Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Electoral College Map (8/1/12)

It is fair to say that we were greeted with some interesting state-level presidential polls this morning. The trio of new Quinnipiac polls --in conjunction with the New York Times and CBS -- were eye-opening for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the extent to which each demonstrated healthy leads for President Obama. Some made the point that the underlying samples in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania were overly Democratic. And that is especially noteworthy for a confluence of reasons. First, these three polls were the first in which Quinnipiac had shifted to a likely voter sample. Second, the growing sentiment among the pundit class was that this would more than likely mean -- in the aggregate -- a shift of some sort toward Governor Romney. The Quinnipiac polls at the very least violated that assumption.

Look, this is all about context. Sure, we can overanalyze a single snapshot survey or three, but it is proper to place each in its own state's pool of polls. At first glance each seems like an outlier, but are they? Let's look at them alphabetically.

Florida:
A +6 for Obama in the Sunshine state seems like a margin at the extreme end of the spectrum. And it is. But it is in line with a couple of other polls conducted in July (Priorities USA +4 and Survey USA +5). Of the eight July Florida polls, three showed Obama with a lead of more than four points. Three others show a one point Obama edge, and the remaining two had Romney up one and three. Are Florida polls with Obama up more than four points outliers? I don't know that they are outliers at this juncture so much as they represent one end of the overall polling volatility/variability. That is a range that starts very near a tie one way or the other and ends with Obama ahead by around four points or so. Statistically speaking, FHQ's weighted average has Florida pegged at about Obama +1.5.

Ohio:
The same thing that was said for Florida above can be extended to Ohio as well, albeit with a smaller range of variability tilted slightly more toward Obama. What FHQ means is that while there seems to a 0-4 point margin toward Obama in most polls of Florida, the surveys in Ohio show about a 3-6 point range of margins. And this poll fits right in with that set of polls -- those five conducted in July.

Pennsylvania:
Is Obama ahead in Pennsylvania? Yes. Are the campaigns less engaged there than they have been recently? Yes. Does Obama lead Pennsylvania by 11 points? No. This one is an outlier (even if the sample more accurately reflected the underlying partisan dynamic in the Keystone state). Now, we may see the lead for the president stretch out some in the coming weeks, but this poll is the only piece of evidence to that effect at this point and that lead is less likely to jump into double digits. The last survey that had Obama up double digits there was a Franklin and Marshall poll at the end of May. And that poll was every bit as much of an outlier then.

New State Polls (8/1/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Arizona
7/23-7/25
+/- 3.4%
833 likely voters
41
52
7
+11
+6.84
Florida
7/24-7/30
+/- 3%
1177 likely voters
51
45
4
+6
+1.48
Michigan
7/24-7/31
+/- 4%
600 likely voters
48
42
10
+6
+5.27
Ohio
7/24-7/30
+/- 3%
1193 likely voters
50
44
4
+6
+4.08
Pennsylvania
7/24-7/30
+/- 3%
1168 likely voters
53
42
4
+11
+6.50

Other Polling Quick Hits:
Arizona:
The Grand Canyon state is doing its best Missouri impression over the last couple of polls. The trend in Arizona has moved -- like Missouri -- from straddling the line between toss up and lean status into the core of the lean category (as FHQ measures it). The latest PPP survey mirrors the last poll in the state, a Rasmussen poll with Romney up by 13. Even with the bump for being the the home state of the Republican nominee in 2008 having evaporated, Obama has not been able to keep the state any closer or in a more competitive area as the campaign had projected in 2011 and into this year. Arizona is right in line now with where it ended the 2008 cycle on election day in the FHQ weighted average. In other words, firmly within the Republican column.

Michigan:
The new survey from EPIC/MRA reflects the weighted average more closely than any of the other polls released today. It is also in line with most of the most recent polls in the Great Lakes state. It does represent a reversal from the last EPIC poll where Romney led Obama by one in early June.


All told, none of these polls had any fundamental impact on the weighted averages. The map remains unaltered and the Electoral College Spectrum only saw Arizona leapfrog Tennessee and Missouri deeper into the red.

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)
TN-11
(191)
AR-6
(102)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NV-6
(237)
MO-10
(180)
TX-38
(96)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
MI-16
(253)
AZ-11
(170)
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.

The averages were not unchanged in any of the five states, but the changes pushed only Ohio onto the Watch List. The Buckeye state is now within a fraction of a point of shifting into the lean category. And that is probably about right.

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
Ohio
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean 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.



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