Sunday, July 29, 2012

The Electoral College Map (7/29/12)

Here's another Friday leftover out of Missouri and a couple of Pennsylvania polls from Susquehanna.

New State Polls (7/29/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Missouri
7/23-7/25
+/- 4%
625 likely voters
42
51
5
+9
+6.49
Pennsylvania
3/24-3/28
+/- ??%
700 likely voters
45
45
--
0
+6.12
Pennsylvania
7/19-7/23
+/- 3.46%
800 likely voters
46
43
--
+3
--

Polling Quick Hits:
Missouri:
Maybe St. Louis wasn't really a feasible alternative to Charlotte as a site for the Democratic convention (if the goal was to win the state in which a convention is held). More than anything, Missouri looks less like the reliable bellwether it was throughout the 20th century and more like a comfortable Republican state. Granted, there just has not been that much polling conducted in the Show-Me state, but Missouri has not really "felt" as close as the polls before this past week had indicated. By FHQ's measure, Missouri was straddling the line between a Toss Up Romney state and a Lean Romney state.

Was is the operative word. After a couple of +9 Romney polls this past week (Mason-Dixon and We Ask America), the weighted average for Missouri has pushed Romney's advantage over the president in the state into the heart of the Lean category. Interestingly, the percentage margin in Missouri in November 2008 was nearly 7 points behind the overall popular vote margin. McCain won the state by just .13% while Obama won the national popular vote by a little more than 7 points. I don't want to read too much into this based on polls in or before July, but now in 2012 Missouri is a tad under 7 points in Romney's direction while Obama is widely seen as having a slight advantage nationally. Again, that makes for an nice footnote, but little else at this point.

A question I like more is why Missouri and Indiana have jumped more quickly to the right in surveys thus far in 2012 and North Carolina has not. Those three states were the closest states overall in 2008. Why, then, has the pendulum swung in Missouri and Indiana and not North Carolina? North Carolina has not exactly been underpolled, yet consistently never gives either candidate much more than a 1-3% edge.

Pennsylvania:
FHQ will pass on expounding too much on the state of the race in Pennsylvania. On numbers alone, Pennsylvania is to Obama what Missouri is to Romney. [Yes, that is an overly simplistic view.] Instead, let's focus on the addition of a couple of Susquehanna polls -- one of which is from March and has been missed by a number of other survey aggregators out there. First of all, Susquehanna is a Republican polling firm, and early on seemed to have a bit of a rightward house effect. Romney led a February poll of Pennsylvania and was tied with the president there in a late March survey (see above). One would expect that to serve as something of a drag on the weighted average -- and it does -- but that impact is muted. Recall, that the weighted average discounts older polls. And those February and March polls are pretty heavily discounted at this point. Still, the addition of the two polls did pull the average down some, but not nearly enough to bring it into Toss Up range.

I should also note that Susquehanna also polled Pennsylvania in June and found Obama ahead 48-43. However, that poll is not included either above or in the averages yet because the dates the survey was in the field are unknown. As such, FHQ cannot accurately weight the poll for inclusion in our weighted average. Of all the Susquehanna polls, that June poll is the most consistent with other surveys of Keystone state voters.



This is quickly turning into a something of a daily refrain, but none of the above polls did anything to change the above electoral college map. Both Missouri and Pennsylvania are well within the Lean range -- just on opposite ends of the spectrum. The trend in Missouri is moving more toward Romney, though, while Pennsylvania has held a steady line of late between the two candidates. And that is reflected in the Electoral College Spectrum below. Pennsylvania holds its line in the latest update. On the other hand, Missouri jumps both Arizona and Tennessee, deeper into the Romney list of states. [Side note: Tennessee, for a state that isn't as close as the polls have indicated, needs some new polling. It is not a Lean state.]

The Electoral College Spectrum1
RI-4
(7)2
CT-7
(153)
NH-4
(257)
IN-11
(159)
MS-6
(55)
HI-4
(11)
NJ-14
(167)
OH-183
(275/281)
MT-3
(148)
ND-3
(49)
NY-29
(40)
MN-10
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
GA-16
(145)
AL-9
(46)
VT-3
(43)
WA-12
(189)
VA-13
(297/254)
WV-5
(129)
KY-8
(37)
MD-10
(53)
NM-5
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(124)
KS-6
(29)
CA-55
(108)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(115)
AK-3
(23)
MA-11
(119)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(107)
OK-7
(20)
IL-20
(139)
WI-10
(231)
AZ-11
(191)
AR-6
(102)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NV-6
(237)
TN-11
(180)
TX-38
(96)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
MI-16
(253)
MO-10
(169)
SD-3
(58)
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 272 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.

Arbitrary though the lines of demarcation between state are, the current Toss Up, Lean and Strong configuration has done a better job of sorting red states than blue states. That is reflected in a much bluer Watch List below. Of course, the Watch List is to some extent a hostage of where polling is being conducted. There is more volatility/more polling in a group of bluish Toss Up and Lean states than anywhere else. The only red state of consequence now is North Carolina. Neither Georgia nor West Virginia are states that are going to shift toward Obama much less cast their electoral votes for the president.

That said, the list just lost another red state, Missouri. The Show-Me state, as was mentioned above, has shifted more toward Romney and more firmly into the Lean category.

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

Please see:



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