the 48% mark post-convention. Prior to convention season that was also the case in terms of the former. The lead just hasn't changed that much. If anything it has ever so slightly contracted over that time. As for Obama's share of support, it has grown in the time since the convention, but again, only slightly; from the 46-47% range to 48% now. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has also seen some growth in the Centennial state overall as well. His share of support in post-convention polling has consistently hovered in the 44-47% area. That doesn't differ substantially from the pre-convention polling, but some of the lower 40s numbers that were there before September now appear to be gone as undecideds weigh in.
Florida:
| Changes (October 1)1 |
| State | Before | After |
|---|
| Indiana | Lean Romney | Strong Romney |
| Minnesota | Lean Obama | Strong Obama |
| Montana | Lean Romney | Strong Romney |
| Nevada | Toss Up Obama | Lean Obama |
| New Hampshire | Toss Up Obama | Lean Obama |
1 These changes and those to the map and Electoral College Spectrum below reflect not a poll-based change, but a change in the thresholds defining the three FHQ categories of states. To incorporate the fact that leads are harder to overcome for the trailing candidate in a given state the closer to election day the campaign gets, the cutpoints have been lowered. A toss up state is now a state with an FHQ weighed average below 4%, a lean state is one with and average of 4-9% and any state above the 9% barrier is a strong state for that candidate.
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There really isn't that much to say about yet another one point lead -- no matter in which direction it goes -- in Florida. The Sunshine state continues to tip toward the president, but by the smallest of margins. The one silver lining from the Romney perspective in Florida is that a one point lead -- even for the president -- is a good number heading into the debate later this week. That gap is smaller than most recent polls have indicated the race is in Florida. However, it does represent a modest positive shift toward the president in the time since the last Gravis survey there.
Iowa:
Though perhaps a shade smaller than some of the other polls of Iowa following the conventions, this We Ask America survey seems to nail the state of the race in the Hawkeye state. The raw average of the eight post-convention polls conducted in Iowa find a margin of 3.88 points (compared to a four point margin in the survey). Additionally, the FHQ weighted averages of the two candidates' shares of support are 47.6% (Obama) and 44.5% (Romney). That compares to the 48% share Obama held and the 44% of responses Governor Romney garnered. If Iowa has settled in post-convention and pre-debate, then Obama is ahead by about three to four points.
Massachusetts:
FHQ won't spend much time here. In our parlance of late, this WBUR survey is a confirming poll; confirming that the president's lead in the Bay state is safe.
Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, the latest We Ask America survey is the ninth post-convention poll. Of those nine, seven have found Obama north of the 50% threshold. The best Romney has been able to muster in any of those polls is 46% and that is/was four points above where the FHQ weighted average of the governor's support in Michigan is. The overall 6% Obama lead in the state may be a smidgen high, but that is a lot of ground for Romney to make up over the last month of the campaign. Yes, there are three face-to-face debates ahead, but rarely have they proven to be transformative enough to shift six points in the aggregate.
New Hampshire:
James Pindell of WMUR said of this Granite State Poll that "either it is wildly off or we will look back five weeks from now on Election Day and point to this date as the moment we knew Mitt Romney lost New Hampshire." Perhaps, but in the context of the extant polling in the Granite state, this one is an outlier. That does not mean that the wildly off description is apt however. The president has pushed above 50% in a handful of recent New Hampshire polls, but a 54% share is almost as inflated as Romney's 39% share understates where the governor has been in most New Hampshire polling. The FHQ weighted average smooths out some of that volatility and has the gap at about 5% in Obama's favor heading into the debates.
New Mexico:
Even with former Governor Gary Johnson included in the new We Ask America survey of New Mexico, the berth between Governor Romney and the president is still right at the double digit mark. New Mexico has swung back toward the Republicans since 2008, but that it has swung back to just +10 Obama is indicative of just how much ground Romney and the Republicans had to make up in the Land of Enchantment. To this point, New Mexico has been resilient and that does not look to be changing any time soon.
North Carolina:
For the most part, the post-convention polling in North Carolina -- while shifting some toward the president -- has continued to show Mitt Romney ahead in the state, albeit narrowly. Using the same principle in North Carolina as was (will be) used (in future analyses) with the WMUR poll of New Hampshire above, we can throw out the one Civitas/Survey USA poll that showed Romney ahead by ten points. FHQ does that to illustrate that Romney has consistently polled in the 44-50% range while Obama has been in a slightly tighter 44-49% area. Post-convention, then, the candidates are oscillating in the same territory, but with Romney maintaining a very small edge. If one looks at Obama peaking during the time following the conventions, even though he found several individual polling leads, he was unable to surpass Romney in the averages. If that's Obama's best, then North Carolina is likely to be on the wrong side of the partisan line in the electoral college count come election day.
Ohio:
The four point edge the president has in the latest Public Policy Polling survey of Ohio is narrower than a number of other polls recently conducted in the Buckeye state, but as was the case with the Iowa poll discussed above, this one is right on. The unadjusted, post-convention polling margin average in Ohio is about 4.6%, and the FHQ weighted average margin has now risen to 3.8%. The average margin and this poll are closer to one another than the weighted average share of support and the responses in the PPP survey. Compared to the averages, PPP is about two points above where FHQ has both candidates.
As the footnote to the "Changes" table above indicates, FHQ has lowered the thresholds dividing each of the three categories of states. This is not a big shift overall, but it does have some important implications. I'll move past the lean-to-strong shifts and focus on the two former Toss Up Obama states that moved into the Lean Obama category. FHQ has come back to the quartet of states on the Toss Up/Lean line time and again. What the averages look like in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Hampshire has a direct bearing on the race to 270 electoral votes. The extent to which Romney can force Obama to play in any of those states siphons off resources that the president could use in defending larger bargaining chips like Florida, Ohio and Virginia. On the other hand, if, as is the case on October 1, all four of those states are (and continue to be) tipped in the president's direction by something on or above 4 points, then the calculus changes, becoming a much heavier lift for Romney. If those four states are (hypothetically) off the board, then the governor has to run the table in the remaining toss up states. That isn't impossible, but it is fairly unprecedented in modern presidential elections.
The Electoral College Spectrum1
|
VT-3
(6)2
|
WA-12
(158)
|
NV-6
(257)
|
MO-10
(166)
|
ND-3
(55)
|
RI-4
(10)
|
NJ-14
(172)
|
OH-183
(275/281)
|
MT-3
(156)
|
KY-8
(52)
|
NY-29
(39)
|
CT-7
(179)
|
VA-13
(288/263)
|
IN-11
(153)
|
AL-9
(44)
|
HI-4
(43)
|
NM-5
(184)
|
IA-6
(294/250)
|
GA-16
(142)
|
KS-6
(35)
|
MA-11
(54)
|
MN-10
(194)
|
CO-9
(303/244)
|
SC-9
(126)
|
AR-6
(29)
|
MD-10
(64)
|
OR-7
(201)
|
FL-29
(332/235)
|
TX-38
(117)
|
AK-3
(23)
|
IL-20
(84)
|
PA-20
(221)
|
NC-15
(206)
|
LA-8
(79)
|
OK-7
(20)
|
CA-55
(139)
|
MI-16
(237)
|
SD-3
(191)
|
NE-5
(71)
|
ID-4
(13)
|
ME-4
(143)
|
WI-10
(247)
|
AZ-11
(188)
|
WV-5
(66)
|
WY-3
(9)
|
DE-3
(146)
|
NH-4
(251)
|
TN-11
(177)
|
MS-6
(61)
|
UT-6
(6)
|
|
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.
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Shifting focus to the Watch List, the cutpoint changes also alter the landscape of states on the verge of changing categories. Off go Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico and Wisconsin and on come Iowa, Ohio and Virginia. If this is the discussion we are going to have between now and election day -- those new additions threatening to jump in to the Lean Obama category -- then perhaps we should move on to talking about which party will control the Senate. However, if could also be that we are entering a point in the polling of this race -- pre-debate -- where Obama support has crested, post-convention, and we will begin to see some narrowing as a result. The Iowa and Ohio polls above, for example, might have been in line with where FHQ has the races in those respective states, but in both cases were smaller leads for the president than the bulk of recent polling conducted in each state.
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1 The Watch list shows those states in the FHQ Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories. The List is not a trend analysis. It indicates which states are straddling the line between categories and which states are most likely to shift given the introduction of new polling data. Nevada, for example, is close to being a Toss Up Obama state, but the trajectory of the polling there has been moving the state away from that toss up distinction.
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Please see:
