Now that polls are com­ing out at a furi­ous pace, we too are step­ping up the pace of Reëlec­tion Watches, to a weekly schedule.

What’s the lat­est on the upcom­ing Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion? Let’s dive in and see.

National Polls

In the national pop­u­lar vote matchup of Pres­i­dent Barack Obama ver­sus Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney, the President’s lead has grown to its largest level since early April. Unlike his April lead, though, we’re now see­ing a num­ber of polls with Obama gar­ner­ing 50 per­cent of respon­dents, mak­ing this new lead carry sig­nif­i­cantly more weight than that of the spring. Obama’s lead over Rom­ney com­fort­ably exceeds that of Pres­i­dent George W. Bush over Sen­a­tor John Kerry on this date eight years ago, but is just over half the size of his lead over Sen­a­tor John McCain four years ago.

Obama’s favor­a­bil­ity polls remain very good, with most exceed­ing 50 per­cent. Romney’s favor­a­bil­ity polls have improved some­what, but he still has been unable to break the 50 per­cent ceil­ing. Obama has con­sis­tently held a three to five per­cent edge over Rom­ney all year.

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 79, up 7.6 points from last week. The past three weeks have shown the largest shift since the Intrade Obama reëlec­tion mar­ket opened.

Over­all, things look very good for the incum­bent Pres­i­dent at the national level.

The Com­pe­ti­tion

Not much has changed on the Repub­li­can front. Mitt Rom­ney is still hav­ing dif­fi­culty dig­ging out from under his Mit­tic­u­lous rep­u­ta­tion. This week, he ran a new adver­tise­ment, and for the first time spoke directly to the cam­era. That is, this was the first ad he ran where he was talk­ing directly to Amer­i­cans. Good for him, since he needs to con­nect with Amer­i­can vot­ers to win, par­tic­u­larly after last week’s “47 per­cent” débâcle.

But there’s some­thing wrong with the ad. Let’s look at the transcript.

Too many Amer­i­cans are strug­gling to find work in today’s econ­omy. Too many of those who are work­ing are liv­ing pay­check to pay­check, try­ing to make falling incomes meet ris­ing prices for food and gas. More Amer­i­cans are liv­ing in poverty than when Pres­i­dent Obama took office and 15 mil­lion more are on food stamps. Pres­i­dent Obama and I both care about poor and middle-​​class fam­i­lies. The dif­fer­ence is my poli­cies will make things bet­ter for them. We shouldn’t mea­sure com­pas­sion by how many peo­ple are on wel­fare. We should mea­sure com­pas­sion by how many peo­ple are able to get off wel­fare and get a good pay­ing job. My plan will cre­ate 12 mil­lion new jobs over the next four years—helping lift fam­i­lies out of poverty and strength­en­ing the mid­dle class. I’m Mitt Rom­ney and I approve this mes­sage because we can’t afford another four years like the last four years.

Romney’s talk­ing to the audi­ence about…some­body else. Notice how the word “you” never appears? When he’s talk­ing about what he’s going to do, he’s not talk­ing about what he’s going to do for the peo­ple watch­ing the ad. “..[M]y poli­cies will make things bet­ter for them.” Not for you…for them.

This is, in a nut­shell, the core prob­lem Rom­ney has in con­nect­ing. It high­lights his world­view (or at least the meme of his world­view), that Rom­ney sup­port­ers are not the poor or middle-​​class fam­i­lies. The prob­lem he has is that a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of those who sup­port him (or at least sup­ported him before this past month) are poor or middle-​​class fam­i­lies. If you look at the crosstabs in those polls that pro­vide them, his sup­port­ers have crossed many income lines. Sure, the highest-​​income fam­i­lies are most likely to vote for him, but if your elec­tion strat­egy is to dom­i­nate the top five per­cent and drive away the other 95 per­cent, you’re going to lose.

Early Vot­ing

The polls have opened in 21 states. At least, the home polls have. Absen­tee bal­lots are now able to be sub­mit­ted in Arkansas, Geor­gia, Idaho, Illi­nois, Indi­ana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Mary­land, New Jer­sey, North Car­olina, North Dakota, Okla­homa, South Dakota, Ten­nessee, Texas, Ver­mont, Vir­ginia, West Vir­ginia, Wis­con­sin, and Wyoming. Of them, the ones of most inter­est in the bat­tle are Iowa, North Car­olina, Vir­ginia, and Wis­con­sin; we need to pay espe­cially care­ful atten­tion to those three state’s polls from here on out.

A total of 37 states allow for no-​​fault absen­tee bal­lots, and the remain­ing 16 are spread over the next 18 days. Next week’s batch includes the crit­i­cal states of Ohio and Florida.

The Elec­toral College

Here’s what the Elec­toral Col­lege looks like, based on cur­rent polling data:

Here are the 15 states with new data since last time, cov­er­ing only those dis­cussed around the Inter­net as “leans” or “tossups”, from red­dest to bluest:

  • Ari­zona got back on the list last week, because there was a hint of evi­dence that the race was tight­en­ing in the Grand Canyon State. The lat­est Ras­mussen poll, show­ing Rom­ney with a ten point lead, sug­gests oth­er­wise. Ari­zona remains “Likely Romney”.
  • Indi­ana finally got polled again, and once again it’s Howey/​DuPauw, who sees a dozen point lead for Rom­ney. If it weren’t such a sparsely-​​polled state, I’d move Indi­ana to “Likely Rom­ney”, but the error bars are huge here. My gut calls it “Likely Rom­ney”, but the model doesn’t sup­port that.
  • North Car­olina was twice polled in the past week. Civ­i­tas saw a four point Obama lead, while NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist found Obama up by two (which adjusts to a tie). North Car­olina is still a “Leans Rom­ney” state, but barely; it’s quickly mov­ing to “Tossup” territory.
  • Iowa was polled by three firms in the past week. Amer­i­can Research Group and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling saw Obama leads of seven points each, though PPP’s adjusts to five for house bias. The Iowa Repub­li­can, a con­ser­v­a­tive media site, com­mis­sioned a poll from Voter/​Consumer Research, who acknowl­edges adjust­ing its poll in a fash­ion akin to that of Dean Chambers’s Unskewed Polls. Even with that inten­tional bias, Rom­ney leads by a mere point. Iowa is now on the far blue end of “Tossup”, which gives Obama a slight edge now that Iowans can vote by absen­tee ballot.
  • Florida is get­ting ham­mered even harder than before. Last time I listed nine polls in two weeks. This time we have six in a sin­gle week. The Miami Her­ald/​Mason-​​Dixon ran an auto­mated poll — which excludes peo­ple with­out land­lines, and thus demo­graph­i­cally tends to lean a few points to the right — and saw a point in Obama’s favor. Amer­i­can Research Group, CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac, and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling came away with Obama leads of five, nine, and four points, respec­tively; the lat­ter two adjust to 11 and two. And The Wash­ing­ton Post and The Florida Times-​​Union/​Insider Advan­tage saw Obama leads of four and three points, respec­tively. Last time I men­tioned that I think the polls are show­ing a sticker two point lead for Obama. That still appears to be the case. Nonethe­less, Florida’s sys­temic forces could push that down to just shy of a point, so it’s still very pos­si­ble for either can­di­date to take Florida’s 29 elec­toral votes. This is why I’m keep­ing the Sun­shine State in “Tossup”; for me to move it to “Leans Obama” will require a lead of four points, even on elec­tion eve.
  • Col­orado was polled twice in the past week. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling’s six point Obama lead adjusts to four, while Gravis’s four point Obama lead adjusts to seven. This lat­est round nearly pushes Col­orado out of “Tossup”, and into “Leans Obama”; if we see the same thing for another week, I’ll move it.
  • Vir­ginia was polled twice this past week. Both Suffolk/​WWBT and Amer­i­can Research Group both saw a two point Obama lead. They’re within the his­tor­i­cal trend, and thus there’s no rea­son to move Vir­ginia out of “Leans Obama”. Vir­gini­ans have been able to vote by absen­tee bal­lot for a week now.
  • Nevada got polled four times in the past week. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling’s nine point Obama lead adjusts down to seven, lin­ing up with Amer­i­can Research Group’s poll. NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist’s two point Obama lead, on the other hand, adjusts to a tie, which lines up with the conservative-​​leaning poll from the Retail Asso­ci­a­tion of Nevada. Over­all, Nevada remains “Leans Obama”.
  • New Hamp­shire was polled by two firms in the past week. NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist, who saw a seven point Obama lead, which adjusts to five. Amer­i­can Research Group came away with Obama up by seven. The race tight­ened up over the past two months, mov­ing New Hamp­shire to “Tossup” last week, but it is begin­ning to look as if Obama is pulling back ahead. If this sticks for another week, I’ll move it back. This is a race to watch closely.
  • Ohio was thrice polled in this past fort­night. The Wash­ing­ton Post saw an eight point lead for Obama, while Gravis saw Obama up by one (which adjusts to five). Mean­while, CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac came away with a rather large ten point lead for the Pres­i­dent, which adjusts to just shy of a dozen points. That last poll sounds a lit­tle too opti­mistic, even before the house bias adjust­ment. Even so, it’s clear that Ohio isn’t near “Tossup” any­more. The ques­tion now is how long things need to stay like this before it moves to “Likely Obama”. What I’m look­ing for here is sta­bil­ity in the upper sin­gle dig­its, given the num­ber of forces at play in the Buck­eye State. We’re not there yet, but the trend is suggestive.
  • Wis­con­sin got an auto­mated poll from WeAskAmer­ica, who saw an aston­ish­ing dozen point Obama lead. This is par­tic­u­larly sur­pris­ing when one con­sid­ers that auto­mated polls exclude the more lib­eral house­holds with­out land­lines. In fact, it’s far enough from the trend that I’m inclined to con­sider it an out­lier for now. I’m still wait­ing for a lit­tle more data to move Wis­con­sin out of “Leans Obama” into “Likely Obama”.
  • Michi­gan was polled five times in the past week. MRG, CNN/​Opinion Research, and The Detroit News found Obama up by six, eight, and 14 points, respec­tively. The Detroit News was left of the pack last time, so I sus­pect that’s a case of house bias of a cou­ple points. Even so, Ras­mussen saw a dozen point Obama lead, which puts that poll in the same ball­park as The Detroit News. And when Gravis shows Obama up by four, which adjusts to seven, it’s clear that the President’s lead in Michi­gan has solid­i­fied. Michi­gan remains “Likely Obama”.
  • Min­nesota was polled two more times, by Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling and The Star Tri­bune/​Mason-​​Dixon. Their seven and eight point Obama leads con­firm that last week’s move to “Likely Obama” was the right one.
  • Penn­syl­va­nia was polled four times in the past week. The Tribune-​​Review/​Susquehanna poll is the out­lier, show­ing Obama up by a mere two points. The Morn­ing Call, Franklin & Mar­shall, and CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac show Obama leads of seven, nine, and 12 points, respec­tively.  Penn­syl­va­nia is now far enough into “Likely Obama” ter­ri­tory that this is the last time I’ll men­tion it unless there is evi­dence of mov­ing in the direc­tion of “Leans Obama”.

No state changed columns in the past week, though there are a few poten­tials for next week. Obama still has a prob­a­ble 284 elec­toral votes, based on my pro­jec­tion. It’s been nearly three con­sec­u­tive months in which Obama could lose all tossups and still stay in the White House.

Con­clu­sion

If I had to pre­dict an Elec­toral Col­lege result, I’d keep things exactly where they have been for over two months. 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.

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

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