State polling for the Pres­i­den­tial race was a lit­tle qui­eter for a week, and then picked up sharply this week. The rhetoric, though, has been any­thing but quiet for both weeks, with the increased scrutiny of Team Red com­ing from pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Romney’s nam­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan (R-​​Janesville, WI) as his run­ning mate, and increased scrutiny of the social-​​conservative wing of the Repub­li­can Party. Has the addi­tion of Ryan to the team affected the out­come pro­jec­tions? Are the social con­ser­v­a­tives scar­ing mod­er­ates away from Rom­ney? Let’s take a look.

National Polls

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s approval/​disapproval rat­ing in the Real Clear Pol­i­tics aver­age con­tin­ues to oscil­late right around zero, as it has been since the begin­ning of spring. The Right Track/​Wrong Track polls also remain mostly steady. Unless these have a sig­nif­i­cant change between now and elec­tion day, this is the last time we look at them.

The long improve­ment in Congress’s approval spread seems to have reversed, head­ing back deeper into neg­a­tive ter­ri­tory. It’s no longer a use­ful met­ric for the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, though, and so this is the last time we will look at it between now and elec­tion day. As promised last time, the generic Con­gres­sional bal­lot is gone from Reëlec­tion Watch; it’s also not of much use to us at this stage.

In the national pop­u­lar vote matchup of Obama ver­sus pre­sumed Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney, the President’s lead has shrunk some in the past two weeks, man­i­fest­ing itself in a top­ping out Obama and growth for Rom­ney. The Rom­ney growth has been entirely after announc­ing Ryan as his run­ning mate. Since it’s com­mon to have a post-​​announcement bump, this is hardly unex­pected. Ordi­nar­ily, we would expect this to revert to the mean shortly, but any such rever­sion would be obscured by the con­ven­tion bump that we can expect to see next week. The shift we saw last time in Obama’s num­ber appears to be sticky, which I noted last time puts Obama in the ter­ri­tory of a con­fi­dent national pop­u­lar vote win. Obama’s lead over Rom­ney today is a lit­tle greater than his lead over Sen­a­tor John McCain on this date four years ago. By this date in 2004, Sen­a­tor John Kerry’s lead over Pres­i­dent George W. Bush had all but evap­o­rated, and he never got it back.

Obama’s favor­a­bil­ity polls remain pretty con­sis­tently over 50 per­cent favor­able among “Amer­i­cans” or “reg­is­tered vot­ers”. The two recent “likely vot­ers” polls sug­gest that his favor­ables are a point or two below 50 per­cent. Still, whether you look at recent num­bers or longer his­tory, the Pres­i­dent has pos­i­tive favor­a­bil­ity, even while his job approval has been lower. Romney’s favor­a­bil­ity polls haven’t changed in a sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant man­ner over the long haul; aside from one clear out­lier, he hasn’t bro­ken 50 per­cent yet, regard­less of the type of sam­ple. Obama still has the edge here.

While these polls remain 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 57.2, down about a point and a half from last time. This is the first decrease after two straight months of increases. I believe this is merely a reflec­tion of the Vice Pres­i­den­tial announce­ment bump, and we should expect to see rever­sion to the mean after things set­tle down from the two conventions.

Over­all, things still look some­what rosy for the incum­bent President.

The Com­pe­ti­tion

We’re back to exam­in­ing the Repub­li­can can­di­date. Well, now it’s can­di­dates, as we know who the Vice Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date will be, too.

We’ve already talked about Ryan a few times. In that regard, there’s lit­tle to add here. How­ever, it’s worth review­ing the poten­tial impact of his addi­tion to the ticket. As has been pointed out by many, it is impos­si­ble to add Ryan into the mix with­out elim­i­nat­ing a lot of the ethe­real nature of Romney’s cam­paign to date. Sud­denly, hand-​​waving must be replaced by con­crete fis­cal discussion.

But, more­over, mov­ing from the House to a heart­beat away from the White House invites a level of scrutiny few can truly appre­ci­ate. Ryan’s rep­u­ta­tion as a hard-​​line fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tive hasn’t matched up with a thor­ough review of his vot­ing record. He has, in fact, voted in favor of Key­ne­sian policy…and even spoke out in favor of it dur­ing the George W. Bush years. To his credit, he called his ear­lier sup­port a mis­take, but it’s impos­si­ble to deter­mine whether his change of heart was caused by a change in the party of the White House occu­pant. If noth­ing else, his rep­u­ta­tion of con­sis­tency in fis­cal con­ser­vatism has been called into question.

That said, there is no chance that a hard­core fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tive would choose Obama over Rom­ney. It’s pos­si­ble that some would be per­suaded to stay home or vote for Lib­er­tar­ian can­di­date Ron John­son, though that is likely to be a very, very small number.

As it stands, Ryan is likely to help get the reluc­tant Repub­li­can base to the polls, which helps Rom­ney. At the same time, it comes at the cost of push­ing mod­er­ates toward Obama. It’s hard to tell which will be the dom­i­nant force between the two, but it’s prob­a­bly the right gam­ble, given that mod­er­ates weren’t par­tic­u­larly enthu­si­as­tic about Rom­ney before the Ryan announcement.

In addi­tion, unscripted actions like Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Todd Akin’s (R-​​Wildwood, MO) recent com­ments regard­ing rape and preg­nancy are forc­ing Rom­ney to go off mes­sage and into dam­age con­trol mode. Next week brings us the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion in Tampa, Florida, and it will now be par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult to bury the abso­lutist abor­tion plank of the party under the glossier, more generic sen­ti­ment that Rom­ney has tried to hold in pub­lic. This may be espe­cially true on Tues­day night, when for­mer Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Rick San­to­rum deliv­ers his mis­sive on social conservatism.

The Elec­toral College

This is the sec­ond August edi­tion of Reëlec­tion Watch. The Tossup and Leans bands will nar­row again next time, after the conventions.

Here’s what the 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:

• Mon­tana was polled again by Ras­mussen, for the first time in two months, and Rom­ney came out ahead by 17 points. It’s hard to lend cre­dence to this large a mar­gin there, given the over­all poll his­tory con­tour. The biggest prob­lem I have with Mon­tana polling is that it’s been han­dled exclu­sively by Ras­mussen and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and we haven’t heard from the lat­ter in four months.  Nonethe­less, the new poll gives me the oppor­tu­nity to reeval­u­ate Mon­tana, and I’m mov­ing it into the “Likely Rom­ney” col­umn. Even with all of the caveats I listed, I have lit­tle rea­son to believe that Mon­tana will be send­ing its three elec­tors to vote for Obama, though I doubt that the mar­gin will end up in the high teens.
• Mis­souri was polled by Sur­veyUSA, who saw a one-​​point Rom­ney lead, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, who saw a ten-​​point unad­justed Rom­ney lead (which adjusts to a dozen), and Ras­mussen, who found Obama up by one (adjust­ing to a two-​​point Obama lead). This group is hard to inter­pret. Sur­veyUSA and Ras­mussen are pretty far to the left of the his­tor­i­cal trend, and PPP is a cou­ple of points to the right of the trend. Before yesterday’s Ras­mussen poll, I chalked it up to Sur­veyUSA being the out­lier, and PPP the trend. Now I’m not so sure. Sur­veyUSA and Ras­mussen have both had a recent his­tory of swing­ing pretty wildly, which leaves me cau­tious to lend­ing too much cre­dence to them this time. For this rea­son, I’m leav­ing Mis­souri as a “Leans Rom­ney” state, wait­ing for con­fir­ma­tion in a cou­ple of weeks of which were the more accu­rate poll­sters this time.
• Florida had five new polls in the past two weeks. Ras­mussen saw an unad­justed two-​​point lead for Rom­ney (trans­lat­ing to a one-​​point adjusted lead), and Gravis saw the same two point lead as Ras­mussen. Pur­ple Strate­gies found Rom­ney up by one point (which adjusts to a one-​​point Obama lead). Rel­a­tive unknown FMW/​Baydoun con­cluded that Rom­ney leads by an aston­ish­ing 15 points, so far out­side the trend as to be an obvi­ous out­lier. Finally, CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac came away with an unad­justed three-​​point lead for Obama, which cor­re­sponds to a five-​​point adjusted lead. The over­all recent view sug­gests a Ryan Bump of a cou­ple of points, which his­tory sug­gests should dis­si­pate. Oth­er­wise, the noise remains of larger mag­ni­tude than the mar­gin, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to deter­mine a lead­ing can­di­date in the Sun­shine State from polls alone. Florida remains a total enigma, and thus an up-​​the-​​middle “Tossup”. Still.
• Col­orado was polled once more in the past two weeks. Pur­ple Strate­gies came away with an unad­justed three-​​point lead for Obama, which is an adjusted five-​​point lead. This rein­forces my belief from last time that the early-​​August CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac poll was an out­lier. Col­orado remains on the blue side of the mid­dle, but within Tossup range.
• Vir­ginia was polled by Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, who saw Obama up by five unad­justed points (two adjusted), Pur­ple Strate­gies, who found Rom­ney up by three unad­justed points (one adjusted), and Ras­mussen, who saw an unad­justed tie (that’s a lit­tle over a point in Obama’s favor). Vir­ginia is still on the blue side of a Tossup, but this round sug­gests that it might be closer than it looked two weeks ago.
• Nevada got polled by the Las Vegas Review-​​Journal/​SurveyUSA , who came away see­ing Obama ahead by two points, and Garin Hart Yang, who found Obama up by five. The Sur­veyUSA poll shows a smaller mar­gin than the his­tor­i­cal aver­age, but by exactly the amount one would pre­dict from the Ryan Bump. Garin Hart Yang didn’t see the bump, despite cov­er­ing the first week­days after the announce­ment. Since we can expect rever­sion to the mean, I don’t see any rea­son to move Nevada from its cur­rent “Leans Obama” des­ig­na­tion, par­tic­u­larly on the grounds of a sin­gle poll.
• Ohio got five new polls this fort­night. Pur­ple Strate­gies saw a two-​​point unad­justed Rom­ney lead, which adjusts to a tie, while Ras­mussen’s unad­justed tie adjusts to a one-​​point edge for Obama. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, on the other hand, saw an unad­justed three-​​point Obama lead, which adjusts to almost a tie. And then there was CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac’s six-​​point unad­justed Obama lead (eight adjusted), and Ohio Poll/​University of Cincin­nati’s three-​​point Obama lead. Ohio’s polling has long been noisy, but the broader trend looks like Obama has the edge. Ohio remains a “Leans Obama” state.
• Michi­gan had three new polls in the past two weeks. Baydoun/​Foster saw a four-​​point lead for Rom­ney, while Mitchell Research and Detroit News saw the oppo­site, five and six points for Obama, respec­tively. Real Clear Pol­i­tics is at times too quick to react to some data, and moved Michi­gan to “Tossup”. Look­ing at the broader trend, though, Baydoun/​Foster is clearly the out­lier this time, par­tic­u­larly con­sid­er­ing how far off the mark they were in Florida as well. Michi­gan is still a “Leans Obama” state.
• Wis­con­sin was cov­ered by five poll­sters since last time. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling and Ras­mussen both saw a one-​​point unad­justed lead for Rom­ney, which adjusts to a four-​​point lead in the for­mer case, and a tie in the lat­ter. Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity, CNN/​Opinion Research, and CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac on the other hand, found a three-​​, four-​​, and two-​​point unad­justed lead for Obama, respec­tively, which adjust down to a hair under one and two points for the first two, respec­tively, and up to four for Quin­nip­iac. Things moved a hair in the Rom­ney direc­tion, but one would expect a Ryan Bump, which implies that we’ll prob­a­bly see things revert to the mean after the con­ven­tions die down. We’re not going to be able to tell for sure until a month from now, but in the mean­time I’m going to go on his­toric trends. Wis­con­sin remains in the “Leans Obama” column.
• New Hamp­shire was polled by both Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling and WMUR/​University of New Hamp­shire. PPP saw an unad­justed three-​​point lead for Obama, which adjusts to a hair below four, while WMUR found Obama up by three. Both are in line with the his­tor­i­cal trend, so there’s no rea­son to move New Hamp­shire out of the “Leans Obama” column.
• Penn­syl­va­nia was polled by Franklin & Mar­shall, who saw an unad­justed five-​​point Obama lead, cor­re­spond­ing to a three-​​point adjusted lead; and by The Morn­ing Call, who saw a nine–point Obama lead. I thought last time that the CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac poll was an out­lier, but it’s pos­si­ble we’re wit­ness­ing a shift toward Obama. Penn­syl­va­nia remains a “Leans Obama” state for now, but another round like this one will make me move the Key­stone State into the “Likely Obama” col­umn. It was enough to move Penn­syl­va­nia below New Hamp­shire in this list.
• Con­necti­cut was polled by Ras­mussen, whose eight-​​point unad­justed Obama lead (adjust­ing to nine) is right in line with expec­ta­tions. It stays “Likely Obama”.

New York and Okla­homa were also polled, but there are no sur­prises in either state, with mar­gins approach­ing 30 points. I’ll leave it to you to guess who was on top in those polls.

In the past two weeks, fewer states of inter­est were polled than in the two prior weeks, but the most cru­cial states have got­ten more atten­tion. Mon­tana was the only state to move, and it has been poised to do so for a while. No states changed sides or moved into or out of the “Tossup” group, though if I were more aggres­sive in respond­ing to indi­vid­ual polls I could have moved Wis­con­sin and/​or Ohio. Obama still ends up with a likely 275 elec­toral votes, based on my pro­jec­tion. That’s now six con­sec­u­tive weeks where Obama could lose all tossups and still stay in the White House.

Con­clu­sion

Romney’s Ryan Bump seems to have stopped the bleed­ing, but it remains to be seen if he can buck the his­tor­i­cal trend and make the bump stick. Until we see evi­dence that he can, the Elec­toral Col­lege remains in Obama’s court.

If I had to pre­dict an Elec­toral Col­lege result, I’d keep things exactly where they have been for the past six weeks. That pre­dic­tion 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?

Related arti­cles

• NBC/​WSJ poll: Head­ing into con­ven­tions, Obama has four-​​point lead (firstread​.nbc​news​.com)
• Reëlec­tion Watch: August 11, 2012 (log​a​rchism​.com)
• Will big money save Mitt Rom­ney and the GOP? (eng​lish​.ruvr​.ru)
• NBC News/​Wall Street Jour­nal poll reveals 2012′s stark racial divide (the​grio​.com)
• “That’s what hap­pened when I was pres­i­dent” (salon​.com)
• Poll: Ryan-​​As-​​Running-​​Mate Helps Rom­ney In Wis­con­sin, But Just A Bit (npr​.org)
• NBC/​WSJ poll: Pres­i­dent Barack Obama has 4-​​point lead over Mitt Rom­ney — @NBCNews (firstread​.nbc​news​.com)
• Poll: Obama Has Big Lead With Lati­nos But Enthu­si­asm is Tepid (the​mod​er​at​evoice​.com)