Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Electoral College Map (9/9/12)

Perhaps FHQ should start the week by talking about where the presidential race stands in the wake of the Democratic convention down the road from us in Charlotte. But the truth is that there will be plenty of time to assess the state of the race -- or state of the bounce coming out of Charlotte -- in the week(s) to come. No, what I would like to open with is a discussion of state-level presidential polls in general. Rightly or wrongly, there was something of an assault on Public Policy Polling from some on the right over the weekend. [And if you didn't get to see my Twitter back and forth on this with conservative Washington Post blogger, Jennifer Rubin, go check it out in the FHQ Twitter feed.]

I honestly don't get it. The firm has been transparent with their data in the over four years that FHQ has been following polling first for the 2008 general election and then stretching back to 2009 for some of the company's earliest 2012 trial heats. The simple truth is that even then there were some quirky things in their results. But that is true of all -- ALL -- polling firms. We here at FHQ chalk that up to polling/sampling variability -- nothing more, nothing less. Those are the breaks in the polling game; a game that is only getting more difficult in terms of actually being able to contact people and draw a representative sample these days.

To make a long point short, I have never found anything wrong with PPP. When their surveys are on the money, I say so. When other polls miss the mark, I also say so -- as I did with their Michigan poll just last week. The point is all about context, and that is something that FHQ strives to provide when adding and then commenting on new polling data added to our dataset. FHQ includes PPP surveys because everyone of our peers -- if we can call Real Clear Politics, HuffPo Pollster and the TPM Poll Tracker as peers -- does as well.

Speaking of context...

New State Polls (9/9/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
New Mexico1
9/3-9/6
+/- 3.8%
667 likely voters
45
40
8
+5
+10.30
North Carolina
9/7-9/9
+/- 3.0%
1087 likely voters
49
48
3
+1
+1.00
Ohio
9/7-9/9
+/- 3.0%
1072 likely voters
50
45
5
+5
+3.01
1 The poll numbers used from the Research & Polling survey of New Mexico include Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. The former New Mexico governor received the support of 7% of the respondents. There was no other version of the poll without Johnson included in the release, so the impact of his inclusion in the toplines is not at all clear in this instance.

Polling Quick Hits:
New Mexico:
The new Research and Polling survey of New Mexico done for the Albuquerque Journal jumps off the page at you at first glance. It is closer -- much closer than the overall FHQ weighted average might otherwise indicate -- than some recent polls, but is in line with other surveys of the Land of Enchantment that have also included former New Mexico governor and current Libertarian Party presidential nominee, Gary Johnson, as an option in the question's answer set. The governor has routinely polled in the lower teens in the few surveys in which he has been included, but in this poll, he is at his nadir for the year to date at just 7%. Even that seems high. More importantly, neither major party presidential campaign has sunk any significant money into New Mexico. American Crossroads has been on the air there to perhaps lay the groundwork for a Romney campaign entry into the state. That, however, has yet to happen in any concerted way. The Romney (and Obama folks) seem much more intent to take the battle to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

North Carolina:
Stubborn North Carolina continues to be just that in a follow up to last week's Public Policy Polling survey of the Old North state, stubborn. Unlike most other states that have shifted back toward the Republicans since 2008, the Tar Heel state has barely budged. A narrow one point edge -- and that's rounding up -- on election day is still a one point edge now and it has been throughout the period that FHQ has been averaging the polls in 2012. Simply put, North Carolina is much tighter than it "should" be if one expects a uniform national shift to apply equally in all states. That has been true in our weighted averages and using other metrics.

Ohio:
And North Carolina is not the only "stubborn" state. Ohio has actually moved less than North Carolina; tightly hovering around the same two party breakdown the Buckeye state exhibited in 2008. And while the just-released PPP survey finds something of a bounce for Obama in Ohio, it is in line with other polling in the state of late. Obama (re-)hits his apex in the state in terms of his share of responses while Romney hits the heart of his share (44-46% in most recent polls) at 45%. On some level, this survey is out of line with other recent polls in the Buckeye state, but this is the first post-Democratic convention poll of Ohio and it will take data from other firms to draw a more robust picture of where the race is. Margin-wise, this one overshoots the FHQ average that is right at +3 for Obama. That number has been as consistent as the +1 for Romney in North Carolina.


Surprise, surprise: None of these polls did anything to fundamentally reshape the overall outlook in either the map or the Electoral College Spectrum. Ohio is still just as important to Mitt Romney as it was before the PPP survey data was added and North Carolina remains a state that the Obama campaign would like to hold on to -- or at least keep close -- if only to force the Romney team to work to flip a state that only handed the president its 15 electoral votes by the slimmest of margins (save Missouri) in 2008.1 Compared to four years ago, Obama and the Democrats are understandably playing more defense than offense, so having some areas where the incumbent can force the challenger to spend defensively is a cushion of sorts. There are not many of those for the Obama campaign. The Akin situation may or may not have opened the door in Missouri. If it did, the Obama folks are not taking any overt advantage of the opening. The race to 270 is about Romney flipping the states between North Carolina and Ohio on the spectrum and forcing the Democrats -- in the most ideal situation -- to expend valuable and finite resources in the Michigan through Nevada group of states on the spectrum.

But following convention season, the Republican nominee is seemingly having trouble moving the needle on the first step much less moving on to the second described above.

There was one shift on the Electoral College Spectrum: New Mexico, with the introduction of new data, jumped Minnesota one spot closer to the partisan line separating the two candidates groups of states.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(160)
MI-16
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
RI-4
(10)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
ND-3
(49)
HI-4
(14)
MN-10
(182)
CO-9
(284/263)
MT-3
(140)
AL-9
(46)
NY-29
(43)
NM-5
(187)
VA-13
(297/254)
IN-11
(137)
KY-8
(37)
IL-20
(63)
CT-7
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(126)
KS-6
(29)
MD-10
(73)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(117)
AK-3
(23)
CA-55
(128)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(109)
OK-7
(20)
MA-11
(139)
NV-6
(227)
TN-11
(191)
AR-6
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
MO-10
(180)
WV-5
(98)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
WI-10
(241)
SD-3
(170)
TX-38
(93)
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.

That means, given that Minnesota has not left the list, that New Mexico rejoins the Watch List of states that are within a fraction of a point of switching to a new category (see footnote in table for more). The Land of Enchantment is now within a point of moving into the Lean Obama category, but with a couple of caveats. First, there has not been a whole lot of polling conducted in New Mexico. Secondly, and related to the first point, polling and the averages have fluctuated when Gary Johnson is included in polls that draw the margin closer there. This +5 for Obama may be the start the trajectory turning downward for Obama in the state or it could simply be a function of poll including Johnson in the answer set, driving both major party candidates' shares of support and the margin between them down. In other words, watch New Mexico along with the others on the list, but do so with these two factors in mind.

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 Strong Obama
to Lean 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
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:

--
1 See the comments section for a clarification on this point.

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Posted by Josh Putnam at 11:00 PM 2 comments
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Friday, September 7, 2012

The Electoral College Map (9/7/12)

Convention season has come and gone. The two week mad dash through Tampa and Charlotte was a blur of activity every place save one: state-level polling. From the time the Republican convention kicked off on August 26 (or was supposed to kick off anyway) to Thursday's finale for the Democrats there were just 22 new polls released. That is an average of less than two new polls per day during the 12 day period encompassing both conventions. Of course, that probably makes it sound worse than it actually is. We have the benefit of looking back four years to another cycle with conventions in back-to-back weeks. In 2008, there were 25 polls released publicly during the time the conventions were in session.

It is not, then, as if there was a significant drop in data from 2008 to 2012. The bottom line is the same now as it was then: Polling firms can attempt to survey the electorate at three points in time -- before the conventions, after the first convention and after the second conventions -- or they can do a simple before convention season round of polls and follow that with the after version that captures the aggregate change of convention season.

But the political scientist in me wishes for the halcyon days of a July out-party convention and an August in-party convention that afforded us all the opportunity in a more robust fashion examine the impact each party's convention had on the race. With conventions being back-to-back as they have been the last two cycles, that is harder to parse out. [I'll thank Mitt Romney later for selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate when he did. That, at least, gave us a chance to get a feel for Ryan's impact on the polls prior to the conventions. ...unlike in 2008.]

All this is to say that the slow (state) polling week(s) continued during the rest of the Democratic National Convention. There were just two surveys that emerged after Monday's update to the map.

New State Polls (9/7/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
New Jersey
8/27-9/2
+/- 2.6%
1471 likely voters
51
44
4
+7
+12.27
Ohio
9/2
+/- 2.9%
1381 likely voters
43.7
46.8
--
+3.1
+2.90

Polling Quick Hits:
New Jersey:
There is very little evidence thus far to indicate that New Jersey is as close as the latest survey of the Garden state from Quinnipiac suggests. No 2012 poll of the state has shown the race any closer than eight points until now. What is driving this is the Romney share of responses. Obama has been fairly stationary in New Jersey. The president's level of support has hovered in the 49-51 range in most surveys, but with some mid-50s peppered in occasionally as well. Romney, on the other hand, has seen support levels in New Jersey polling centered the upper 30s with some variability (read: outliers) pushing the former governor into the mid-30s and lower 40s. In other words, this latest Q poll represents Romney's high water mark in Garden state polling this year in relation to the extant data. Compared to the previous Q poll, both candidates gained support at the expense of undecideds, but that is more a function of the shift from a registered voter sample to a likely voter sample. Not unexpectedly, Romney's share grew more in that transition. Does that make New Jersey like Connecticut (closer than expected given 2008 results)? Not yet, but we'll wait on some more data.

Ohio:
One of the few exceptions to the polling rule described at the outset of this post is Gravis Marketing in Ohio. In this one case we have a before the Republican convention poll and an after the Republican convention poll. Again, it is one firm -- so take this with a grain of salt -- but it shows that the convention in Tampa was a plus for Romney in Ohio. [Then again, it could also be that what we're seeing is just polling variability. Thus the grain of salt reference.] The former Massachusetts governor went from down just under a point, pre-convention, to up a shade over three points, post-convention. In context, this survey from Gravis is in line with much of the August and onward polling in Ohio, where a +3 Obama to a +3 Romney range has been established with only one exception (Q poll in mid-August). Granted, that merely refers to the margin between the two candidates. In terms of their shares of support, the story is a bit different. This poll represents a low point in Ohio polling for Obama, but is right on as far as the 44-46% range Romney has found himself in in the Buckeye state.


Another slow few days on the polling front meant that the likelihood of change on the electoral college map or the Electoral College Spectrum were quite low. New Jersey is comfortably within the Strong Obama category and Ohio, though it may be closing by the smallest of margins, has consistently been in the Toss Up Obama area all along. The Buckeye state is certainly within range for Romney, but tips toward Obama at this point in time.

This election is still about the the eight states in which the Romney campaign has placed ad buys (plus or minus a state or two). None of this should really come as any surprise to anyone who has followed this here at FHQ or elsewhere. The cast of characters is comprised of the eight to ten closest states. The Romney camp did not venture into either Michigan or Wisconsin even though both are slightly closer in the FHQ weighted averages than Nevada and New Hampshire. My hunch -- and I think this is a fairly educated hunch -- is that this is based on a couple of things: 1) the Romney-Ryan campaign has some internal polling suggesting that the two upper midwest states are just beyond the Republicans' reach and/or 2) we just have more polling and thus a better sense of the state of the race in Michigan/Wisconsin than in Nevada/New Hampshire. Regardless, that quartet of states is all very much clustered together and beyond that fact are superfluous to Romney reaching 270 electoral votes anyway. But you don't put all your eggs in a Florida-Iowa-Virginia-Colorado-Ohio basket that leaves you with no margin for error. The number of electoral votes in Michigan/Wisconsin (26) would have to be tempting to the Republican ticket; especially when the other two equivalent states (Nevada/New Hampshire) only sum to ten electoral votes.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(160)
MI-16
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
RI-4
(10)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
ND-3
(49)
HI-4
(14)
NM-5
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
MT-3
(140)
AL-9
(46)
NY-29
(43)
MN-10
(187)
VA-13
(297/254)
IN-11
(137)
KY-8
(37)
IL-20
(63)
CT-7
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(126)
KS-6
(29)
MD-10
(73)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(117)
AK-3
(23)
CA-55
(128)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(109)
OK-7
(20)
MA-11
(139)
NV-6
(227)
TN-11
(191)
AR-6
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
MO-10
(180)
WV-5
(98)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
WI-10
(241)
SD-3
(170)
TX-38
(93)
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.

But though it is fun to extrapolate strategy from ad buys, things are going to change and the campaigns can adapt. A bigger key may be organizing efforts in some of these periphery toss up states. Ads are typically shallow in terms of their impact -- the impact dissipates quickly -- but a true measure of how Romney-Ryan approach that quartet of toss up states straddling the lean line on the Obama side of the partisan line (and the other toss ups for that matter) is what they are doing on the ground.

Speaking of states straddling the lines between categories, the Watch List remains unchanged from earlier in the week. The states to watch most are the four states mentioned above and Florida. Florida is important because it could shift toward Romney, though it has remained stationary of late (a tie), and the so-called quartet to see if they go off the list, drawing closer and thus away from the toss up/lean line.

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 Strong Obama
to Lean 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
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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Posted by Josh Putnam at 12:00 PM 1 comments
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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Electoral College Map (9/4/12)

The gavel has dropped in Charlotte on the Democratic National Convention, and on the day the convention got underway, a paltry three new polls were released in three swing states.

New State Polls (9/4/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Colorado
8/31-9/2
+/- 3.1%
1001 likely voters
46
44
4
+2
+2.82
Florida
9/2
+/- 2.7%
1288 likely voters
46.7
48
5.2
+1.3
+0.39
Michigan
8/31-9/2
+/- 3.4%
815 likely voters
51
44
5
+7
+4.37


Polling Quick Hits:
Colorado:
In the Centennial state, Obama maintained his earlier lead in the latest PPP survey. The poll was consistent with previous surveys in Colorado, but saw Romney gain ground relative to the early August trial heat that includes Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. That did very little to move the needle in a Colorado race that was already hovering around the two to three point range in the president's favor.

[Note: I will add a footnote on the numbers without Johnson when I am not tethered to my iPad here in Time Warner Cable Arena.]

Florida:
The new Gravis Marketing poll of the Sunshine state is yet more, though still scant, evidence that the Tampa convention was no polling boon for Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. The latest survey has Romney ahead in Florida but by a margin that is slightly smaller than it was previously and only ever so slightly closes the gap between the former Massachusetts governor and the president in the FHQ averages.

Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, PPP turned in something of an outlier compared to some other recent polls in the state that had shown the margin there shrinking. It is not so much the seven point gap that is out of the ordinary, but rather the fact that the survey shows the president over the 50% mark in Michigan. The Romney share on the poll, then, is in line with other Michigan polling data, but the president's share of support is overinflated in the context of other summer polling there.



Despite new data from three toss up states, neither the map nor the Electoral College Spectrum was altered in any way on Tuesday. All three states are competitive to different degrees, but the emerging pattern is that Florida is basically a tie, Colorado favors the president by a couple of points and Michigan is an even further electoral college reach for Mitt Romney (though the gap is drawing closer).

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(160)
MI-16
(257)
AZ-11
(167)
MS-6
(55)
RI-4
(10)
WA-12
(172)
OH-183
(275/281)
GA-16
(156)
ND-3
(49)
HI-4
(14)
NM-5
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
MT-3
(140)
AL-9
(46)
NY-29
(43)
MN-10
(187)
VA-13
(297/254)
IN-11
(137)
KY-8
(37)
IL-20
(63)
CT-7
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(126)
KS-6
(29)
MD-10
(73)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(117)
AK-3
(23)
CA-55
(128)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(109)
OK-7
(20)
MA-11
(139)
NV-6
(227)
TN-11
(191)
AR-6
(104)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NH-4
(231)
MO-10
(180)
WV-5
(98)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
WI-10
(241)
SD-3
(170)
TX-38
(93)
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.


The Watch List? It too was unchanged on Tuesday even with polls in two states on the list.

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 Strong Obama
to Lean 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
Wisconsin
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.



Please see:


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Posted by Josh Putnam at 3:00 PM 0 comments
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Monday, September 3, 2012

A Brief Note on 2016 Democratic Nomination Rules

Unlike Tampa, there is not much going on in Charlotte regarding the rules governing the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. The Rules and Bylaws Committee met in Charlotte on Saturday, completed their business and will make their report presentation to the convention tomorrow. But the bottom line is that the real work on 2016 will take place on the Democratic side next year and into 2014. The RBC report will likely involve the creation of a commission to examine the rules procedures, which will in turn make any recommendations for changes to the system to the Rules and Bylaws Committee. That will happen in 2013 and the RBC will act -- if any changes are to be made -- the following year.

I was fortunate enough to have run into RBC co-chair Jim Roosevelt in the Charlotte Convention Center yesterday while picking up my media credentials for the convention. He confirmed that the RBC report was done and would be presented on Tuesday at the convention. I also asked him for his thoughts on the rules changes the Republican Party seems to have made. He, too, had not seen the final language on the rules that was passed in Tampa (thus limiting either his or my ability to do anything other than speculate on what has been reported), but agreed with me that the proposed stiffer penalties represented a hopeful step toward calendar order in 2016.

FHQ will have more on this from the convention tomorrow when the RBC gives its report.


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Posted by Josh Putnam at 3:00 PM 0 comments
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