The Electoral College Map (9/16/12)

Sunday was slow on the polling front, but then again, that is typical for most Sundays. The one poll that did come down the pike was a Public Policy Polling survey out of Virginia. As polling releases go, you could do worse than a poll from the Old Dominion, but it did not -- whether using the two party version or the one that included third party nominees -- in any structural way change the thinking about the state of the race in the commonwealth.

New State Polls (9/16/12)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Obama	Romney	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Virginia1	Public Policy Polling	9/13-9/16	+/- 3.1%	1021 likely voters	49	45	3	+4	+2.39
1 The poll numbers used from the Public Policy Polling survey of Virginia include Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, Green Party nominee, Jill Stein, and Constitution Party nominee (and former Virginia congressman), Virgil Goode. All three third party candidates collectively received the support of 4% of the respondents. The data from that version of the question are included in FHQ's database because all three candidates are on the Virginia ballot. Obama led the two candidate race 51% to 46% over Romney. That would have raised each candidate's FHQ weighted average and would have pushed the FHQ weighted average margin in the commonwealth to 2.44 points in the president's favor.

Polling Quick Hits:
Virginia:
Looking back on the polling that has been conducted in Virginia in 2012, the striking thing is how consistent it has been. Sure, there has been the occasional poll showing a tie or with Romney in the lead, but the bulk of results have consistently indicated a race that favors the president by a margin anywhere from one to four points. That is certainly the case with this latest poll (if the third party inclusive version is included). That ushers to the fore a couple of thoughts:

1) Romney is running out of time to make up ground in Virginia and elsewhere where the pattern of polling consistency is similar. A day that passes without the FHQ weighted average margin in Virginia shifting in the direction of Mitt Romney is a day lost for the former Massachusetts governor. In other words, there has to be a break in the consistency of the polling both nationally and on the state level.

2) The obvious comeback to that thought is that while Romney is trailing, Obama did not appear to get any bump out of convention season in Virginia as was the case nationally or in a number of other states.  Part of that is a function of how many post-convention polls were conducted nationally in several other toss up states. We have a more robust picture in that polling than we do in Virginia. The other piece of the puzzle again comes back to the notion of polling consistency. Bounce or not and all things being equal, a candidate would rather be ahead by 1-4 points than not if polling consistency is the word. What has disappeared from the equation are the polling leads of more than five points for the president. As registered voter samples have been supplanted by likely voter samples, those sorts of leads have been fewer and farther between if not nonexistent in the polling done in August and after.

It seems like a no brainer to conclude given the latest Virginia poll confirming what we already knew/thought about the race there, that the new data did not structural change the outlook in the Old Dominion from the vantage point of the FHQ weighted averages. That is indeed the case. Both the map and the Electoral College Spectrum remain unchanged from Saturday. Virginia, like every toss up state but North Carolina, tips toward the president as of now. The consistency of the map and the overall ordering of the toss up states has been marked.

FHQ does not want to over-visit the consistency well, but we will continue to make the point until there is a break -- decided or not -- in the pattern. Certainly Florida is the first line of defense for Obama. Those 29 electoral votes are huge in the calculus of 270. Remove that piece from the equation and it becomes harder to swing other states where Obama's leads have proven to be greater and even more resilient than in Florida. While Florida is huge, it is somewhat superfluous to the president. Ohio is not. All the states on the left of the Spectrum through Ohio is all the president really needs. That is cutting it as fine as it gets, but that would get Obama over 270. Needless to say, the president's campaign keeping both Florida and Ohio blue makes the Romney camp's task of getting to the 270 electoral vote threshold herculean. Romney would have to win some states that have to this point been even deeper in the Obama column.

But that "to this point" clause in that last sentence is important. The election is not held today and there is some time for the Romney camp to put a dent in the Obama leads across the overwhelming majority of toss up states.

...but that time is running out and he is fighting not only time but a pattern of polling consistency that has taken root over the summer and through convention season.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
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)	AL-9 (46)
HI-4 (43)	CT-7 (184)	VA-13 (297/254)	IN-11 (137)	KY-8 (37)
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)	WI-10 (235)	SD-3 (180)	AR-6 (66)	WY-3 (9)
ME-4 (146)	MI-16 (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.

As we head into a new week, the list of states where polling may trigger a change in categories continues to be stuck in a holding pattern. FHQ will fall back on the familiar "Florida and the four states on the Lean/Toss Up Obama line" mantra. If we are looking for a state-level manifestation of a break in the aforementioned pattern, those are the states to watch.

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 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.

Please see:

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

Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (9/15/12)

The Electoral College Map (9/14/12)

The Electoral College Map (9/13/12)

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