2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEBRASKA

This is part forty-five of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NEBRASKA

Election type: primary
Date: May 10
Number of delegates: 36 [24 at-large, 9 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: caucus/convention/beauty contest primary

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Changes since 2012
There have been a number of changes since 2012 to the method by which Nebraska Republicans will select, allocate and bind delegates for 2016. Changes in national party rules and in state law prompted most of the alterations that been made over the last four years.

First, the custom in Nebraska has been to hold a primary as called for by state law, but to make its results only advisory to the selection of Republican national convention delegates. In other words, the sequence was to hold a May primary and then a July state convention. At the latter event, the national convention delegates were chosen (with the early primary election having no direct influence).

However, that practice, or rather that sequence, is not consistent with the delegate selection rules that came out of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. Under the revised Rule 16(a)(1), delegates are to be allocated and bound based on any statewide vote. Nebraska Republicans were sending bound delegates to past national conventions, but selecting those delegates at an event -- the state convention -- that essentially ignored the primary results. The change made in Tampa was intended to tie the allocation and binding to the most participatory election in a state.

That change served as a catalyst to state parties like those in Colorado, North Dakota and Wyoming, each of which opted to skip presidential preference votes at the beginning stages of their caucus/convention processes. Those moves were made in an attempt to preserve a tradition of sending unbound delegations to the national convention. Nebraska, though, does not fit into that category. The local practice among Republicans in the Cornhusker state has always been to send a bound delegation to the national convention, but select, allocate and bind those delegates in one fell swoop at the state convention.

The problem for NEGOP in the lead up to 2016 was that to comply with the newly tweaked national party rules, the state party either had to completely opt out of the statewide primary in May or to tie the results of the preference vote in that election into the delegate allocation and binding process. As it turned out, state government basically forced the hand of the state party by changing state law to require state parties to have the delegate allocation reflect the vote in the primary.

It was those changes -- to national party rules and state law -- that pushed the Nebraska Republican Party transition from a beauty contest primary to a winner-take-all primary election. The delegates to the national convention will still be selected at the state convention, but will be allocated based on the May 10 primary.

It should additionally be noted that in order to complete the delegate selection process in time for the July national convention, the state convention in Nebraska had to be shifted from July to the weekend after the primary in May. The primary/state convention sequence is still in place, but the meaning of the two contests has transformed and the window between them has significantly shrunk since 2012.


Thresholds
The move to a winner-take-all primary means that there is no threshold either for qualifying for delegates to trigger a winner-take-all allocation. Very simply, the plurality winner statewide is entitled to an allocation of all 36 Nebraska delegates.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Win the most votes statewide and win all of the delegates. The statewide winner takes them all.


Binding
Nebraska delegates by state party rule are bound for two ballots at the national convention. The only exception to that is if the winning candidate to whom the Nebraska delegation has been bound receives less than 35 percent of the vote on the first ballot. They would become unbound early if those conditions were met.

The selection process is different in 2016 than it has been in the past. Though not a part of the section of the state party constitution pertaining to the selection of national convention delegates (Article VII, Section 3), the new winner-take-all provision the Nebraska GOP is utilizing this cycle is an extension of the broad powers granted to the Nebraska Republican Party State Central Committee in that section. Article VII, Section 3(f) allows the NEGOP SCC to adopt any rules to implement Section 3 so long as they are consistent with the national party rules and state law.

FHQ mentions that because the addendum to the constitution that lays out the winner-take-all allocation method also has a bearing on the selection process. The last sentence of the lone paragraph of guidance on the 2016 allocation method reads:

Only candidates for National Convention Delegate and Alternate Delegate who have been pledged to the Presidential candidate who won the Nebraska Primary may be elected to the National Convention.

All other descriptions of the selection process included in the Rule 16(f) filing the Nebraska Republican Party submitted to the Republican National Committee are silent on this matter. However, the above clause is restrictive, limiting the pool of delegates to those pledged to the primary winner.

Of course, there is something of an out buried in all of this. Before 2016, national convention delegate candidates had the option of filing as pledged to a candidate or simply uncommitted.¹ That uncommitted option is gone for 2016. Instead, the form delegate candidates have to complete and submit to the state party require that candidate to either pledge to a particular candidate or to pledge to the winner of the primary. The latter is a kind of TBD -- to be determined -- option.

But what that means is that the winning candidate may or may not have delegates sympathetic to him or her at the national convention. A winning candidate having sincere delegates behind them long term at the convention is dependent upon how many of those delegates selected are specifically pledged to the winner. If they filed as Cruz or Kasich or Trump delegates, then yes, but if they filed as pledged to a winner to be determined later (via the primary), then they may not be as loyal.

The practical implication here is that if, say, Cruz wins the Nebraska primary, then the Trump and Kasich delegate candidates are sidelined. Only the Cruz and "pledged to the winner" delegate candidates would be eligible to be elected to one of the national convention delegate slots.

Again, regardless of that distinction, those 36 delegates are bound through at least one ballot and perhaps two if the Nebraska primary winner receives more than 35 percent on the the first vote.

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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ An uncommitted delegate elected at the state convention would attend the national convention unbound.


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Bill Has Nebraska Mulling an Earlier Presidential Primary

...for 2020.

Earlier this week, Nebraska state Senator John Murante (49th, Gretna) introduced legislation -- LB 871 -- that would create a new presidential primary election in the Cornhusker state, separating it from the mid-May, consolidated primary.¹ The proposal would move the separate presidential primary to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March.

This is not all that unusual. Yes, it is a bit more forward looking than is typically the case. Bills shifting the dates of presidential primaries pop up every year, but they most heavily populate the introduced bills lists in the year before a presidential election. Still, there are always a handful of bills that appear as the primaries themselves are ongoing; during a presidential election year. But over the course of the last three cycles -- 2004, 2008 and 2012 -- nothing has passed.² In most cases, actors on the state level take a wait and see approach; waiting to see how the current cycle goes before making a decision on a future one.

What is more interesting, though equally forward thinking, is how legislators across the country will react to 2016 in 2017 but especially in 2019. The SEC primary may or may not have proven successful in 2016. If it is, other states and regions may scramble to the front without the southern states moving back, creating a more robust Super Tuesday that resembles a national primary (see 2008). But the SEC primary may fall flat and organically cause actors in some of those states (and others outside the region) to reconsider their positioning or consider what spot on the calendar maximizes their voters' voices in the process.

...something the Nebraska bill's sponsor mentioned as a reason for proposing the change.

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¹ The move is expected to cost the state $1.5 million if the bill is passed and signed into law.

² Unless you count Idaho eliminating the presidential primary portion of their May consolidated primary because both parties were caucusing instead.

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Advisory No More: Nebraska Republicans Will Use Winner-Take-All Primary in 2016

Nebraska has had a presidential primary election throughout much of the post-reform era, but ever since Cornhusker state Democrats traded the May primary for earlier caucuses during the 2008 cycle, the presidential primary vote has been a virtually meaningless addition to a broader primary ballot.

In fact, on the Republican side, the presidential primary has tended to be advisory while having little or no impact on the actual allocation and binding of delegates to the national convention. For years, then, Nebraska Democrats opted into the primary and Republicans opted out. That will change in 2016, and the state party decision to change from business as usual -- adopting the presidential primary -- has as much to do with Republican National Committee delegate selection rules changes as it does with anything else.

First, the advisory Republican primary in the past has run parallel to a caucus/convention system that culminated with the selection of a bound delegation to the national convention. The state convention and delegate selection have tended to take place in July. That works in cycles in which the national conventions are scheduled in August and September. However, the RNC decision to condense the primary calendar -- on both ends -- and schedule an earlier national convention has forced rules requiring state parties to have completed their respective delegate selection processes by early June.

That put the usual July Republican state convention in Nebraska on the wrong side of the RNC delegate selection rules.

Still, the convention -- or needing an earlier one in any event -- was just one rules change hoop Nebraska Republicans had to jump through. The state party also had to shed its non-binding caucuses. That was due not only to RNC rules requiring for the first time the binding of national convention delegates in 2016, but to a change in Nebraska state law in 2014 as well. The latter newly required both state parties to allocate at least 80% of their delegates through either a primary or caucus/convention process. Those RNC rules, however, pushed Nebraska Republicans to make a decision between a caucus process that would have begun prior to the mid-May primary election or to choose the primary as the mode by which the party would select, allocate and bind 2016 delegates.¹

Faced with those alternatives, the Nebraska Republican Party opted for compliance via the path of least resistance: using the primary.

Given that decision, though, the party did have the latitude to choose any method of delegate allocation based on the results of the May primary. Here, the Nebraska Republican Party chose a unique route relative to other states with delegate selection events after March 2016. The party chose to allocate their delegates in a winner-take-all fashion.² That decision may be more a function of being required to make a change -- from completely unbound to bound -- than anything else. States with contests after March that also had rules binding delegates have shown little movement toward rules that are or will be any more winner-take-most/all than they were in 2012.

Forced to bind delegates, Nebraska has decided to go for the maximum effect: binding all 33 non-automatic delegates to the winner of the May 10 presidential primary.³ The remaining three automatic, party delegates will be free to either operate above the fray and remain unbound or cast their lot with a candidate of their choice (whether reflective of the primary winner or not).


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¹ Any statewide vote on presidential preference would be the result to which the allocation of delegates would have been tied. So, Nebraska Republicans could have had a preference vote at precinct caucuses across the state, but they would have to have preceded the mid-May primary to be the event that affected delegate allocation. Under that scenario, the party could have retained the advisory primary, though would likely have had to acknowledge more formally that it could not be advisory ex post facto (after the precinct caucuses preference vote).

² Even the language of that state party rules (party constitution) change is unique (Article VII, Section 3(a)):

All candidates for National Convention delegate and alternate delegate at the State Convention shall designate the presidential candidate to whom they are committed and shall be bound by such commitment if elected in accordance with Nebraska State Law. Delegate and alternate candidates shall indicate their commitments by mailing a notice to the State Headquarters, postmarked no later than 10 business days prior to the date the State Convention commences. Only individuals pledged to the candidate who wins the Nebraska Primary Election shall be eligible for election as delegates or alternate delegates to the National Convention.

That last line is the important one. The rule does not directly say that the allocation is winner-take-all, but only the delegates affiliated with/pledged to the winner of the primary are eligible to be selected by the state convention.

These changes to the state party constitution were made on June 6, 2015.

³ Yes, the maximum effect idea assumes that the race is still competitive when it gets to May. That may or may not happen. The point at which 75% of the delegates will have been allocated will occur in late April, before the Nebraska primary.

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Nebraska Democrats Plan March 5 Caucuses for 2016

Back in December the Nebraska Democratic Party voted to once again select delegates to the national convention through a caucuses/convention system in 2016. Now that the party released its draft delegate selection plan for public comment on March 31, it is clearer when that process will commence next year.¹ At this point, the party plans to initiate its delegate selection process with March 5 caucuses in 2016.

The Nebraska Democratic Party broke with the tradition of filtering its presidential nomination process through the Cornhusker state's May primary after the 2004 cycle. The party traded in that late primary in 2004 for earlier caucuses in 2008 as a means of falling at a point on the calendar where the nomination was unlikely to have been decided. Like 2008, the 2016 Nebraska Democratic caucuses would fall the weekend following the earliest date the parties allow non-carve-out states to conduct primary or caucus elections. The difference is that, in 2016, that would be month later on the primary calendar than was the case in 2008. Whereas the national parties allowed February contests in the 2008 cycle, that practice is now taboo for states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

That national party prohibition on February contests began during the 2012 cycle. With a Democratic incumbent seeking reelection, and thus a noncompetitive nomination race, Nebraska Democrats opted to maintain the caucuses system but to begin the process in April. An open seat Democratic nomination race in 2016 has Nebraska Democrats eyeing an earlier position for its caucuses. After a one cycle hiatus, then, the party has returned to a date for its caucuses on the heels of Super Tuesday/SEC primary on March 1.

NOTE: FHQ will pencil these dates in on the 2016 presidential primary calendar, but please note that the plans are not finalized and are still subject to change. With very few exceptions, though, the dates in the 2012 draft plans for caucuses states did not change.

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¹ The above link is to the plan on the Nebraska Democratic Party site. FHQ will also keep a version of the plan here.

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Nebraska Democrats Commit to Caucuses for 2016

During the weekend of December 13-14 the Nebraska Democratic Party voted to conduct their delegate selection/allocation process through a caucuses/convention system. From NDP chair, Vince Powers:

The NDP after a robust discussion voted today to hold caucuses for the 2016 Presidential nomination. @NebraskaDems @LJSdon @RobynnTysver
— Vince Powers (@vince_powers) December 14, 2014

The party switched from utilizing the mid- to late May primary in the Cornhusker state to caucuses for the 2008 cycle and retained the process in 2012. Such a move gives the NDP the flexibility to set the date of the precinct caucuses that the Nebraska Unicam did not or does not provide under the primary law.

In the wake of changes to the Republican National Committee rules changes -- particularly those attempting to facilitate an earlier convention -- there was talk of amending a bill in the spring of 2014 to shift the date of the primary to an earlier spot on the 2016 primary calendar. That legislation was never amended but did provide more state government guidance on the delegate selection process (primarily on the binding of those delegates to candidates).

The delegate selection plan Nebraska Democrats used in 2012, if carried over in 2016, would pass muster under the new law.

Left unclear by the NDP is when the precinct caucuses will take place in 2016. That decision will be made in 2015.

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Nebraska Bill on Binding Delegates Based on Primary or Caucus Results Signed into Law

When FHQ discussed Nebraska bill LB 1048 back in February, talk was that an amendment would be added to the legislation. That amendment would have had the effect of shifting the presidential primary in the Cornhusker state out of May and to an earlier point on the presidential primary calendar. Yet, that particular amendment never came.

However, LB 1048 unanimously passed the Nebraska Unicam late last week and was signed into law by Governor Dave Heinemann (R) on Wednesday, April 9.  

From February, here's the impact of the bill for the presidential nomination process in Nebraska in 2016:

1. State parties have to submit delegate selection plans to the Nebraska Secretary of State by December 1 in the year prior to the presidential election.
2. Those plans should allocate at least 80% of the total number of delegates to candidates based on the results of a primary or caucuses.
3. The plans must also specify how or if those delegates would be bound to particular candidates.
4. Finally, those plans must also set a minimum threshold of 15% in the primary for a candidate to eligible for any delegates whether allocated proportionally or in a winner-take-all manner.

At its core, the new law requires that the state parties bind at least 80% of their delegates to candidates based on either the state-funded presidential primary election or presumably the first step of a party-funded caucus process (the precinct caucuses). Nebraska Democrats are already compliant, having done this the last two cycles through a caucuses/convention process.

The above changes to the law will be more consequential to Republican Conrnhuskers. The primary has always been used as an advisory beauty contest and the beginning stages of the caucus process had no direct bearing on the selection of delegates. A certain number of delegates for a particular candidate did not have to be elected in a precinct based on the percentage of the vote that candidate received there. The only restrictions were 1) that potential delegates to the national convention had to file with the state and party (with a candidate preference) just after the primary and 2) only credentialed delegates to the state convention were eligible.

There was, however, no binding mechanism. Now there is. And it was consistent with the DNC delegate selection rules and with the new binding requirement that the RNC has added to its rules for 2016.

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May Presidential Primary Could Be on the Move in Nebraska

Add Nebraska to the list of states reacting -- directly or indirectly -- to the recent Republican National Committee (delegate selection) rules changes.

As it stands now, Nebraska is slated to have a presidential preference primary election on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in May. That would be May 10, 2016. There is, however, a movement afoot to add an amendment to a broader elections bill before the state legislature that would shift that date up by a month into April. From the vantage point of early 2014, that may be a shrewd decision on at least one front: The first Tuesday after the second Monday in April, 2016 is in the middle of an otherwise vacant portion of the the 2016 presidential primary calendar. If state actors, then, are seeking to maximize the impact Nebraska voters may have on the nominations processes in 2016, moving to a date on which Nebraska is the only game in town, may work to their advantage.¹

Of course, there are potential roadblocks to this.

Moving the primary up, triggers the classic dilemma for the late (presidential primary) state -- like Nebraska -- with concurrent primaries for the presidential nomination among a host of state and local offices. Move everything up or create and fund a separate and earlier presidential primary? As the article from the Omaha World Herald indicates, the former affects state legislators' primaries while the latter may be viewed as less than cost-effective. Moving everything to April extends the general election campaign for state legislators by a month, meaning more work for the very people making this change. And creating a separate presidential primary does not seem to be on the table.

Nebraska Democrats also seem to have indicated that they are going to continue operating outside of the state-funded primary option. Since 2008, Nebraska Democrats have selected delegates through a party-funded caucuses/convention format that allows them to begin their process earlier than is possible with the May primary funded by the state.

But it is on that particular point where this gets even more complicated. The bill (LB 1048) that will supposedly contain the amendment provision that would move up the date of the primary also sets the parameters around other parts of the delegate selection process in the Cornhusker state:

1. State parties have to submit delegate selection plans to the Nebraska Secretary of State by December 1 in the year prior to the presidential election.
2. Those plans should allocate at least 80% of the total number of delegates to candidates based on the results of a primary or caucuses.
3. The plans must also specify how or if those delegates would be bound to particular candidates.
4. Finally, those plans must also set a minimum threshold of 15% in the primary for a candidate to eligible for any delegates whether allocated proportionally or in a winner-take-all manner.

All of this mostly aligns with how both Nebraska Democrats and Republicans allocated delegates in 2012. The one exception is that the Republican primary process has always been advisory to the caucus/convention process.² LB 1048 seeks to end the advisory nature of the primary, eliminating the provisions concerning the state conventions from the current law and adding a binding mechanism to any primary or caucuses utilized by the parties.

What may look like a good idea on paper -- moving the date up -- may not look as good once partisans (in the nonpartisan, unicameral Nebraska state legislature) get a closer look at what some of the other provisions in the bill will do to the delegate selection process. There are a number of items that may not sit well with various groups.

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¹ It is also true that that position may not prove advantageous at all. Such an incremental shift may still come after the point at which the nomination has been decided, depending on how other states move around and how the preceding contests have allocated delegates to the various candidates.

² Truth be told, there is a Democratic primary election as well on that May primary ballot, but Democrats abandoned it for the 2008 cycle, meaning that the primary vote in both the major party presidential primaries was next to meaningless.

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The Electoral College Map (11/2/12)

24 new polls from 17 states closed out the final work week before election day. Additionally, there were two other surveys from earlier in October factored in as well from a couple of non-competitive states -- Maine and Nebraska.

New State Polls (11/2/12)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Obama	Romney	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Colorado	Survey USA/Denver Post	10/28-10/31	+/- 3.8%	695 likely voters	47	45	--	+2	+1.65
Colorado	Public Policy Polling	10/31-11/1	+/- -.-%	825 likely voters	50	46	4	+4	--
Connecticut	Public Policy Polling	11/1-11/2	+/- 2.8%	1220 likely voters	55	42	3	+13	+11.64
Georgia	20/20 Insight	10/29-10/31	+/- 2.7%	1316 likely voters	46	52	1	+6	+9.04
Hawaii	Civil Beat/Merriman River Group	10/24-10/26	+/- 2.8%	1218 likely voters	61	34	5	+27	+29.35
Indiana	Howey-Depauw	10/28-10/30	+/- 3.5%	800 likely voters	41	50	--	+9	+12.01
Indiana	McLaughlin	10/31-11/1	+/- 4.0%	600 likely voters	41	54	5	+13	--
Iowa	Gravis Marketing	11/1	+/- 4.0%	594 likely voters	49	45	6	+4	+2.67
Maine	NMB Research	10/7-10/8	+/- 4.0%	500 likely voters	48	44	--	+4	+13.21
Maine	Public Policy Polling	11/1-11/2	+/- 2.4%	1633 likely voters	55	42	2	+13	--
Massachusetts	Kimball Consulting	10/31-11/1	+/- 3.48%	761 likely voters	54.0	41.4	4.6	+12.6	+19.56
Massachusetts	Public Policy Polling	11/1-11/2	+/- 3.0%	1089 likely voters	57	42	2	+15	--
Michigan	Public Policy Polling	10/31-11/1	+/- -.-%	500 likely voters	52	46	2	+6	+5.72
Michigan	Grove Insight	10/31-11/1	+/- 4.4%	500 registered voters	48	41	9	+7	--
Michigan	Rasmussen	11/1	+/- 4.0%	750 likely voters	52	47	1	+5	--
Minnesota	Public Policy Polling	10/31-11/1	+/- -.-%	772 likely voters	53	44	3	+9	+7.90
Montana	Mellman Group	10/28-10/31	+/- 3.5%	800 likely voters	41	49	--	+8	+9.11
Nebraska	Wiese/Omaha World-Herald	10/23-10/25	+/- 3.8%	679 likely voters	38	52	--	+14	+13.76
Nebraska	We Ask America	11/1	+/- 2.95%	1178 likely voters	41	54	3	+13	--
Nevada	Mellman Group	10/29-10/31	+/- 4.0%	600 likely voters	50	44	4	+6	+4.06
New Hampshire	New England College	10/29-10/31	+/- 3.7%	1017 likely voters	50	44	4	+6	+3.30
Ohio	We Ask America	10/30-11/1	+/- 2.6%	1649 likely voters	50	46	--	+4	+2.86
Ohio	CNN	10/30-11/1	+/- 3.5%	796 likely voters	50	47	3	+3	--
Ohio	Rasmussen	11/1	+/- 4.0%	750 likely voters	49	49	1	0	--
Virginia	We Ask America	10/30-11/1	+/- 3.0%	1069 likely voters	49	48	--	+1	+1.69
Wisconsin	We Ask America	10/30-11/1	+/- 3.0%	1210 likely voters	52	45	--	+7	+4.57

This was another seemingly good polling day for the Obama campaign on the state level. Among the toss up states, the president held small leads in Colorado and Virginia (tier one states) and more comfortable advantages  in polls in states like New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa; those Tier two states. Also, there was a bit more distance between the president and Mitt Romney in the Tier three states, Nevada and Wisconsin. Strategically, Romney has to do well in at least the Tier one and Tier two states. And by do well, I mean nearly sweep them. The former Massachusetts governor could -- if the order of states below in the Electoral College Spectrum holds -- cede New Hampshire or Iowa, or Colorado and still get to 270 with North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Ohio. But Romney would have to have two of those three smaller states to get there. If the rank order is correct, New Hampshire would be that state.

From the Obama perspective, it is still a matter of holding Nevada and Wisconsin (along with the other Lean Obama states where the margins have contracted) and tacking on Ohio or Virginia and New Hampshire for example to just push north of 270. But there are a number of other combinations of paths to 270 for the president as well if polling like that above continues to come in.

The map (changes since 11/1):

Changes (November 2)
State	Before	After
Nevada	Toss Up Obama	Lean Obama

No change in the overall tally. Obama: 332, Romney: 206.
Nevada barely shifts back into the Lean Obama category (> 4%).

The Electoral College Spectrum (changes since 11/1): No change in the order among the toss up states.
Nevada holds its position but slides into the Lean category.
Maine and Washington trade places.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
VT-3 (6)2	ME-4 (158)	NH-4 (257)	GA-16 (167)	MS-6 (58)
HI-4 (10)	NJ-14 (172)	OH-183 (275/281)	SD-3 (151)	KY-8 (52)
NY-29 (39)	CT-7 (179)	IA-6 (281/263)	SC-9 (148)	AL-9 (44)
RI-4 (43)	NM-5 (184)	VA-13 (294/257)	IN-11 (139)	KS-6 (35)
MD-10 (53)	MN-10 (194)	CO-9 (303/244)	TN-11 (128)	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)	WV-5 (112)	OK-7 (20)
CA-55 (139)	MI-16 (237)	AZ-11 (191)	TX-38 (107)	ID-4 (13)
DE-3 (142)	WI-10 (247)	MO-10 (180)	ND-3 (69)	WY-3 (9)
WA-12 (154)	NV-6 (253)	MT-3 (170)	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.

The Watch List (changes since 11/1): Nevada, given the shift above, is now within a fraction of a point of moving back into the Toss Up Obama category. Put simply, the Silver state is going to hug that line the rest of the way without a significant change in the polling data there.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Florida	from Toss Up Obama	to Toss Up Romney
Georgia	from Strong Romney	to Lean Romney
Montana	from Strong Romney	to Lean Romney
Nevada	from Lean Obama	to Toss Up Obama
New Hampshire	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:

Frequently Asked Questions about FHQ graduated weighted average methodology.
&
An Update on how to read it in 2012.

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