Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Electoral College Map (7/24/12)

Tuesday was a slow day on the state-level polling front. The only addition was a Rasmussen poll out of Michigan. Elway released new numbers in the Washington state gubernatorial race in for a handful of initiatives in the Evergreen state.

...but there were no presidential numbers. Given that the margin in that survey of the governor's race favored Democrat, Jay Inslee, for the first time, that may serve as some indication as to the underlying partisan makeup of this particular sample. On its face, that would favor the president in a state he carried by 17 points, but we will hold off on speculating further until or if the Seattle-based firm releases any presidential numbers.

New State Polls (7/24/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Michigan
7/23
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
48
42
4
+6
+4.90

Polling Quick Hits:
Michigan:
On its surface, the Rasmussen poll appears to behave well within the expectations in Michigan. Yet, while most polls have recently shown a tighter race (<5%) in the Great Lakes state, Rasmussen has so far not followed suit. The six point spread in the poll conducted this past Monday is only two points closer than the June survey of the state by Rasmussen. And that two points was shaved off of Obama's share while Romney remained steady at 42%. Nevertheless, none of this did much to sway the FHQ weighted average in Michigan. There was a very slight shift toward Obama, pushing the state within a tenth of an averaged percentage point of moving into the Lean Obama category.



As for changes on the map or in the Electoral College Spectrum, it was close but not quite. With just one poll -- one confirming the current state of the race there -- there just was not that much chance of a change anyway. Michigan is to the Toss Up/Lean line as Washington, New Mexico and Minnesota have been to the Strong/Lean line recently: new information has translated into movement, but not category-changing movement.

...yet.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
RI-4
(7)2
NJ-14
(160)
NH-4
(257)
IN-11
(159)
ND-3
(55)
NY-29
(36)
CT-7
(167)
OH-183
(275/281)
MT-3
(148)
MS-6
(52)
HI-4
(40)
MN-10
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
WV-5
(145)
AL-9
(46)
VT-3
(43)
WA-12
(189)
VA-13
(297/254)
GA-16
(140)
KY-8
(37)
MD-10
(53)
NM-5
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(124)
KS-6
(29)
CA-55
(108)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(115)
AK-3
(23)
MA-11
(119)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(107)
OK-7
(20)
IL-20
(139)
WI-10
(231)
MO-10
(191)
AR-6
(102)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NV-6
(237)
AZ-11
(181)
TX-38
(96)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
MI-16
(253)
TN-11
(170)
SD-3
(58)
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 272 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 good news is that Public Policy Polling was in the field with a new survey in Michigan over the weekend. The 14 point gap -- the largest of any poll conducted in Michigan in 2012 -- the firm found there in May will likely be fodder for "Obama's lead slips" stories when those results are released either Wednesday or Thursday. All of that, however, will depend on what the results are.

FHQ would be surprised if they find a +14 margin in favor of Obama this time around. But there I go again: speculating on polls that have yet to be released. [UPDATE:] The results to be released Wednesday in Michigan apparently still show Obama up by double digits.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Georgia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Michigan
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Missouri
from Toss Up Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Lean Obama
to Toss Up Obama
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
New Mexico
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
North Carolina
from Toss Up Romney
to Toss Up Obama
Washington
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
West Virginia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Please see:
Frequently Asked Questions about FHQ graduated weighted average methodology.



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 5:15 PM 0 comments
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Monday, July 23, 2012

The Electoral College Map (7/23/12)

At the dawn of another new campaign week, there are a couple of new polls in traditionally strong blue states. One typical, the other closer than expected.

New State Polls (7/23/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
California
7/16-7/17
+/- 3.4%
812 likely voters
51.9
32.6
10.3
+19.3
+19.36
Minnesota
7/17-7/19
+/- 4.3%
552 likely voters
46
40
7
+6
+11.06

Poll Quick Hits:
California:
I don't know that there is all that much to say about a survey of the Golden state showing the Democratic nominee up by nearly 20%. There isn't much. The Pepperdine poll appears to lowball both candidates' shares in the previous polls in California while still capturing a margin between the two major party candidates that is consistent with much of the survey work conducted in the state prior to July.

Minnesota:
The Survey USA poll in the Land of 10,000 Lakes was more revealing, though perhaps not to the extent that some may suggest, than the California poll above. On its surface, it is tempting to lump Minnesota in with neighboring and more competitive states like Iowa and Wisconsin -- and that may ultimately prove to be the case -- but we just don't have a solid enough body of evidence to reach that conclusion as of yet. On the one hand, Iowa was closer than Minnesota was closer than Wisconsin in the 2008 election, but on the other, the six polls in Iowa and five in Minnesota do not necessarily provide the confidence in the current FHQ weighted average that the 22 polls in Wisconsin to this point do. What has been made clear in the last week or so is that there is a group of strong Obama states that probably deserve more polling in the coming weeks. Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington are all hovering around the +10 Obama range. The averages have been brought closer due to the influence of new polling information -- albeit in a shallow, intra-state pool -- and additional data from other polling firms may help to build a more robust picture of either a tightening race or one that in those states keeps them on solid ground for the president. If it is the former, the Romney campaign may be able to play offense to some extent and force Obama to reconsider continued resource expenditures in, say, North Carolina (post-Charlotte convention). The Tarheel state is endangered on the president's board as the lone red state within range for the Democrat.



On this Monday 15 weeks before election day, the map remains unchanged in terms of state classifications. However, Minnesota jumped up a couple of spots on the Electoral College Spectrum to join the aforementioned Washington/New Mexico group at the periphery of the Lean Obama category. There is some separation after those three states and Connecticut and New Jersey, but there has been limited polling in the Nutmeg state to this juncture in the general election race. This is why the Watch List is helpful. It affords the opportunity to see which states are close to switching categories.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
RI-4
(7)2
NJ-14
(160)
NH-4
(257)
IN-11
(159)
ND-3
(55)
NY-29
(36)
CT-7
(167)
OH-183
(275/281)
MT-3
(148)
MS-6
(52)
HI-4
(40)
MN-10
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
WV-5
(145)
AL-9
(46)
VT-3
(43)
WA-12
(189)
VA-13
(297/254)
GA-16
(140)
KY-8
(37)
MD-10
(53)
NM-5
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(124)
KS-6
(29)
CA-55
(108)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(115)
AK-3
(23)
MA-11
(119)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(107)
OK-7
(20)
IL-20
(139)
WI-10
(231)
MO-10
(191)
AR-6
(102)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NV-6
(237)
AZ-11
(181)
TX-38
(96)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
MI-16
(253)
TN-11
(170)
SD-3
(58)
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 272 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.

And even though Minnesota is not on the Watch List, it is not all that far away either. Therein lies one potential problem with the methodology FHQ utilizes. Again, if you will go back to the initial 2012 electoral college post, I described the tradeoff between a responsive average and one that bounces around too much, prone to outlier polls. In that post I discussed that it would likely be after the conventions before FHQ began to even further discount past polls. In 2008 around a similar point, the discount on the past surveys was doubled. That obviously gives more weight to the most recent poll. And that will be an appropriate action after the 2012 conventions. But now is probably a bit too soon.

Yet, just as an exercise, let's have a look at the impact such a move would have on the averages of a couple of states: Florida and Minnesota. By increasing the discount on the past polls in Florida and placing more relative weight on the most recent poll (+5 Obama, Survey USA poll from late last week), the average increases from +1.21 to +1.44 in the president's favor. A similar move in Minnesota, alternatively, has a greater impact, reducing the margin from +11.07 to +9.68. Substantively, that may not be a big change in the big picture, but it would shift Minnesota from a Strong Obama state to a Lean Obama state by the FHQ measure.

The difference? Well, the weighting of various polls matters, but so too do the number of polls conducted in a state. The far greater number of polls in Florida gives a better indication that the Sunshine state does ever so slightly favor the president at the moment. The scant polling in Minnesota, however, leaves an incomplete picture or at least one that is more vulnerable to outlier polls. The point here is not to say that either way is right. Rather, the idea is to be transparent about what is reflected in the figures and the methodology behind them.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Georgia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Michigan
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Missouri
from Toss Up Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Lean Obama
to Toss Up Obama
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
New Mexico
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
North Carolina
from Toss Up Romney
to Toss Up Obama
Washington
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
West Virginia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.




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Posted by Josh Putnam at 6:30 PM 0 comments
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Friday, July 20, 2012

The Electoral College Map (7/20/12)

This week has been full of surveys from mostly blue states -- at least as measured by FHQ graduated weighted average -- and the handful of polls released on Friday was no exception.

But before I get into what those polls mean -- if anything -- I did want to revisit, as promised, the polls from a day ago. As FHQ mentioned on Thursday, none of the polls did anything to shake up anything on any of the graphics we publish every day. However, I did want to make a comment or two about how some -- well, especially the Virginia survey released by Quinnipiac -- were discussed upon release. [These operate more as rules of thumb for how to follow along here than as comments specific to the Q-poll of the Old Dominion.]
1. One of the emerging problems, or what can, perhaps, be called the greatest emerging pet peeve of mine in 2012 poll watching, is the tendency of some commentators/pundits/whoever to flashback to the last poll conducted by the same polling outfit. Now, to be honest, there is something responsible in that. If one wants to find the next best comparison for one poll, an argument can be advanced that earlier polls by the same company are a better place to look than more recent polls by other firms. The problem is that those comparisons often come with little or no context and certainly is rarely in-depth enough to mention polling variability.  
Take that Virginia poll:
Some folks wanted to track the decreasing lead from March in a Q-poll conducted then; an 8 point drop overall. [Set aside for the moment the fact that Politico transposed the 2 (placing it in a fictitious 52 for Obama instead of 42 for Romney) and 0 (inserting it in a 40 for Romney instead of a 50 for Obama in March) and increased the decline from 8 to 12. ...and put it in a headline!] Again, this is fine on some level. It is definitely true that the Obama lead shrank -- or Obama's share shrank while Romney's grew is the more accurate description maybe -- but the context is missing. Yes, the survey was in the field a week after the Virginia primary, but it was also being conducted in the midst of and after the Alabama and Mississippi primaries that Romney lost. Now, FHQ made the case at the time that Romney was still going to be the nominee, but those losses did up the uncertainty in the race, shifting the perceived outcome from "Romney's probably going to win the nomination" to "Romney's still probably going to win the nomination, but how long is this going to take and how much damage will it do to him by the time it is over". Look, I'm not saying that this is necessarily what is driving the change, but I would argue that it matters.  
...to the extent that such things imperil the interpretability of a mid-March, state-level horserace poll anyway. John Sides wasn't tweeting about this poll, but his comments that there is too much attention being paid to single polls right now and that that's what polling averages are for is the right way to think about this. And hey, let's be honest, FHQ has a pretty high bar that is likely never to be achieved in terms of how much context makes the cut in any given analyses. Not everyone is as mind-numbingly interested in all of this. But context matters in every poll comparison.
2. Let me start this next comment by saying that I may be the only person in higher education who references Chappelle's Show in class. That is a function of the fact that 1) no one who wants to keep their job does this unless they do so very carefully and 2) the show has been off the air for a hundred years. Nevertheless, as some were attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill with this one Virginia poll, the same Chappelle's Show scene kept popping into my head. If you watched the show there was this one sketch where Dave riffs off the idea that he is perhaps irrationally skeptical of any evidence that is part of the trial of a black celebrity. In one scene he envisions himself as a prospective juror  in the OJ Simpson trial and when confronted with the evidence from the trial has one simple reaction: "Sir, I'm not impressed." 
Now sure, I just sucked all of the humor out of that -- and if you've seen that sketch just chuckled softly for a moment and read on -- but the line is an important one. I'm not impressed. My point is, don't write a "this poll is evidence of a big change in this race" sort of story/analysis unless you are going to actually demonstrate a change in the presidential horserace.  
The Virginia Q-poll? Sir, I'm not impressed.   
Again, context. [AGAIN!?!] First, the presidential race continues to be remarkably stable; the sort of stable in both national and probably to a lesser extent in the state level surveys (due to fewer polls) that is antithetical to an 8 point swing. Secondly, does anyone think that Virginia is +8 Obama? If we follow the political science pendulum swing model (see 7/17/12 post), then a +7 Obama state in 2008 is probably not +7 in 2012 if the pendulum has swung away from the president and his party. 
The battle of this election will be over North Carolina (maybe) and the handful of current light blue states unless there is sustained evidence that the Romney has been successful in stretching the battlefield into the Lean Obama states. At this point we don't have that kind of evidence and until such time that such evidence is revealed, I'm not impressed. 
...in Virginia or anywhere else. 

On to today's polls:

New State Polls (7/20/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Florida
7/17-7/19
+/- 3.9%
647 likely voters
48
43
5
+5
+1.21
North Carolina
7/16-7/18
+/- 4%
600 registered voters
48
49
3
+1
+0.90
Pennsylvania
7/18
+/- 4.5%
500 likely voters
48
44
5
+4
+6.71
Washington
7/16-7/18
+/- 4%
630 registered voters
46
37
9
+9
+10.87

Poll Quick Hits:
Florida:
Outlier status for the time being. Not even the Priorties USA poll out last week had Obama with this large of a lead in the Sunshine state.

North Carolina:
Not an outlier. There are an awful lot of polls that have shown the Tarheel state to be within 1-3 points either way. But a slight majority of them have tilted toward Mitt Romney.

Pennsylvania:
The Keystone state continues to be solidly lodged in Lean Obama territory. That said, this Rasmussen poll has Romney at his highest share in any survey since a February survey the same company conducted. With few exceptions Obama has been in the 45-49% range all along in Pennsylvania. This poll does not deviate from that pattern. Typically narrowing? No, it's a little early to break out the Jim Campbell references.

Washington:
The margin is in line with other polls, but the two candidates shares in this Survey USA poll are a little off from what they have been in the Evergreen state. This represents Obama's lowest share in any of the eight Washington state surveys conducted thus far this year. Romney's share had climbed into the low 40s in the three most recent polls stretching back into May but dips here into the upper 30s where it had been in polls released during the first third of the year.



The map remains unchanged above as does the Electoral College Spectrum below. Yet, I don't want to totally skip over either. Mark Blumenthal at HuffPo Pollster had a great read on the tradeoffs of using registered voter screens in polls versus likely voter screens at this point in the race. The piece was prompted by the argument elsewhere that a switch from the former to the latter would shift things toward Romney. How much? Well, Blumenthal understandably left that somewhat ambiguous. It is in inexact science to attempt to accurately project how much things might shift. So it was left at a shift of a "few" percentage points.

Fine, but what would that mean? A two point shift uniformly applied across all states would push just Florida from Obama to Romney in FHQ's averages; moving 29 electoral votes to the former Massachusetts governor. The tally would then be 303-235 electoral votes in the president's favor. Now, if that "few" translated into a four percentage point shift to Romney, Iowa, Virginia, Colorado and Ohio would all join Florida in moving over to the Romney side of the ledger. That's enough to inch Romney over the 270 electoral vote barrier, but only just barely with no states to spare. Ohio is, after all, the tipping point state in the order at the moment.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
RI-4
(7)2
MN-10
(156)
NH-4
(257)
IN-11
(159)
ND-3
(55)
NY-29
(36)
NJ-14
(170)
OH-183
(275/281)
MT-3
(148)
MS-6
(52)
HI-4
(40)
CT-7
(177)
CO-9
(284/263)
GA-16
(145)
AL-9
(46)
VT-3
(43)
WA-12
(189)
VA-13
(297/254)
WV-5
(129)
KY-8
(37)
MD-10
(53)
NM-5
(194)
IA-6
(303/241)
SC-9
(124)
KS-6
(29)
CA-55
(108)
OR-7
(201)
FL-29
(332/235)
LA-8
(115)
AK-3
(23)
MA-11
(119)
PA-20
(221)
NC-15
(206)
NE-5
(107)
OK-7
(20)
IL-20
(139)
WI-10
(231)
MO-10
(191)
AR-6
(102)
ID-4
(13)
DE-3
(142)
NV-6
(237)
AZ-11
(181)
TX-38
(96)
WY-3
(9)
ME-4
(146)
MI-16
(253)
TN-11
(170)
SD-3
(58)
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 272 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.

And the Watch List? Washington on, Florida off. Keep in mind, however, that it was an outlier poll in the Sunshine state that drove Florida off the list.

The Watch List1
State
Switch
Georgia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
Michigan
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
Missouri
from Toss Up Romney
to Lean Romney
Nevada
from Lean Obama
to Toss Up Obama
New Hampshire
from Toss Up Obama
to Lean Obama
New Mexico
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
North Carolina
from Toss Up Romney
to Toss Up Obama
Washington
from Strong Obama
to Lean Obama
West Virginia
from Strong Romney
to Lean Romney
1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
Posted by Josh Putnam at 6:30 PM 0 comments
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