It’s been a more active past two weeks than one might pre­vi­ously have thought.

So, how are things going for the Pres­i­dent lately?


National Polls

Obama’s approval/​disapproval rat­ing in the Real Clear Pol­i­tics aver­age remains as it has been for a cou­ple of months…no sig­nal, just noise. Like­wise with the Right Track/​Wrong Track polls, though we’re now sit­ting at the local min­i­mum, against which it’s bounced for the past three months.

And the same can be said for Congress’s approval spread, and the generic Con­gres­sional bal­lot. Basi­cally, the national approval polls have become a big yawn.Things also look sta­ble in the national pop­u­lar vote matchup of Obama ver­sus pre­sumed Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney, with Obama lead­ing by 1.5 to 2.0 points. What’s remark­able is that the two are trend­ing in tan­dem, i.e., when Rom­ney rises, so does Obama, and when Rom­ney falls, the Pres­i­dent does, too. It’s an unusual behavior.

As of yes­ter­day, Intrade had Obama at a 54.7 per­cent chance of reëlec­tion, down 3.3 points from last time. The trend of deflat­ing Intrade odds con­tin­ues, though the lat­est eco­nomic news accel­er­ated that trend.

Things are still in a some­what pro-​​Obama state, but with a con­tin­u­ing trend mov­ing toward a close race.

The Econ­omy

Yes­ter­day, the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics released a report show­ing employ­ment grow­ing at a sig­nif­i­cantly reduced rate. Non­farm pay­roll grew by only 69,000, a sig­nif­i­cant drop from two months ago. While it’s still a pos­i­tive num­ber, it’s suf­fi­ciently tepid as to be a wor­ri­some sign, par­tic­u­larly since the report didn’t really have any sil­ver linings.

Unsur­pris­ingly, the stock mar­ket didn’t react kindly to the sur­pris­ingly down labor report, drop­ping to its low­est level since Christ­mas. If you look at the long-​​term trend of the Dow Jones Indus­trial Aver­age, you’ll notice the short­en­ing cycles (18 months, then 11 months, then 9 months), with smaller growths in the peak each time. That behav­ior is indica­tive of approach­ing a ceil­ing, prob­a­bly at about 13,500 points. On the plus side (in terms of Obama’s reëlec­tion poten­tial), the trend also sug­gests a rebound to begin in July, with the next drop occur­ring after the elec­tion, per­haps as late as Jan­u­ary. This means that it is pos­si­ble for the cur­rent slump (which prob­a­bly has another 500 points to go before it hits bot­tom, based on recent trends) to become a mem­ory before November.

In terms of oil, West Texas Inter­me­di­ate crude con­tin­ues to fall, now at $83, down nine per­cent in the last two weeks, while Brent crude (rep­re­sent­ing the Euro­pean mar­ket) has fallen over seven per­cent to about $99. As I noted last time, the drop in oil prices is unusual for this time of year. With more over­all eco­nomic data, it strongly sug­gests reduced over­all eco­nomic activ­ity. Of course, the lower price sup­ports more eco­nomic activ­ity going for­ward; it’s a ques­tion of tim­ing as to whether it would boost the econ­omy in time for the elec­tion, though. The con­tin­ued drop in oil prices has been reflected in gaso­line; the national aver­age is $3.61 per gal­lon, down a dime from two weeks ago, and 16 cents below the same week last year.

Nat­ural gas prices are still above their March bot­tom of two dol­lars per mil­lion British Ther­mal Units, but down a bit from their recent peak of $2.65 to about $2.40. This is still half the price of nat­ural gas this time last year.

The eco­nomic skies are pretty cloudy right now, and it remains to be seen how long this will last. The big ques­tion is whether things will look suf­fi­ciently bet­ter with enough time before the elec­tion to stick in the minds of the vot­ers. From where I stand now, it’s going to be really close, and that tim­ing may be the crit­i­cal fac­tor in the final vote tally.

The Elec­toral College

Last time, I showed you a Cook Par­ti­san Vot­ing Index (PVI) trend model, which I read­ily admit was overly sim­plis­tic. I’m in the process of tun­ing it with some other data to pro­duce a bet­ter pre­dic­tion of the PVI of the swing states in this year’s election.

For now, let’s see what the cur­rent Elec­toral Col­lege looks like, based on cur­rent polling data:

 

Things have shifted around a hair in the past two weeks. Here’s what’s changed since last time, from most red­dest to bluest:

  • Ari­zona is still called a tossup by RCP. The most recent Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling poll gives Rom­ney a seven-​​point edge. To me, that means it’s pos­si­bly in play, but I see a Grand Canyon between the polls and tossup ter­ri­tory; it’s a solid “Leans Rom­ney” state.
  • Mis­souri got a new Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling poll, show­ing a one-​​point Obama lead. I sus­pect that’s too gen­er­ous in the President’s favor, but it is prob­a­bly on the red end of the tossups.
  • North Car­olina got a cou­ple of new polls, one from Sur­veyUSA and one from Republican-​​hired Civ­i­tas. They both show small leads for Rom­ney, and keep North Car­olina just below Mis­souri on this list. It does not appear that Amend­ment 1 has had any dis­cernible impact on the polls here.
  • Florida, had two new polls, one from Quin­nip­iac and one from NBC News/​Marist. Just like two weeks ago, the two new polls strad­dle the even mark, leav­ing Florida a pure tossup from a polling per­spec­tive, and again with­out a change in its posi­tion on this list.
  • Nevada had one new NBC News/​Marist poll, giv­ing Obama two points. It’s enough to push the Sil­ver State up above Ohio on the list, but it stays purple.
  • Ohio had two new polls since last time. NBC News/​Marist showed a six-​​point Obama lead, while Ras­mussen gave the edge to Rom­ney by two points. With the Ras­mussen lean, Ohio remains tinged a lit­tle blue, but not quite enough to leave “Tossup” land for “Leans Obama”.
  • Vir­ginia got a new poll from NBC News/​Marist; its four-​​point Obama lead is within the error mar­gin of the last month’s polls. That aggre­gate keeps Vir­ginia in “Tossup”.
  • Col­orado has two new polls, one from NBC News/​Marist, and one from Democrat-​​funded Project New America/​Keating. The two are close enough to the even mark that I’m now con­vinced that the Pur­ple Strate­gies poll was cor­rect. This is the one state that moves columns; it’s gone from “Leans Obama” to “Tossup”, and moves above Penn­syl­va­nia on the list.
  • Penn­syl­va­nia had two new polls, one from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and one from Ras­mussen. The two con­tinue to sug­gest that the Key­stone State is bluer than Vir­ginia, and just over the bor­der into “Leans Obama” territory.
  • New Mex­ico got a new poll from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, rein­forc­ing its sta­tus as a solid “Leans Obama” state.

Based on this month’s polling, Obama needs 29 elec­toral votes (up from 20 last time) out of the 116 in the tossup group. Many com­bi­na­tions would do the trick, with the most likely being Vir­ginia and Ohio, though Col­orado, Nevada, and Ohio together would also work. Rom­ney would have to nearly run the table of tossups to eke out a victory.

Con­clu­sion

It’s still a close race, and get­ting closer still. The sad thing about all of this is that it’s only a close race because both sides are weak­ened, though each for a dif­fer­ent reason.

The new employ­ment report hasn’t yet had time to per­co­late through the polls. Tune in next time; we may see some more sig­nif­i­cant move­ment in a few key states.

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