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	Public Policy Polling	8/23-8/26	+/- 3.4%	831 likely voters	49	46	2	+3	+4.35
New Jersey	Rutgers/Eagleton	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:

Frequently Asked Questions about FHQ graduated weighted average methodology.
&
An Update on how to read it in 2012.

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