We’ve had a busy two weeks. Now the real cam­paign­ing begins in earnest. And in Florida, Ohio, North Car­olina, Vir­ginia, Col­orado, New Mex­ico, and Nevada.

Of course, our Reëlec­tion Watches look back­ward a lit­tle more than they look for­ward, so le cen­tre du jour is the Con­ven­tion Bumps. How are they turn­ing out for the two lead­ing can­di­dates? 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. Still. No sign of it budg­ing, dur­ing or after either con­ven­tion. It seems that the con­ven­tions haven’t con­vinced a mea­sur­able num­ber of peo­ple to change their approval or dis­ap­proval of Obama.

In the national pop­u­lar vote matchup of Obama ver­sus Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney, the President’s lead has shrunk again in the past two weeks, man­i­fest­ing itself in a con­tin­ued top­ping out Obama and con­tin­ued growth for Rom­ney. The Rom­ney growth last time came after announc­ing Ryan as his run­ning mate, and it hasn’t stopped since. As I men­tioned last time, we would nor­mally expect the Vice Pres­i­dent announce­ment bump to revert to the mean shortly there­after, but that any such rever­sion would be obscured by the con­ven­tion bump would expect. Thus far, this has met expec­ta­tions. We’re still too early to see the effects of a con­ven­tion bump from the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion from any­one but Gallup and Ras­mussen, nei­ther of whom have been par­tic­u­larly close to the polling aver­ages. Real Clear Pol­i­tics shows Obama up by a mere 0.7 points, which puts him in a bet­ter posi­tion than he was with respect to Sen­a­tor John McCain on this date four years ago, when he was behind by a point. On the other hand, on this date in 2004 we were see­ing polls close to the peak of the Repub­li­can Con­ven­tion Bump, and as the effects of the Demo­c­ra­tic Con­ven­tion Bump were wear­ing off. By this date in 2004, Sen­a­tor John Kerry’s was 6.4 points behind Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, and he never got close after that.

Obama’s favor­a­bil­ity polls have shifted in a strange way of late. Until recently, polls of “Amer­i­cans” and “reg­is­tered vot­ers” were more favor­able than those of “likely vot­ers”. Now, about 50 per­cent of “likely vot­ers” have a favor­able view of the Pres­i­dent, while about five per­cent fewer “reg­is­tered vot­ers” feel the same. The two recent “likely vot­ers” polls sug­gest that his favor­ables are a point or two below 50 per­cent. Romney’s favor­a­bil­ity polls haven’t changed in a sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant man­ner over the long haul; aside from two clear out­liers (both from CNN/​Opinion Research), 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 57.8, up a lit­tle over half a point from last time.

Over­all, things still look decent for the incum­bent Pres­i­dent, but at the national level the out­come looks far from certain.

The Repub­li­can National Convention

Events in Tampa had a near com­i­cal level of error. Hur­ri­cane Isaac both cost Repub­li­cans a day of con­ven­tion­ing and cre­ated sig­nif­i­cant news dis­trac­tion. Clint East­wood both cre­ated a “WTF” moment and sucked the atten­tion away from Mitt Rom­ney, who should have been the spot­light story on the last day.

Mean­while, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan’s (R–Janestopthis­crazy­thing, WI) keynote address was so full of patent false­hoods that even Fox News had trou­ble find­ing nuggets of truth in it. Sud­denly, the meme of “Ryan Lies” got legs, and even polit­i­cally incon­se­quen­tial sto­ries like his marathon time became news.

On the plus side for 2016, the Repub­li­cans had a few solid poten­tial can­di­dates for Pres­i­dent. We’ll see in another three years or so which among them can stand up to the level of scrutiny nec­es­sary to suc­ceed in the grind of Pres­i­den­tial elections.

Through­out, the con­ven­tion del­e­gates seemed mostly bored, out­side of the final hours of each day. Con­sid­er­ing that those peo­ple are there because they went through a process designed to admit only the most enthu­si­as­tic par­ti­sans, that doesn’t bode par­tic­u­larly well for Rom­ney. This is par­tic­u­larly true when one con­sid­ers the longer story, wherein Rom­ney bat­tled past Don­ald Trump, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bach­mann (R–Still­crazy, MN), Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry, Her­man Cain, and for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich. All of those were lead­ing can­di­dates at one point because so many in the Repub­li­can Party wanted any­one but Rom­ney. And now that they’re stuck with him, the over­all sen­ti­ment is some­thing of mild indi­ges­tion. If the del­e­gates, the most par­ti­san of the par­ti­san, can’t get enthused through­out three days, what does that say about the enthu­si­asm of the voters?

A can­di­date never wants to be in a posi­tion where win­ning requires that your vot­ers hold their noses in the polling booth. In such a sit­u­a­tion, many will be dri­ven away from the booth altogether.

The Demo­c­ra­tic National Convention

That’s not to say that the Democ­rats ran a per­fect con­ven­tion. The final day was moved from the foot­ball sta­dium to the bas­ket­ball sta­dium. Whether it was due to weather or due to optics, it was a net neg­a­tive. It would have been far bet­ter had the foot­ball sta­dium been the quiet backup plan.

Del­e­gates in Char­lotte were a more enthu­si­as­tic bunch than their Tampa coun­ter­parts. Of course, enthu­si­as­tic del­e­gates doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily trans­late to an enthu­si­as­tic base, so this pos­i­tive doesn’t carry as much weight as the Repub­li­can neg­a­tive I out­lined above.

Democ­rats had their share of good speak­ers as well, though clearly not as many seri­ous 2016 con­tenders as the Repub­li­cans have. But San Anto­nio Mayor Julián Cas­tro did give a solid speech.

For­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton did what he always does so well, with a speech full of data, par­tic­u­larly devoid of false­hoods (espe­cially when com­pared to the Repub­li­can coun­ter­part slot held by Ryan), and inspir­ing in its deliv­ery. It had the unin­tended con­se­quence of mak­ing Obama’s reg­u­lar stump speech feel muted and flat in com­par­i­son. But it also had the intended con­se­quence of illus­trat­ing the more com­plete story of Rom­ney and Ryan’s eco­nomic pro­pos­als, and to an audi­ence that exceeded that of the National Foot­ball League’s open­ing games, against which Clin­ton had to com­pete for live viewers.

Over­all, the Democ­rats deliv­ered a bet­ter con­ven­tion, though not by orders of mag­ni­tude. Regard­less, con­ven­tion bumps have steadily been shrink­ing as cam­paign­ing has become a more con­stant sport, so it’s hard to imag­ine that either con­ven­tion will have either a large or last­ing impact on the electorate.

The Elec­toral College

This is the first Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of Reëlec­tion Watch. The Tossup and Leans bands have nar­rowed again, as they will twice more: once in the first Octo­ber edi­tion, and once in our final projections.

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:

  • Mis­souri had a con­fus­ing set of polls last time, with two match­ing the “Leans Rom­ney” trend, and two sug­gest­ing a tossup. Two new polls con­firm the old trend. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling gave Rom­ney a 12-​​point unad­justed lead (adjust­ing to 15 in the­ory, but I’m begin­ning to sus­pect that PPP isn’t as left-​​leaning these days as they used to be), while the Post-​​Dispatch/​Mason-​​Dixon poll shows Rom­ney with a seven-​​point lead. While I think PPP is over­stat­ing Romney’s edge here, I’m also con­fi­dent enough in the over­all his­tor­i­cal trend to move Mis­souri into the “Likely Rom­ney” column.
  • North Car­olina was polled by four firms five times in the past two weeks; one firm hit them twice. High Point/​SurveyUSA ran a poll just before the con­ven­tions, and saw an unad­justed tie (which adjusts to a five-​​point lead for Rom­ney). They ran another dur­ing the three days of the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion, and found an addi­tional three-​​point bump for Rom­ney. Mean­while Elon University/​The Char­lotte Observer ran one at the same time as SurveyUSA’s sec­ond poll, and saw a four-​​point Rom­ney lead. Cou­ple these with Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, who ran a poll in between the two con­ven­tions and came away with a tie (which adjusts to a three-​​point Rom­ney lead), and North Car­olina clearly “Leans Rom­ney”. This is a shift from pre­vi­ous Reëlec­tion Watches, which had tied the Tarheels to “Tossup”. I’ve been expect­ing to move it for a while, but sparse polling pre­vented it until now.
  • Iowa finally saw another poll, just before the con­ven­tions, from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling. Their two-​​point unad­justed lead for Obama trans­lates to basi­cally a tie. No sur­prise there; Iowa has been tied between the two can­di­dates for a long time, though pri­mar­ily because of being polled infre­quently, by few firms, and with a lot of noise in the data. Iowa is still at Tossup, and may well be so right up to the election.
  • Florida is get­ting polled pretty heav­ily these days. Most recently, CNN/​Time polled just before the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion, and saw a four-​​point lead for Obama. Between the two con­ven­tions, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling and Gravis Mar­ket­ing polled the state. PPP saw an unad­justed one-​​point Obama lead (adjust­ing to two in Romney’s favor), while Gravis saw a point for Rom­ney. Those num­bers indi­cate the expected con­ven­tion bump. Based on his­tor­i­cal trends, after both con­ven­tions’ bumps dis­si­pate, we’ll be pretty much where we started, with the noise so over­whelm­ing the sig­nal that the tiny edge Obama has over the long haul is barely dis­cernible. Florida remains a “Tossup”. Still. One thing to keep in mind is that the num­ber of unde­cid­eds has been falling steadily in Florida. The bat­tle for the mid­dle is all but done here.
  • Col­orado was polled twice in the past two weeks. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling’s pre-​​convention poll saw Obama with a three-​​point unad­justed lead (which adjusts to a tie), while the Demo­c­ra­tic Party-​​funded Keat­ing poll, con­ducted between the two con­ven­tions, saw a four-​​point lead for the incum­bent. Real Clear Pol­i­tics aver­ages the trend into a 2.3-point Obama lead, but I’m not con­vinced, since there are too many left-​​leaning poll­sters in their cur­rent mix in Col­orado. I think Obama has a small edge, but not as big as RCP thinks, at least for the period before the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion. Col­orado remains on the blue side of the mid­dle, but within the newly-​​narrowed Tossup range.
  • Vir­ginia was polled only once since last time, by Ras­mussen, who saw an unad­justed tie, which adjusts to a one-​​point lead for Obama. The poll was con­ducted before either con­ven­tion, so it has only the Ryan Bump in it. Vir­ginia is still on the blue side of a Tossup, and I don’t expect any addi­tional red tint between now and our next installment.
  • Nevada got polled by Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, whose pre-​​convention poll indi­cated a three-​​point unad­justed (one point adjusted) lead for Obama. With the Ryan Bump included in that poll, and the typ­i­cal rever­sion to the mean that fol­lows a Vice Pres­i­den­tial Announce­ment Bump, I don’t see any rea­son to move Nevada from its cur­rent “Leans Obama” designation.
  • Ohio got polled twice in the last two weeks. The Colum­bus Dispatch’s pre-​​convention “likely voter” poll showed a tie, while Gravis Marketing’s “reg­is­tered voter” poll between the two con­ven­tions gave Rom­ney the edge by three (which should trans­late to about five or six points in Rom­neys favor in a “likely voter” model). Unfor­tu­nately, we don’t have enough data to dis­cern any house bias from these two, and Ohio’s polling has long been noisy. If the polls had come from agen­cies with a big­ger track record, they’d carry more weight in our model, and prob­a­bly push Ohio back into the “Tossup” col­umn. But they don’t, and so our model is keep­ing Ohio in “Leans Obama”. That could change in the next round, but that depends on how the con­ven­tion bumps smooth out in the next two weeks.
  • New Hamp­shire wasn’t polled in the past two weeks, either. Tellingly, though, the Rom­ney cam­paign is keep­ing their adver­tis­ing cam­paign intact here. For this rea­son, I moved New Hamp­shire from below Wis­con­sin on this list, to now above Michi­gan. But we still have no new polling data, so there’s no rea­son to move New Hamp­shire out of the “Leans Obama” column.
  • Michi­gan had two new polls in the past two weeks. I told you last time that the Baydoun/​Foster poll was an obvi­ous out­lier, and that was cor­rob­o­rated by the new data. EPIC-MRA’s poll, con­ducted dur­ing the first “real” day of the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion, saw a three-​​point lead for Obama, while Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling saw Obama up by seven unad­justed (four adjusted) points in the days between the two con­ven­tions. By them­selves, these two polls wouldn’t give us much to go on. But the broader trend is unmis­take­able. It appears that the Rom­ney cam­paign staffers see the same thing; they pulled all adver­tis­ing from Michi­gan late this week. Michi­gan is still a “Leans Obama” state, but I expect it to move to “Likely Obama” in the next installment.
  • Wis­con­sin hasn’t been polled in the last two weeks, to my sur­prise. But, like in Michi­gan, Romney’s cam­paign has elected not to include Wis­con­sin in the lat­est round of adver­tis­ing. Wis­con­sin remains in the “Leans Obama” col­umn, but I sus­pect the next round of polls will push it into “Likely Obama”.
  • Penn­syl­va­nia also hasn’t been polled in the past two weeks, again to my sur­prise. And, like Wis­con­sin, Rom­ney has cho­sen not to run his lat­est round of adver­tis­ing here. Also like Wis­con­sin, Penn­syl­va­nia remains in “Leans Obama”, but only because we’re wait­ing for another round of polls.

In the past two weeks, fewer states of inter­est were polled than in the two prior weeks. North Car­olina and Mis­souri have both shifted one col­umn to the right. No states changed sides or moved into the “Tossup” group. Obama still ends up with a likely 275 elec­toral votes, based on my pro­jec­tion. That’s now eight con­sec­u­tive weeks where Obama could lose all tossups and still stay in the White House.

Con­clu­sion

Romney’s Ryan Bump seems to have peaked and fallen. It’s too early to tell if there’s any sticky bump from either con­ven­tion. Until we see some­thing look­ing like a stick on the Repub­li­can side, and a slide on the Demo­c­ra­tic, 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 eight weeks. Rom­ney would win Florida, and Obama would win the other tossups. I don’t see enough struc­tural advan­tage for Rom­ney in those to give him the edge that he’d have in Florida. 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?

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