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.

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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.



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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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The Electoral College Map (9/3/12)

FHQ has been playing catch up since Tampa, so let's update the electoral college map, shall we? We'll add in new data from Florida and North Carolina -- four new polls -- released last night and this morning in addition to some leftovers from late last week and before. In total, there are ten new -- to our dataset -- surveys from six states.

New State Polls (9/3/12)
State
Poll
Date
Margin of Error
Sample
Obama
Romney
Undecided
Poll Margin
FHQ Margin
Florida
8/31-9/2
+/- 2.5%
1548 likely voters
48
47
4
+1
+0.47
Illinois
7/16-7/22
+/- 4.7%
600 adults
51
31
14
+20
+23.11
Illinois
8/17-8/23
+/- 4.7%
600 adults
55
29
16
+26
--
Michigan
8/28
+/- 2.6%
1200 likely voters
49
46
5
+3
+4.18
North Carolina
8/25-8/30
+/- 3.0%
1089 likely voters
43
47
6
+4
+1.13
North Carolina
8/26-8/30
+/- 4.3%
543 registered voters
43
46
6
+3
--
North Carolina
8/31-9/2
+/- 3.1%
1012 likely voters
48
48
4
0
--
Virginia
7/31
+/- 4.0%
797 likely voters
44
40
16
+4
+2.68
West Virginia
4/25-4/28
+/- 4.8%
410 likely voters
37
54
10
+17
+14.98
West Virginia
8/22-8/25
+/- 4.9%
401 likely voters
38
52
10
+14
--

Polling Quick Hits:
Florida:
One poll does not a bounce make. The Public Policy Polling survey of the Sunshine state conducted in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention in Tampa showed no movement toward Mitt Romney as compared to the previous poll PPP had in the field there. Yet, FHQ would wager that the jury is still out on that. Does PPP show a bounce? No, but that does not mean that it will not show up somewhere else. Romney not winning Florida makes the electoral college math extremely difficult because if Obama is winning in Florida, then the president is likely winning in Iowa, Virginia, Colorado and Ohio as well. Those four states are all on the other side of the partisan line -- behind Florida -- for Romney.

Illinois:
I don't know how much stock to put in the two IPSOS polls of Illinois. On the one hand, they confirm what we already know: Obama will be victorious in the Land of Lincoln. However, these are polls not of registered or even likely voters, but of adults. Obama will win Illinois, but these two surveys may not give us the best idea of how much the president is ahead there.

Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, Romney improved his share of Michigan respondents in the latest EPIC/MRA survey while Obama maintained both his share and the overall lead in the state. Romney's growth relative to the last poll by the firm cuts into the president's lead there, but is consistent with the most recent polling in Michigan. The margin has shrunk, but still favors Obama. Michigan is one of those states that in 2012 would be what North Carolina was to Obama in 2008: the cherry on top of an already winning electoral college tally.

North Carolina:
The trio of polls in North Carolina collectively show a slight stretching of Romney's advantage in the Tar Heel state. Consequentially, Romney holds a three point edge among registered voters in the update to last week's High Point University poll. That margin would likely be wider among likely voters. Taken with the new Elon poll, then, those two fall in line with other recent polling in North Carolina better than the tie that PPP found in the state. That isn't to say it isn't close in North Carolina -- it is -- but Romney holds an advantage that is going to be difficult for Obama to overcome. The Old North state is in the exact same position it was four years ago. If Obama wins North Carolina, he is adding to an already healthy electoral college vote total. The difference in 2012 is that the trajectory of the polling in the state is not moving in the president's direction.

Virginia:
This Gravis Marketing poll is old. FHQ hinted at it back in early August, but we did not have the requisite information to include it in our averages at the time. After talking with the folks in the polling firm, however, we do now have that information. This is obviously a pre-Ryan poll and is -- at Obama +4 -- consistent with the other polls released around the same time. But there are a lot of undecideds in that poll. That isn't a criticism, but one wonders how those folks would break; particularly since some are likely leaners that were not included in the candidates' totals.

West Virginia:
About all you can say about this pair of polls is that we now have some polling data for West Virginia. That is a good thing. Up to this point -- with no polls -- FHQ was reliant on the previous three elections' results as a means of calibrating where West Virginia fit into the Electoral College Spectrum. And since  West Virginia was "competitive" in 2000 and 2004, the average was quite a bit closer than it is in reality in 2012. The two surveys from Repass confirmed that Romney is a step above Obama in the Mountain state.


Despite the influx of data, the map remains unchanged. The Spectrum,  on the other hand, witnessed a bit of a shake up if not self correction. West Virginia, as alluded to above, shifted deeper into the Romney half of the Electoral College Spectrum, jumping five states almost to the bottom of the second column over from the right. Illinois, too, saw a broadened margin upon the introduction of new data, but for the president. But those are both safe states for their respective candidates. In the states that are consequential to determining the winner of the electoral college, the new data only served to confirm the preexisting state of the race. Obama has a lead in Michigan, small lead in Virginia, a smaller one in Florida and trails Romney in North Carolina. Romney could push things to Virginia on the Spectrum and still come up short without Ohio or Ohio and Colorado if the order below were to hold in terms of vote margins on election day.


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, like the Spectrum, saw some alterations. Significantly, North Carolina slides off the list which is a small win for Romney. Again, North Carolina is close, but it is now not within a point of moving over toward Obama. Florida is still the closest state and while the Sunshine state is in Obama's column now, it is within range of moving over toward Romney (as it has in several other accountings of the state of the electoral college). Thankfully, West Virginia also moves off a list it never really had any business being on. The Mountain state was never at risk of being just a lean state for the former Massachusetts governor. It just wasn't.

Now if we could just get some polling in the field in Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, we would be good to go. Each is a little closer than might otherwise be the case if we had more roust -- or just more -- survey information.


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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