New State Polls (9/17/12)
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State
|
Poll
|
Date
|
Margin of Error
|
Sample
|
Obama
|
Romney
|
Undecided
|
Poll Margin
|
FHQ Margin
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kentucky
|
9/11-9/13
|
+/- 4.1%
|
606 likely voters
|
39
|
53
|
5
|
+14
|
+16.50
| |
Wisconsin
|
9/12-9/13
|
+/- 3.2%
|
959 likely voters
|
49
|
48
|
3
|
+1
|
+4.52
| |
Polling Quick Hits:
Kentucky:
Being that this is the first poll conducted and released out of Kentucky in 2012, there really is not a good baseline for comparison. The stand-in average for Kentucky had consisted of the election day voting results from each of the last three presidential elections. And this poll did a reasonable job of approximating that average. Romney leads by 14 points and Republican candidates have won the state by slightly greater margins in the 2000-2008 elections. The temptation -- because the arithmetic works out that way -- is to say that any remaining undecideds will break toward Romney in this instance. Maybe, maybe not. But if so, that would certainly bring the ultimate results in line with where they have been on election day during the last three elections. Regardless of how much Romney's total compares to past Republican performance, Kentucky is a red state and a safe one at that.
Wisconsin:
Now, regular readers will remember that in the inaugural electoral college post for 2012, FHQ mentioned that at some point following the conventions we would decrease the weight placed on all the older polls but the most recent one. The reasoning is that, as I said then, we want the averages to adapt to changing information, but not to be too reactive to it. The balance that we struck in 2008 was to cut in half the weight placed all but the most recent poll. Additionally, this is motivated by the fact that there just aren't in the middle of July that many polls anyway which in turn means more -- likely unnecessary -- volatility in averages (if a pretty steep discount is not added to older polls).
I mention this for a couple of reasons in the context of Wisconsin. First of all, FHQ has been second-guessing the timing of that statistical switch because I still don't feel like we have enough polls in most states to warrant it. Secondly, however, if there was ever a state where that change might be needed it would be Wisconsin. Granting too much significance to the older polls in the Badger state may be masking some of the changes that have taken place there since Paul Ryan was tapped as Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee. Again, the switch is to reduce by half the overall significance of all but the most recent poll in a state. Just for fun I crunched the numbers to see what the change would look like in Wisconsin. Decreasing the emphasis on the older polls in the averages and placing full value on the most recent poll there -- the PPP survey above -- only dropped the FHQ weighted average by two tenths of a percentage point. That's hardly over-reactionary, post-switch. The gap has closed some in Wisconsin, but not enough to keep it from tipping into the Obama column as of now.
We will roll out that change in weighting at some point in the near future -- definitely before the debates, but I want to make sure that there is enough space between that change and the changing of the parameters around each category.1 Those two changes cannot be rolled out simultaneously. Well, they could, but I would like to do each separately so that I can explain the impact each has had.
Not surprisingly, the map was unaltered by the addition of these two polls. Neither did very much to change the preexisting outlook in either Kentucky or Wisconsin. The data certainly did not shift either state to the other candidate. On the Electoral College Spectrum, though, Wisconsin flipped spots with Michigan. The result is that Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada are all within three one-hundreths of a point of each other in the averages, but with a fair amount of space between that trio (plus New Hampshire) and the next state on the spectrum, Ohio.
Kentucky budged even less, or in a less consequential way, perhaps. The Bluegrass state switched spots with Alabama and neither is anything other than a very safe Romney state.
The Electoral College Spectrum1
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VT-3
(6)2
|
WA-12
(158)
|
NV-6
(257)
|
MO-10
(166)
|
MS-6
(55)
|
RI-4
(10)
|
NJ-14
(172)
|
OH-183
(275/281)
|
GA-16
(156)
|
ND-3
(49)
|
NY-29
(39)
|
NM-5
(177)
|
CO-9
(284/263)
|
MT-3
(140)
|
KY-8
(46)
|
HI-4
(43)
|
CT-7
(184)
|
VA-13
(297/254)
|
IN-11
(137)
|
AL-9
(38)
|
MD-10
(53)
|
MN-10
(194)
|
IA-6
(303/241)
|
SC-9
(126)
|
KS-6
(29)
|
CA-55
(108)
|
OR-7
(201)
|
FL-29
(332/235)
|
LA-8
(117)
|
AK-3
(23)
|
IL-20
(128)
|
PA-20
(221)
|
NC-15
(206)
|
NE-5
(109)
|
OK-7
(20)
|
MA-11
(139)
|
NH-4
(225)
|
TN-11
(191)
|
TX-38
(104)
|
ID-4
(13)
|
DE-3
(142)
|
MI-16
(241)
|
SD-3
(180)
|
AR-6
(66)
|
WY-3
(9)
|
ME-4
(146)
|
WI-10
(251)
|
AZ-11
(177)
|
WV-5
(60)
|
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. | ||||
Wisconsin moved slightly away from the Lean/Toss Up Obama line but remains on the Watch List below. It is still all about watching for when/if Florida jumps to Romney's side of the ledger and when/if the margins in the four toss up states huddled on the Lean/Toss Up Obama line. Collectively, those five are the ones to watch when expecting new polling releases.
The Watch List1
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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 Lean Obama
|
to Strong Obama
| |
Nevada
|
from Toss Up Obama
|
to Lean Obama
| |
New Hampshire
|
from Toss Up Obama
|
to Lean Obama
| |
New Mexico
|
from Strong Obama
|
to Lean Obama
| |
Wisconsin
|
from Toss Up Obama
|
to Lean Obama
| |
1 The Watch list shows those states in the FHQ Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories. The List is not a trend analysis. It indicates which states are straddling the line between categories and which states are most likely to shift given the introduction of new polling data. Michigan, for example, is close to being a Lean Obama state, but the trajectory of the polling there has been moving the state away from that lean distinction.
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--
1 To reflect the increased difficulty of a trailing candidate closing the margin in any given state, FHQ in 2008 lowered the upper and lower bounds on the categories. A strong state will change from being any average greater than 10 to any margin greater than nine. Lean states will be defined as states with averages between 4-9 instead of 5-10. That means that a toss up state is any state with a margin less than 4 points. Deeper into October those categories will be redefined (lower) again. The rationale is that it is harder to make up five points in October than it is to make up three or four points. Candidates at that point are running out of time to move the needle that much on the state level (much less nationally).
Please see:
3 comments:
FYI the 53 and 39 in the Kentucky row were placed in the wrong columns.
Fixed. Thanks.
Uh Josh, where are the updates? Your data is starting to get a little stale?
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