Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The Electoral College Map (8/14/12)

Well, FHQ wishes we could tell you that a group of new polls from a couple of Watch List states changed the presidential race in some way. But we can't. Sure, the weighted averages fluctuated some in both New Hampshire and Ohio, but both are still toss ups favoring Obama and none of the five new polls did anything to change that today.

[Actually FHQ is ambivalent toward the ups and downs of the polls. We just try to track the stuff and provide a little context. Changes do make for more varied writing though.]

New State Polls (8/14/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
New Hampshire
8/7-8/8
<+/- 3%
1591 likely voters
50
44
6
+6
+4.78
New Hampshire
8/1-8/12
+/- 4.2%
550 likely voters
49
46
4
+3
--
New Hampshire
8/9-8/12
+/- 3.0%
1055 likely voters
51
45
5
+6
--
Ohio
8/9-8/12
+/- 3.2%
 961 likely voters
48
45
6
+3
+3.75
Ohio
8/13
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
45
45
4
0
--

Polling Quick Hits:
New Hampshire:
A couple of +6 polls in the Granite state for Obama (both from PPP, but one privately done) kind of stacks the deck for the president there in terms of the averages. For the sake of transparency, if the private PPP survey was dropped the New Hampshire weighted average would dip to 4.3. But a poll with a publicly released data is a poll. The private poll is included in the averages as well. Together what the two PPP polls show is that the president has the advantage, but one that has fallen from +12 when the company last surveyed the state in May. Of course, that survey was a bit of an outlier in the context of other time-proximate polls. A +6 seems to be the upper end of the range for Obama in New Hampshire at the moment whereas the new Granite State Poll from UNH/WMUR is closer to the lower bound of the range at +3 for the president. The latter poll does have Romney at his high water mark in polling of the state overall.

Ohio:
After a couple of late July polls from We Ask America and Quinnipiac seemed to show a growth in the president's lead in the Buckeye state, the latest polls from PPP and Rasmussen there look to fit right in with where the polling in Ohio had been before that blip. In other words, Ohio, like New Hampshire, is competitive, but provides the president with a consistent cushion. Neither PPP nor Rasmussen saw much in the way of movement for either candidate in Ohio since they last polled voters in the state in June and July respectively. Obama's share dropped by a couple of points in the Rasmussen poll in August over July, but in the scope of all the Ohio polls that feels more like polling variation rather than anything like a significant decrease. However, time will tell the tale on that one.


Perhaps I should not have led this post off by saying that the introduction of these polls made no significant difference in the grand scheme of things. [Are people still reading?] But that is the truth. The steady state of the 2012 presidential race continues. New Hampshire and Ohio both remain toss ups favoring the president and maintain their positions on the Electoral College Spectrum. There is more daylight between New Hampshire and Ohio than there is between New Hampshire and Michigan, but that is little consolation here. New Hampshire may be flirting with moving into the Lean Obama category, but it may/will oscillate a great deal around that Toss Up/Lean line between now and November. And that may also prove true for Michigan and Ohio.

The bottom line is that Obama continues to hold a lead in the majority of competitive states and that is fueling his August lead in the electoral college outlook. The president simply has cushion now, but not a strong enough one to preclude any sort of Romney surge in polling or the averages over the next few months.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
RI-4
(7)2
NJ-14
(160)
NH-4
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
HI-4
(11)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
MT-3
(156)
ND-3
(49)
NY-29
(40)
MN-10
(182)
VA-13
(288/263)
GA-16
(153)
AL-9
(46)
VT-3
(43)
NM-5
(187)
CO-9
(297/250)
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)
MA-11
(119)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
LA-8
(112)
OK-7
(20)
IL-20
(139)
WI-10
(231)
MO-10
(191)
NE-5
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NV-6
(237)
TN-11
(181)
AR-6
(99)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
MI-16
(253)
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.

The margin in Ohio decreased just enough to push the Buckeye state off of the Watch List. It was just a few hundredths of a percentage point from moving off of the list anyway. Regardless, that is the only change below today. New Hampshire remains on.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Connecticut
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
Georgia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Michigan
from Lean Obama
to Toss Up Obama
Missouri
from Lean Romney
to Toss Up Romney
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
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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