Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Electoral College Map (9/18/12)

The bevy of state-level presidential trial heat polls released on Tuesday held some good news for both major party candidates. While Mitt Romney turned in a couple of modest and rare leads in Colorado and Florida, the president stretched pre-existing leads across a handful of toss up and lean states.

New State Polls (9/18/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Colorado
9/17
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
45
47
6
+2
+2.47
Florida
9/15-9/16
+/- 2.5%
1728 likely voters
47.1
47.7
--
+0.6
+0.60
Massachusetts
9/6-9/13
+/- 4.6%
444 likely voters
60
38
3
+22
+19.05
Massachusetts
9/13-9/16
+/- 3.3%
876 likely voters
57
39
4
+18
--
Massachusetts
9/13-9/16
+/- 4.0%
600 likely voters
61
34
4
+27
--
Michigan
9/12-9/13
+/- 4.0%
600 likely voters
47.5
42.3
8.0
+5.2
+4.59
New Hampshire
9/15-9/17
+/- ?.?%
463 likely voters
48
47
--
+1
+4.38
Oregon
9/10-9/13
+/- 4.3%
552 likely voters
50
41
5
+9
+7.96
Pennsylvania
9/10-9/16
+/- 4.0%
640 likely voters
50
41
4
+9
+7.17
Virginia
9/12-9/16
+/- 4.0%
847 likely voters
52
44
4
+8
+2.90

Polling Quick Hits:
Colorado:
Again, rare are the snapshot polling advantages Romney holds in Colorado. The bulk of the polling in the Centennial state -- recent or otherwise -- has shown the Republican nominee stuck in a range between tied with and behind the president by three or four points. The last lead Romney held was in a Q-poll from late July/early August (and that one stood out from the other Quinnipiac surveys released simultaneously). Rasmussen polls have tended to lean a point or two to the right and correcting for that house effect would put this poll -- Romney +2 -- right on par with other recent polls in Colorado.

Florida:
The Romney advantages in polls have only been slightly more frequent further east in Florida where the polling has been tighter between the Republican nominee and the Democratic incumbent. FHQ won't dwell on this one for too long other than to say 1) that Florida is as close to tied as any state on the board and 2) that the Gravis poll margin equals the spread in the FHQ weighted average of the Sunshine state -- but in the opposite direction.

Massachusetts:
Are we still talking about Massachusetts? Yes, I suppose we are. As long as the Senate race remains close -- close enough to warrant further polling -- we will continue to get presidential level numbers. As always, more data beats no data. ...even if it is only confirming what we already know.

Michigan:
There have been a couple of inter- or post-convention polls that have indicated a wider Obama lead in the Great Lakes state, but the Marketing Resource Group poll is not one of them. If anything, the poll upholds the current state of the race: somewhere in the area between a toss up state and a lean state for Obama and waiting for evidence to the contrary.

New Hampshire:
While there is some evidence of widening leads for the president in some states, there also the additional snapshots showing the opposite. Obviously, Colorado and Florida fit that bill above, but New Hampshire does as well. Of course, Romney held leads in the most recent polls in those two states. He trails the president in New Hampshire, but by a smaller margin. Most of the August and onward polling in the Granite state has been in the 3-6 point range in favor of the president. Whether this is a blip from ARG or the beginning of a new pattern in New Hampshire remains to be seen, but it does differ from much of what we have seen out of New Hampshire.

Oregon:
The Beaver state, like Wisconsin, is one of those states that was close in 2000 and 2004, but broke open -- and toward Obama -- in 2008. While the margin in Wisconsin has tighten some following the rollout of Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential nominee, Oregon, through the comparatively smaller number of surveys to have been conducted there, has not. The pendulum has swung back some toward the Republicans, but the gap has consistently been in the mid- to upper single digits for Obama. That is still the case in the latest Survey USA poll.

Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania has been polled more frequently than Oregon, and while there has been some fluctuation in that series of surveys, the overall averages are largely similar. Both states are firmly lodged in the heart of the Lean Obama category. There are polls that come along showing the Keystone state within five or fewer points, but the preponderance of the data throughout the summer -- including this Muhlenberg poll -- suggests that the margin in Pennsylvania is somewhere north of six points; an uphill climb for Romney.

Virginia:
Take what was just written about Pennsylvania and reverse it for Virginia. There have been some polls with wider margins for the president in the Old Dominion, but most of them fall below that three or four point level. This is not to suggest that this Washington Post poll is an outlier, but the jury is still out on whether the distance between Obama and Romney is growing in Virginia. That said, the poll is not inconsistent with some other polls that have come out of the state. Noticeably, however, Obama's share of support in this poll is cresting above the 50% mark. If that in any way becomes the new normal of the rest of the campaign, that narrows Romney's list of paths to 270 even further.


Now, as we shift the focus from the individual polls to the aggregate outlook, there is very little change. The map remains as it was a day ago, but the Electoral College Spectrum shuffled a bit; most noticeably with the four Obama toss up states where the Romney campaign would like the president to play defensee down the stretch. New Hampshire has drawn closer and Michigan has shifted slightly back toward the president. All four states are within nearly two tenths of a point of each other in the FHQ weighted averages and Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan are all within eight one-hundredths of each other.

Other shifts include a Virginia/Colorado flip-flop and Massachusetts switching places with Illinois.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
WA-12
(158)
NH-4
(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)
VA-13
(288/263)
MT-3
(140)
KY-8
(46)
HI-4
(43)
CT-7
(184)
CO-9
(297/250)
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)
MA-11
(119)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(109)
OK-7
(20)
IL-20
(139)
MI-16
(237)
TN-11
(191)
TX-38
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
WI-10
(247)
SD-3
(180)
AR-6
(66)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
NV-6
(253)
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.

Looking at the Watch List, things again remain unchanged. Those four toss ups above along with Florida are still the states to watch the most closely.

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:


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