At least once every month between now and the gen­eral elec­tion, we exam­ine the reëlec­tion land­scape for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. Each time, we take a look at the var­i­ous fac­tors that typ­i­cally influ­ence elec­tion out­comes, and com­pare them to the pre­vi­ous month.

So, how are things going for the Pres­i­dent? This month’s answer may sur­prise you.

Polls

Last month, I noted that we needed to watch out for the impact of rapidly ris­ing oil prices. Sure enough, the price spikes at the gas pumps are push­ing Obama’s approval rat­ings down, and his dis­ap­proval rat­ings up. This month, the Real Clear Pol­i­tics aver­age shows Obama’s approval/​disapproval rat­ing back in neg­a­tive ter­ri­tory, with a –0.8 +2.1 point spread. This is a nearly three-​​point drop from last month, and marks the first month of a drop, after four straight pos­i­tive months.

The Right Track/​Wrong Track polls have seen a sim­i­lar, albeit less pro­nounced trend. This month the spread grew by 0.9 points to −26.9. This time, this poll under­states the wors­en­ing of the Pres­i­dent and Con­gress; Congress’s spread wors­ened by 0.9 points to −71.2. The generic Con­gres­sional bal­lot shifted back to the red col­umn this month, mov­ing 1.2 points to R+0.5. In all, it has not been a good month for Obama or Con­gres­sional Demo­c­ra­tic incumbents.

As of yes­ter­day, Intrade had Obama at a 60.9 per­cent chance of reëlec­tion, up 1.2 points from last month. Obama’s posi­tion has been steadily improv­ing for six straight months, and is again at his 26-​​week high. That said, after a month of being well ahead of Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney in indi­vid­ual head-​​to-​​head polls, the dif­fer­en­tial has nar­rowed con­sid­er­ably, now back within the mar­gin of error, though cen­tered on a slight Obama lead.

After sev­eral months con­sid­er­ing other can­di­dates as viable alter­na­tives to Rom­ney, this time I’m leav­ing him stand­ing alone. The odds of any other can­di­date clinch­ing the nom­i­na­tion are now very small.

Over­all, things look mixed for the Pres­i­dent, and are trend­ing neg­a­tively. Red arrow this time.

The Com­pe­ti­tion

While there’s scant evi­dence of a Rom­ney Romp to the con­ven­tion, it seems as if the path to Romi­na­tion is long and slow. Many Repub­li­cans are prone to point to the 2008 Demo­c­ra­tic bat­tle between Obama and then-​​Senator Hillary Clin­ton (D-​​NY) as evi­dence that a long nom­i­na­tion process is not dam­ag­ing. This is true on its face; the issue isn’t the length of the nom­i­na­tion, but rather the sat­is­fac­tion of party mem­bers with the even­tual nom­i­nee, even if they pre­ferred some­one else. Democ­rats tended to be pleased that they had two good choices, and so most Hillary sup­port­ers’ dis­ap­point­ment was mild. The same does not appear to be the case among Repub­li­cans, many of whom are vehe­mently opposed to Rom­ney, and will be severely dis­ap­pointed (or even angered) by his even­tual nom­i­na­tion. It is in this arena that the 2008 com­par­i­son breaks down.

Regard­less, Rom­ney has long been the can­di­date who polls best against Obama (at least in national polls), and his polls against Obama have been ris­ing this past month. If Rom­ney were the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee today, and the gen­eral elec­tion were to hap­pen today, polls indi­cate an extremely close race.

Last month, Obama earned a solid green arrow here. This month, it’s back to gray ball land.

The Econ­omy

The past month looks good, though with the same red flag as last month.

Employ­ment has looked good of late. ADP reported the 23rd straight month of increased employ­ment, this time with an increase of over 250,000 jobs from Decem­ber to Jan­u­ary. The Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics indi­cated an addi­tional 227,000 in Feb­ru­ary. On the other hand, the seasonally-​​adjusted unem­ploy­ment rate was unchanged in Feb­ru­ary from Jan­u­ary. It’s been over two years and count­ing since the unem­ploy­ment rate has risen. Retail sales rose 1.1 per­cent in Febu­rary, after a 0.6 per­cent rise in Jan­u­ary, sug­gest­ing strength in the core econ­omy. The unex­pected good news sent the Dow Jones Indus­trial Aver­age to a new Obama-​​administration high, and the high­est seen since the last day of trad­ing for 2007.

On the other hand, West Texas Inter­me­di­ate crude is trad­ing at about $107, up almost three per­cent from last month, while Brent crude (rep­re­sent­ing the Euro­pean mar­ket) has risen twice as quickly over that time. Though rises in oil prices are often lag­ging indi­ca­tors of increased eco­nomic activ­ity, this time it appears to be more due to the grow­ing uncer­tainty of the sit­u­a­tion in Iran than to a grow­ing econ­omy, some­thing I noted last month. Again, this sug­gests that we’re going to have some more drag on the econ­omy in the next few months, which could dampen or even reverse the cur­rent eco­nomic exu­ber­ance. If noth­ing else, it has already impacted Obama’s approval rat­ings, and prob­a­bly his polling against Romney.

Most indi­ca­tors are still look­ing good, so it’s a green arrow this month. But those still-​​rising oil prices could indi­cate storm clouds on the hori­zon. This is some­thing to watch out for.

Other Fac­tors

There’s been plenty going on in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, yet they don’t seem to be hav­ing an impact on Obama’s reëlec­tion prospects.

With this past month being a big yawner in the “other fac­tors” cat­e­gory, it’s another gray ball month here.

The Elec­toral College

This is the sec­ond month that we’re look­ing at the Elec­toral College.

Here’s what’s changed since last month’s bat­tle­ground, from most likely to go Romney’s way to most likely to go Obama’s way:

  • Penn­syl­va­nia is get­ting bluer. Polls over the past month show a con­sis­tent Obama lean, just out­side the mar­gin of error. Penn­syl­va­nia gets a blue tint this month.
  • Vir­ginia’s polling has also improved for Obama this past month, and looks as good as Pennsylvania.
  • Ohio had a new poll of reg­is­tered vot­ers this month from NBC News/​Marist, which gave Obama the lead by a dozen points over Rom­ney, and even more over the other Repub­li­can can­di­dates. This is an Obama lean even tak­ing into account the typ­i­cal enthu­si­asm gap between the parties.
  • Wis­con­sin’s recent polls show a stronger Obama lean than in Ohio.

I’m not try­ing to bias the results here; there really were no bat­tle­ground states that moved in Romney’s direc­tion. That said, we’re still get­ting light polling from those states; many have sim­ply not been polled over the past month.

If we do include Penn­syl­va­nia in the lean cat­e­gory, Obama gets 278 elec­toral votes, enough for a win. The first three states in the above list are just barely on the lean side of the divid­ing line, though, so such a pre­dic­tion is ten­u­ous at best.

The Trends

Here’s how things look overall.

Area Effect  Change from Last Month
Polls
The Com­pe­ti­tion
The Econ­omy
Other Fac­tors
The Elec­toral College

Con­clu­sion

Obama’s had quite a few good months in a row. Based on the Elec­toral Col­lege, this month should be a slam-​​dunk for a green arrow. But the elec­tion isn’t being held today; it’s in a lit­tle over seven months. And the longer-​​term indi­ca­tors are point­ing neg­a­tive. Because of the com­pet­ing short– and long-​​term indi­ca­tors, I’m giv­ing this month an over­all gray ball. We’ll have to see how things pan out.

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