Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Electoral College Map (10/9/12)

Four weeks out from election day and in the middle of the second week of debate season, there were eleven new polls added to the FHQ dataset from ten states. We also added in a somewhat dated survey from another of those ten states, North Dakota. With few exceptions, this was another in the string of now several days of relatively good polling for Mitt Romney. Not only does the compression of toss up state averages continue, but several states are starting to move in a very noticeable way in the FHQ averages toward the former Massachusetts governor.

New State Polls (10/9/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Colorado
10/5-10/8
+/- 4.0%
600 likely voters
46
50
3
+4
+1.98
Connecticut
10/7
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
51
45
3
+6
+11.50
Massachusetts
10/5-10/7
+/- 4.4%
501 likely voters
52
36
10
+16
+20.78
Minnesota
10/5-10/8
+/- 3.2%
937 likely voters
53
43
4
+10
+9.35
Nevada
10/8
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
47
47
3
0
+4.32
New Hampshire
9/30-10/6
+/- 4.1%
545 likely voters
50
44
4
+6
+5.07
North Carolina
10/6-10/8
+/- 2.9%
1325 likely voters
41.2
49.9
8.8
+8.7
+1.31
North Dakota
9/24-9/27
+/- 4.0%
600 likely voters
39
51
10
+12
+14.91
North Dakota
10/3-10/5
+/- 4.0%
625 likely voters
40
54
5
+14
--
Ohio
10/5-10/8
+/- 4.0%
600 likely voters
47
48
4
+1
+3.60
Ohio
10/5-10/8
+/- 3.5%
722 likely voters
51
47
1
+4
--
Pennsylvania
10/1-10/5
+/- 4.2%
545 likely voters
43
40
12
+3
+6.85

Polling Quick Hits:
Colorado:
The latest ARG poll finds Obama down three points and Romney up three points as compared to the firm's mid-September survey of the Centennial state. That turned a two point Romney deficit into a four point advantage, post-debate. In terms of the candidates' respective shares of support in the poll, Romney's outperformed where the FHQ weighted average has his share charted currently and Obama, to a lesser extent, underperformed his. That has less to do with the current trajectory of the polling in Colorado than it does the conservative nature of the FHQ averages. If there is a change across the partisan line, then it is typically a lasting change unless it hovers around that line.

Connecticut:
It has been over a month since any survey found the margin in the race for the seven electoral votes in the Nutmeg state in the single digits, and this Rasmussen poll is the first to show the president's lead under seven points there. On the cautionary side, FHQ will await additional data indicating/confirming a (not illogically) close race in Connecticut. After all, there has been past data to back up that assertion and we should expect, given movement in other states, some shift toward Romney there. But we don't have enough data to suggest that Connecticut is anything more than what New Jersey was in 2004: a probably reliable blue state tempting the Republican campaign to pay more attention to it.

Massachusetts:
Even with the margin having nearly halved since the last WBUR survey of the Bay state just a week and a half ago, Massachusetts is seemingly safely blue for the Obama campaign. However, as was the case with Connecticut above, if the expectation is that the Romney debate effect will be more or less uniform across states, then things have really shifted in Massachusetts. Still, the move is worth noting even in a strongly blue state.

Minnesota:
Unlike the two strong blue states immediately above, Minnesota has resisted the post-debate swing toward Romney at least in regard to the poll-over-poll comparison between PPP surveys. Since the last (mid-September) poll, Obama gained a couple of points and Romney lost one. It is a minimal change overall, and the results are consistent with pre-debate surveys of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But this is also the only post-debate survey we have access to in Minnesota. Other firms may offer a different account of the state of the race there.

Nevada:
Things are all tied up in Nevada (...at least according to Rasmussen). That result is consistent with the only other post-debate survey of the Silver state from Gravis. And while those two polls, together, have not been enough to fundamentally shift things in Nevada, it is worth noting that had FHQ not lowered the cutpoints between categories last week, we would be talking about how Nevada had jumped into the Toss Up Obama category. Yet, if the current polling arc toward Romney continues, such a move probably won't be too far off. FHQ did want to take a moment to point out the fact that change may be masking some category movement toward the Republican nominee in some states. Nevada is the only state so far to fall into that group, but we will be sure to indicate when that happens in the future. Given the way things are moving, New Hampshire could potentially be the next such state.

New Hampshire:
In a poll that picked up on the day that the immediately previous WMUR poll came out of the field, the overall margin between the candidates dropped by nine points. That seems like a significant shift except for a couple of related reasons. First, the previous WMUR survey was -- at Obama +15 -- an outlier. The margin was overinflated and set up nicely for a big post-debate surge in the opposite direction. However (and secondly), more than half of the data for this poll was gathered prior to the first presidential debate last week. Given the reality of those two conflicting factors, the nine point shift is slightly more impressive.

North Carolina:
Well, the Tarheel state has provided us with a double digit margin in Romney's favor before and Gravis' first foray into the state approaches that level as well. Is this poll an outlier? Probably, but not nearly to the same extent as the early September Civitas poll reference above. Things are moving in Romney's direction in North Carolina as elsewhere, but that has meant a gradual subsidence of Obama leads and the emergence of more recent polls showing a Romney advantage in the 1-4 point range. In defense of Gravis, it very well could be that it is on the upper end of a new range, but we'll need more data to make that determination.

North Dakota:
Add one new and one dated poll to the small set of polls out of the Peace Garden state. The most recent  and only post-debate survey from Mason-Dixon does not show any decided shift toward Romney; only  a modest one point jump. Rest assured, though, despite little or not shift, North Dakota is not in any danger of being anything other than a solid Romney state on November 6.

Ohio:
The New Hampshire poll looks good on the surface for the president, but given the caveat described above, the CNN survey of the Buckeye state may be the lone bright spot for the incumbent. The poll may be a bit rosy but is not completely inconsistent with the scant though comparatively robust set of post-debate polling data. Obama's share of support in the CNN poll is in line with where Rasmussen charted it on the day after the debate last week. Romney's share is slightly under the Rasmussen mark, but both are running above where the FHQ weighted average level of support has the governor at the moment. We just need more data. The ARG poll largely mirrors the We Ask America poll from last week as well; a small Romney lead. This is likely the range in which the true levels of support for the candidates reside right now.

Pennsylvania:
FHQ was skeptical in the face of the Susquehanna poll released yesterday. The firm has tended to have though not always had results that were more favorable to Romney when compared to a long list of surveys indicating a margin in the Keystone state in the Obama +6-7 area. Without further data backing up a much closer race the skepticism was not unwarranted. But today's Siena release provides Susquehanna with some relief, pointing toward a race within a few points. Granted, Siena has a very high number of undecided voters for this late in the race and as a result understates both candidates' shares of support in the FHQ weighted averages. It will take a lot of data to move Pennsylvania into range of being on the Watch List, much less moving into the toss up category. [And yes, that may be a flaw in the formula here. But recall that FHQ likes being conservative. There's a trade-off between blowing in the wind of polling fluctuations or moving when a real consistent move has occurred.]


With no polling releases out of Florida today, the best chance to see some -- the first -- change to the overall electoral vote tally was dashed. Yet, the compression of the Ohio-Colorado group of toss up states continued. That compression, as we noted yesterday, is coupled with an overall movement toward Romney. The order of those states has to this point remained the same on the Electoral College Spectrum below. Meanwhile North Dakota jumped five spots over in the order toward the partisan line separating each candidate's list of states. And yeah, Massachusetts and Maryland switched places again.  That is less significant as a move than it is as an indication that the two are quite closely huddled together way out in safe Obama land in the far left column below.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
WA-12
(158)
NV-6
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(58)
HI-4
(10)
NJ-14
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
MT-3
(156)
KY-8
(52)
RI-4
(14)
CT-7
(179)
IA-6
(281/263)
IN-11
(153)
AL-9
(44)
NY-29
(43)
NM-5
(184)
VA-13
(294/257)
GA-16
(142)
KS-6
(35)
MD-10
(53)
MN-10
(194)
CO-9
(303/244)
SC-9
(126)
AR-6
(29)
MA-11
(64)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
NE-5
(117)
AK-3
(23)
IL-20
(84)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
ND-3
(112)
OK-7
(20)
CA-55
(139)
MI-16
(237)
SD-3
(191)
TX-38
(109)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
WI-10
(247)
MO-10
(188)
WV-5
(71)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
NH-4
(251)
TN-11
(178)
LA-8
(66)
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.

There were new polls in both Nevada and Ohio, but neither did enough to change either state's position on the Watch List or remove either altogether. Additionally, there were no new states with new polling data out today that threatened to jump onto the list. It was a status quo day. ...but only on the Watch List.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Indiana
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Minnesota
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
Montana
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Lean Obama
to Toss Up Obama
Ohio
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. Montana, for example, is close to being a Lean Romney state, but the trajectory of the polling there has been moving the state away from that lean distinction.

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