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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Posted by Josh Putnam at 6:00 PM 0 comments
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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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Posted by Josh Putnam at 6:00 PM 4 comments
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The Electoral College Map (8/29/12)

What promises to be an eventful day (night) in Tampa with newly-nominated vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan speaking was much less promising on the state-level polling front. On a slow day, there were two new surveys out of Nevada and New Jersey.

New State Polls (8/29/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Nevada
8/23-8/26
+/- 3.4%
831 likely voters
49
46
2
+3
+4.35
New Jersey
8/23-8/25
+/- 3.5%
706 likely voters
51
37
5
+14
+13.09
1 The poll numbers used from the Public Policy Polling survey of Nevada include Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. The former New Mexico governor received the support of 2% of the respondents. Without Johnson, Obama (50%) leads Romney (47%) by 3% still. Using that data would not have changed the FHQ weighted average margin.

Polling Quick Hits:
Nevada:
Much will be made -- as was the case with Iowa yesterday -- that the spread in the Silver state has closed. But just as it was with Iowa, the drop in the Nevada margin is a decrease within one polling firm. That comparison is not without merit, but in the broader context, this poll is now aligned with the handful of polls (We really could use some more polls in tough to poll Nevada.) that have been conducted in July and August. Those five polls show a 2-6 point lead for the president, have a median of 4 percentage points and the overall average is just a fraction above that. This PPP survey is par for the course.

New Jersey:
The same can be said of the new Rutgers-Eagleton poll of New Jersey. There have been 13 polls of the Garden state this year and only once has Romney kept the margin under 10%. The average has settled in the 13 point range and this latest addition of data did little to shake up the preexisting average. New Jersey, despite having a Romney surrogate and convention keynoter for governor, is a blue state and likely to stay that way.


Given that none of the polling data introduced on Wednesday did anything to change the averages in any of the states, the overall impact was even more minimal. New Jersey barely budged and Nevada nudged down some. Due to the tight cluster of Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, the Silver state did jump both Wisconsin and New Hampshire on the Electoral College Spectrum, but that is more indicative of how tightly knit that group is than it is a significant overall shift in Nevada.

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)
MO-10
(191)
NE-5
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
TN-11
(181)
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, things there were equally as unchanged, which is to say not at all. The group of states most at risk of a change is the same as it was a day ago.

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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Posted by Josh Putnam at 5:00 PM 0 comments
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Electoral College Map (8/28/12)

On the first day of the Republican Convention with real business on the docket, there were four new polls released from three blue states.

New State Polls (8/28/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Connecticut
8/22-8/23
+/- 3.3%
881 likely voters
53
40
7
+13
+9.90
Connecticut
8/22-8/26
+/- 2.6%
1472 likely voters
52
45
2
+7
--
Iowa
8/23-8/26
+/- 2.8%
1244 likely voters
47
45
8
+2
+1.69
Ohio
8/27
+/- 3.0%
1397 registered voters
45.27
44.39
10.34
+0.88
+3.22

Polling Quick Hits:
Connecticut:
FHQ dealt with the Nutmeg state last week and the two polls from PPP and Quinnipiac neatly encapsulate the state of polling in the presidential horserace there. The margin in Connecticut in 2012 polling has tightened noticeably compared to the 2008 election results, but thus far that has only brought the state into the lean category in FHQ's weighted averages. Connecticut is safely blue, but like  most other states has shifted away from the president since 2008 and toward the Republicans (see Simon Jackman's fabulous capture of this dynamic). This is a fun one to talk about, but if Connecticut amounts to anything on election day -- as in flipping to Romney -- it is an icing on the cake sort of state for the former Massachusetts governor. He will have already won.

Iowa:
All the talk in the wake of this PPP survey was about how the margin had declined in the Hawkeye state. It has.

...in PPP surveys. Elsewhere, Iowa has already been quite tight. But this poll actually served to grow the FHQ average in Obama's favor. It was a minimal increase, but an increase nonetheless. Iowa is a toss up state (That's why Obama is there this week.) and there really is not more to say on the subject. The margin has narrowed based on the polls from one firm. Moving on...

Ohio:
Speaking of narrowing, Gravis Marketing has the gap in Ohio closing (...at least relative to some other recent polls of the Buckeye state). This is the first poll from Gravis in Ohio, and we don't have a previous poll at which to look. That said, the poll is in line with several surveys showing either a tie -- which this one isn't quite, mind you -- or a small Romney lead (four of the seven August polls).


Overall, none of these polls triggered any shifts in either the map (still 332-206 in the president's direction) or the Electoral College Spectrum. Ohio still mans the victory line spot where either candidate would cross the 270 electoral vote threshold and is still on the Obama side -- with some statistical cushion -- of several other swing states including Iowa. Florida is on its own in that group followed by the Iowa/Virginia/Colorado cluster. Ohio, then, occupies an somewhat isolated position of its own, closer to Romney than the four Toss Up Obama states between it and the Lean Obama states.

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)
MO-10
(191)
NE-5
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
TN-11
(181)
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 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.

With all the close Connecticut talk above, the Nutmeg state is still on the razor's edge between Strong and Lean status on the Obama side of the partisan line on the Electoral College Spectrum. That puts it on the Watch List, but as was mentioned above is only worth watching as a footnote to where all the real action is -- the toss up states. Connecticut aside, the List remains the same as it was a day ago.

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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Posted by Josh Putnam at 7:30 PM 0 comments
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