Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Electoral College Map (10/27/12)

Saturday came and went with twelve new polls in ten states. All together, that data more or less confirmed what we already knew in each of the ten states represented.

New State Polls (10/27/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
California
10/15-10/21
+/- -.-%
1440 likely voters
55
41
2
+14
+17.77
Minnesota
10/15-10/21
+/- 5.0%
601 likely voters
53
45
2
+8
+8.31
Missouri
10/23-10/25
+/- 4.5%
625 likely voters
41
54
4
+13
+7.74
New Jersey
10/23-10/25
+/- 4.0%
601 likely voters
51
41
8
+10
+12.38
New York
10/23-10/25
+/- 4.1%
554 likely voters
62
33
2
+29
+25.21
North Carolina
10/23-10/24
+/- 4.4%
500 likely voters
47
44
7
+3
+1.53
North Carolina
10/25
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
46
52
1
+6
--
Oregon
10/24-10/25
+/- 3.9%
615 likely voters
47
42
12
+5
+6.28
Pennsylvania
10/23-10/25
+/- 4.0%
600 likely voters
49
43
7
+6
+6.17
Virginia
10/22-10/26
+/- 3.5%
1228 likely voters
51
47
2
+4
+2.11
Virginia
10/26
+/- 3.9%
645 likely voters
48
48
4
0
--
Wisconsin
10/24-10/25
+/- 4.4%
500 likely voters
48
43
9
+5
+4.57

Polling Quick Hits:
California:
While the margins in some of the recent polls in California have come down some -- something that is consistent with poll movement since the first debate in other state polling -- in this case it has more to do with Romney consolidating Republican leaners within the undecideds than anything else. Obama has held steady in this poll as compared to the last USC/LA Times poll from early August. But it is notable that the 8% undecided then is now 2% and Romney is at 41% instead of 33%.

Minnesota:
St. Cloud State's first presidential survey of this cycle is certainly consistent with the FHQ weighted average margin in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but overstates the candidates' shares of support by about three points each compared to the FHQ metric. The important thing to look at in Minnesota moving forward is whether Obama begins to in any consistent way slip under the 50% mark in the polls. It is a threshold Obama has cleared to this point, but if the president slides any and Romney gains, then Minnesota will start to resemble Wisconsin instead of being a Lean Obama state, but one at the top end of that category.

Missouri:
The polling volatility of the post-Akin comments environment has seemingly subsided in the Show Me state. After that incident affected the polling for a while, things have settled into a pattern of Lean to Strong level polling margins in Missouri favoring Mitt Romney. That is the case in this Mason-Dixon poll as well. Romney has gained a few points since the firm's last poll just before the Republican convention. Obama has lost a couple of points in that same time.  A close state in 2008, Missouri is no longer the bellwether in presidential races that it used to be. Rather, it is a solid Republican state at the presidential level in a competitive or leaning Republican year.

New Jersey:
There is not a whole lot to report in this poll. If anything, the story is how steady Obama's lead is in New Jersey. The last poll from the Inquirer right after the first debate showed basically the same margin as this most recent poll. On top of that, the FHQ margin has changed very little over that time accounting for the other polls conducted as well. The Garden state is blue.

New York:
Other blue states include New York. Surprise, surprise. Survey USA was last in the field in the Empire state in late February and found basically the same picture then as now. Moving on...

North Carolina:
There were two polls from Grove Insight released today and the one in North Carolina seems the most, shall we say, outliery. What's more, this is the second Obama +3 margin the firm has found within the last week. Given the fact that the state is already tipped toward Romney, the Rasmussen poll -- one that is consistent with the firm's previous poll if not yesterday's Gravis poll -- essentially cancels the Grove poll out and keeps the overall average virtually unchanged.

Oregon:
The combination of sporadic polling in the Beaver state and a closer than usual margin in this Hoffman Research poll has reduced the FHQ weighted average margin by over a point, bringing it in line with where Pennsylvania is in the averages. What's plain is that the margins in the Lean Obama states have contracted, but have remained lean states; just lean states on the lower end of the category. That is true in Michigan, Pennsylvania and now Oregon.

Pennsylvania:
Like the Inquirer poll in New Jersey, this survey is marked by its consistency with the immediately prior poll from the combined effort of National Research and Global Strategy Group. Romney is up a point since early October and Obama is down a point. The FHQ weighted average margin was unchanged following the addition of this poll.

Virginia:
As was the case in North Carolina, the two new polls in Virginia today basically canceled each other out and did so by margins that are about equidistant from the FHQ weighted average for the Old Dominion. Strangely both polls have moved in opposite directions since the previous polls by the firms back in September. The Washington Post margin has halved from Obama +8 to Obama +4 while the Gravis margin went from Romney +5 to tied in the same time. One of those was an outlier at the time and I'll let you guess which one.

Wisconsin:
FHQ won't dwell on the Grove Insight poll that has Obama's lead growing by two points in Wisconsin in the last week. It is not that that change is outlandish (It is within the margin of error, I suppose.), but rather the fact that Obama continues to hover around 50% in poll after poll in the Badger state. That continues to make Wisconsin an uphill climb for Romney. The former Massachusetts governor still has not led a poll there since the immediate aftermath of the Ryan announcement in August.


Unlike a day ago, the map and electoral vote tally remained unchanged. On the Electoral College Spectrum, there was only minor movement as New York and Rhode Island switched places. As noted above, Oregon also shifted considerably, but only pull nearly even with Pennsylvania without surpassing it.

As of today -- ten days out -- there are still three tiers of states in the toss up area. The tier one states (Florida, Colorado and Virginia) are still the most likely states for Romney to peel off from the Obama total at the moment given the information that we have as of now. Conversely, the tier three states (Nevada and Wisconsin) are the most likely Obama holds. If that persists through this next week, that puts a lot of emphasis on Ohio (no surprise), but could make New Hampshire and Iowa more important if either campaign attempts to completely outstrip the other in a one state, focused campaign. [Virginia for Obama for example or Wisconsin for Romney.]

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
WA-12
(158)
NH-4
(257)
MT-3
(159)
ND-3
(55)
HI-4
(10)
NJ-14
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
KY-8
(52)
NY-29
(39)
CT-7
(179)
IA-6
(281/263)
SD-3
(140)
AL-9
(44)
RI-4
(43)
NM-5
(184)
VA-13
(294/257)
IN-11
(137)
KS-6
(35)
MD-10
(53)
MN-10
(194)
CO-9
(303/244)
SC-9
(126)
AR-6
(29)
IL-20
(73)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
NE-5
(117)
AK-3
(23)
MA-11
(84)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
TX-38
(112)
OK-7
(20)
CA-55
(139)
MI-16
(237)
AZ-11
(191)
WV-5
(74)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
WI-10
(247)
MO-10
(180)
LA-8
(69)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
NV-6
(253)
TN-11
(170)
MS-6
(61)
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.

On the Watch List, well, the status quo was maintained. Florida remains the state to watch in terms of jumping the partisan line into Romney territory. The Sunshine state has been resistant to that so far, but is basically a tie right now, though a fractional lean to Obama.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Florida
from Toss Up Obama
to Toss Up Romney
Georgia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Minnesota
from Lean Obama
to Strong 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
Ohio
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Wisconsin
from Lean Obama
to Toss Up 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.

Please see:

1 comment:

Luc said...

Good work, Josh. I've been reading your website since July. It'll be interesting to see the results on election day.