This is the first edi­tion of Reëlec­tion Watch after the Supreme Court deci­sion on Oba­macare. It’s too early to see any sig­nif­i­cant effects, though. And, being the last day of June, it’s the last day in which I use the broad­est ranges for tossups. In elec­toral vote land, a cou­ple of states changed columns in the past two weeks.

So, how are things going for the Pres­i­dent lately? Let’s dive in.

National Polls

Still no change in Obama’s approval/​disapproval rat­ing in the Real Clear Pol­i­tics aver­age. It’s been the same story for the past few months. The Right Track/​Wrong Track polls sug­gest a slight wors­en­ing trend, though not by much.

The improve­ment in Congress’s approval spread con­tin­ues, as it has for half a year now. The generic Con­gres­sional bal­lot which had until recently shown a trend of unde­cid­eds becom­ing decid­eds, saw a recent decline for Repub­li­cans. It hasn’t gone on long enough to call it a trend yet, but it’s some­thing to watch for as we head into summer.

This shift appears to be echoed in the national pop­u­lar vote matchup of Obama ver­sus pre­sumed Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney. It’s been a noisy month, though, so again this may not be indica­tive of a trend.

I’m adding a new seg­ment, start­ing in this edi­tion, on favor­a­bil­ity rat­ings. Real Clear Pol­i­tics is track­ing them for both Obama and Rom­ney. While the spread is inter­est­ing to look at, the favor­ables are more indica­tive than unfa­vor­ables when it comes to the vote tally. Favor­able trans­lates to a vote, while unfa­vor­able trans­lates to a non-​​vote; as such, high unfa­vor­ables for both major can­di­dates is more likely indica­tive of a lower turnout than of an assured vic­tory for either candidate.

Obama’s favor­ables have been at least 50 per­cent very con­sis­tently on polls of “Amer­i­cans” or “reg­is­tered vot­ers”, but less so on polls of “likely vot­ers”. Then again, there have been so few “likely voter” polls of Obama’s favor­a­bil­ity that there aren’t enough data points to tease the sig­nal from the noise. Favor­ables above 50 per­cent are highly cor­re­lated with win­ning an elec­tion if the oppos­ing can­di­date doesn’t have sim­i­larly high favor­ables. Romney’s favor­able rat­ing has yet to crest above 50 per­cent on any poll. In every poll where he and Obama appear on the same poll, his favor­able rat­ing is lower than Obama’s.

While these polls are highly sug­ges­tive of an Obama vic­tory, they are typ­i­cally far­ther removed from the key sig­nal of elec­toral votes than are many other indi­ca­tors. We’ll hit the oth­ers down below.

As of yes­ter­day, Intrade had Obama at a 54.1 per­cent chance of reëlec­tion, up two points from last time. This is the first increase in some time, with the rise begin­ning about ten days ago.

Things remain in a pro-​​Obama state on the national scene, and might pos­si­bly be improv­ing. We’ll have to wait until next time to see if it’s noise or a trend.

The Econ­omy

Unem­ploy­ment com­pen­sa­tion claims fell slightly recently, though not enough to mat­ter in terms of improv­ing the econ­omy this sum­mer. We’re pretty much at the end of employ­ment num­bers hav­ing an impact on the upcom­ing elec­tion, bar­ring a huge swing in one direc­tion or the other between now and Octo­ber, an unlikely event.

Euro jit­ters con­tinue to impact the United States stock mar­kets; the Dow Jones Indus­trial Aver­age dipped last week and then recov­ered this week to close where it was two weeks ago. Over­all, the shape of the mar­ket trends sug­gests that 13,500 (or per­haps a few hun­dred points below that) is still the ceil­ing for the Dow until there is some espe­cially com­pelling evi­dence of a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in the US economy.

Oil prices con­tinue to stay low, rel­a­tive to our recent peak. West Texas Inter­me­di­ate and Brent crude are essen­tially unchanged for the past two weeks at $84 and $97, respec­tively. These num­bers are indica­tive of sta­bi­lized prices, sug­gest­ing that recent eco­nomic shrink­age has come to an end. While the unsea­son­ably low prices pro­vide some fuel for eco­nomic growth, time is run­ning out for any such growth to be reflected in the elec­tion. Unsur­pris­ingly, gaso­line has con­tin­ued to fall after the oil price drop; the national aver­age is $3.35 per gal­lon, down 17 cents from two weeks ago, and 19 cents below the same week last year.

Nat­ural gas prices still falling, most likely a reflec­tion of near­line stor­age approach­ing sat­u­ra­tion, cou­pled with the nat­u­rally declin­ing demand that comes with warmer sum­mer tem­per­a­tures. While the prices are still above their March bot­tom of two dol­lars per mil­lion British Ther­mal Units, they are rapidly approach­ing that price point again, and at cur­rent trends will reach that price by the end of July.

The recent eco­nomic dip appears to have come to a close, with lead­ing indi­ca­tors point­ing up, and trail­ing indi­ca­tors sta­bi­liz­ing. I con­tinue to believe that any eco­nomic improve­ments between now and Novem­ber will not per­co­late into the vote, which means that Obama will have to abide by the cur­rent econ­omy as his ref­er­en­dum yard­stick. For this rea­son, this is the last install­ment of the eco­nomic sec­tion, unless a major shock occurs between now and the fall.

The Elec­toral College

As I men­tioned above, I’ll be nar­row­ing the Tossup zone start­ing in our next install­ment, and widen­ing the Likely zones.

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

Here are the states with new data since last time, cov­er­ing only those dis­cussed around the Inter­net as “leans” or “tossups”, from red­dest to bluest:

  • South Car­olina and Geor­gia are still “Leans Rom­ney” to Real Clear Pol­i­tics, and I still think they’re nuts.
  • Ari­zona went back to the “Leans Rom­ney” col­umn in the land of Real Clear Pol­i­tics. Rasmussen’s lat­est poll gives Rom­ney a 13-​​point unad­justed lead (which adjusts to about 11 points). This con­firms my beliefs from last time, that Ari­zona is nearly as far into “Leans Rom­ney” ter­ri­tory as Indi­ana. This is not going to be a deci­sive state in the election.
  • Mon­tana had a new poll from Ras­mussen, show­ing an adjusted seven-​​point Rom­ney lead. That mar­gin would leave the state in “Leans Rom­ney” ter­ri­tory until late sum­mer if it stays pretty steady.
  • North Car­olina has two new polls, one from Ras­mussen and one from NBC News/​Marist. Account­ing for their biases, they line up with the oth­ers of the past month, slightly on Romney’s side. North Car­olina is near the bor­der between “Tossup” and “Leans Rom­ney”, though far enough away to stay in “Tossup” until prob­a­bly Octo­ber, at the cur­rent rate.
  • Florida, had a new poll from Quin­nip­iac, though its adjusted Obama lead of four points makes it seem like an out­lier. Absent more polls to con­firm Quinnipiac’s shift, I’m leav­ing the Sun­shine State a “Tossup”.
  • Iowa was polled by WeAskAmer­ica this week, who found Obama with a mere one-​​point lead. This con­firms the recent over­all trend sug­gest­ing that Iowa has a very slight lean to Obama, but not enough to over­come daily noise. If this posi­tion remains the same, Iowa will be a tossup right to elec­tion night.
  • Ohio had two new polls, one from Quin­nip­iac, show­ing an adjusted nine-​​point Obama lead, and one from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, show­ing an adjusted tossup. The polls in the Buck­eye state have been all over the map, sug­gest­ing a high degree of error over­all. This makes Ohio a tossup only because the noise appears to be drown­ing out any signal.
  • New Hamp­shire is being called “Tossup” by Real Clear Pol­i­tics. With two new polls, one from NBC News/​Marist, show­ing an adjusted four-​​point Rom­ney lead, and one from Ras­mussen, show­ing a six-​​point Obama lead, it appears that they may be right. The data seem about as noisy as Ohio’s, though I con­sider New Hamp­shire just a shade bluer than Ohio.
  • Col­orado has two new polls, one from WeAskAmer­ica, who indi­cates a four-​​point Obama lead, and one from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, who indi­cates a two-​​point adjusted lead for Obama. Those two match the recent trend of a slight lean to Obama. If this per­sists until early Octo­ber, I’ll con­sider Col­orado a Leans Obama state. For now, though, it’s still a Tossup.
  • Michi­gan was polled three times in the past two weeks, mak­ing for seven in the past month. NBC News/​Marist shows an adjusted tie, Mitchell Research found Obama ahead by one, and WeAskAmer­ica indi­cated a two-​​point Rom­ney mar­gin. Col­lec­tively, this sug­gests that the Ras­mussen poll from last time was an out­lier. Michi­gan moves up the list con­sid­er­ably this month, and is now among the Tossups.
  • Vir­ginia got only one new poll since last time, from WeAskAmer­ica, who found a five point lead for Rom­ney. This is far enough from the recent trends to sug­gest that the poll is an out­lier. Absent more data to sup­port WeAskAmer­ica, Vir­ginia remains on the blue end of the Tossup range.
  • Ore­gon was polled again by Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, this time giv­ing enough of an edge to Obama to keep it as a “Leans Obama” state. It appears their pre­vi­ous poll was an out­lier, based on the broader trends.
  • Wis­con­sin was polled recently by Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity, who showed a six-​​point lead for Obama on a Likely Voter model (we don’t have enough data to adjust for house bias) and Ras­mussen, who had an adjusted one-​​point mar­gin for Obama. Based on col­lec­tive recent data, Ras­mussen looks like an out­lier here. I’m still con­fi­dent that Wis­con­sin belongs in the “Leans Obama” column.
  • Maine had a recent poll from WBUR/​MassINC, who found a 14-​​point Obama lead in a Likely Voter model. If this gets con­firmed by some other poll­sters, Maine will move from “Leans Obama” to “Likely Obama” start­ing in July.

In the past two weeks, both Michi­gan and New Hamp­shire moved from “Leans Obama” to “Tossup”. Obama now needs 39 elec­toral votes (up from 19 last time) out of the 126 in the tossup group. If my order­ing is cor­rect, the divid­ing line would have to be above New Hamp­shire for an Obama win, and below New Hamp­shire for a Rom­ney win. Yes, Rom­ney could win Florida and Ohio, and still lose the election.

Con­clu­sion

Romney’s rise in the national polls appears to be reach­ing a ceil­ing, at least for now, but the Elec­toral Col­lege shifted slightly in his favor. It will be inter­est­ing to see how the Supreme Court deci­sions on Arizona’s immi­gra­tion law and Oba­macare impact the polls over the next few weeks.

If I had to pre­dict an Elec­toral Col­lege result, I’d still put the divid­ing line in the above list between Florida and Iowa. That would give Obama 303, and Rom­ney 235. In that sce­nario, Obama would be 62 votes shy of his 2008 tally.

How do you feel about these pre­dic­tions? Do you dif­fer on them? If so, how, where, and why?

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