This week has been a time of major change. We have some pre-​​debate data, and some post-​​debate data, so you’ll see both in this week’s edi­tion of Reëlec­tion Watch.

What’s the lat­est news? 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 shrunk a hair. It’s not that Obama’s num­bers have been drop­ping; we’re still see­ing a num­ber of polls with Obama gar­ner­ing 50 per­cent of respon­dents. Rather, Romney’s num­bers have been ris­ing more quickly than Obama’s, clos­ing the gap. Obama’s lead over Rom­ney still 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.

Going into the debate, Obama’s favor­a­bil­ity polls improved beyond their already promis­ing lev­els, with all exceed­ing 50 per­cent. Romney’s favor­a­bil­ity polls have improved some­what, but he still has yet to break the 50 per­cent ceil­ing. Obama has con­sis­tently held a three to five point edge over Rom­ney all year, and was at six points going into the debate.

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 69, down ten points from last week. It’s the first rever­sal in a month, and the loss has clearly been tied to the debate per­for­mance on Wednesday.

Over­all, things still look good for the incum­bent Pres­i­dent at the national level, though Intrade sug­gests they’re not as good as they were a week ago.

The Debate

Wednes­day marked the first of three debates between the two can­di­dates. Rom­ney clearly over­per­formed expec­ta­tions. His sec­tion open­ing answers were extremely well rehearsed, and he was able to keep Obama off guard by announc­ing, to everyone’s sur­prise, that he would not sup­port a tax pol­icy that raised taxes on the mid­dle class, or that increased the deficit. That he was unwill­ing to explain how he would achieve this while simul­ta­ne­ously cut­ting mar­ginal rates by 20 per­cent across the board was essen­tially beside the point. At least for Wednes­day night.

While he had a num­ber of whop­pers that he deliv­ered, his stead­fast insis­tence that his tax poli­cies wouldn’t do what the ana­lysts con­cluded they must do clearly unset­tled the Pres­i­dent, and took the wind out of the sails of much of his argument.

The net result here is that Mitt Rom­ney has, for the first time in the cam­paign, man­aged to not squan­der an oppor­tu­nity with which he has been pre­sented. It’s too early to tell if this is a new trend or an anom­aly, but it bears watch­ing going forward.

It’s too early for the debate’s effects to show up in a mean­ing­ful way in any but a few polls; next week’s install­ment should show them all over the place.

Early Vot­ing

The absen­tee and in-​​person early polls have opened in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and 24 states, high­lighted below in green:

Of them, the ones of most inter­est in the bat­tle are Florida, Iowa, North Car­olina, Ohio, Vir­ginia, and Wis­con­sin; we need to pay espe­cially care­ful atten­tion to those states’ polls from here on out. Next week’s batch includes the impor­tant states of Ari­zona, Mon­tana, New Mex­ico, and Ore­gon.

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 polled by HighGround/​Moore and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, both of whom saw com­fort­able leads for Rom­ney. Ari­zona remains “Likely Rom­ney”, though not by enough to drop off the list entirely.
  • North Car­olina was polled three times in the past week. Sur­veyUSA saw a two point lead for Obama, but both Amer­i­can Research Group and Ras­mussen found Rom­ney up by four. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling came away with a tie, which leans to Rom­ney. North Car­olina is still a “Leans Rom­ney” state.
  • Iowa was polled twice in the past week. The Des Moines Reg­is­ter and WeAskAmer­ica both saw Obama ahead by four. Iowa moves to “Leans Obama”, which is impor­tant since Iowans can cur­rently vote by absen­tee bal­lot, and in person…and have been doing so.
  • Florida got polled twice this week before the debate. NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Maris and Gravis both saw Obama up by one. There were no adjusted leads for Rom­ney between May (!) and the debate. Since then, Ras­mussen and WeAskAmer­ica both saw leads for Rom­ney, by two and three points, respec­tively. Florida’s sys­temic forces are enough to push the state an addi­tional point and change, mak­ing the Sun­shine State “Leans Rom­ney”. Florid­i­ans have been able to vote since Tuesday.
  • Col­orado was polled before the debate by WeAskAmer­ica, who saw a three point Obama lead. Last time I noted that Col­orado was right on the cusp of being moved to “Leans Obama”. This lat­est poll does the trick.
  • Vir­ginia was polled before the debate by NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist, who saw yet another two point lead for Obama. In the two post-​​debate polls, both Ras­mussen and WeAskAmer­ica saw Rom­ney leads, by one and three points, respec­tively. It’s enough to move Vir­ginia back to “Tossup”. Vir­gini­ans have been able to vote by absen­tee bal­lot for two weeks now, and Obama was ahead for the bulk of that time.
  • Nevada got polled before the debate by WeAskAmer­ica and Gravis. WeAskAmer­ica found an aston­ish­ing 11 point lead for Obama. While that smacks of an out­lier, given the his­tory, even Gravis found a lead for Obama (albeit a mere one point). The over­all trend looks like about six points in Obama’s favor. Had that been a sta­tic num­ber with some his­tory, I’d move Nevada to “Likely Obama”, but because the Sil­ver State has been more like quick­sil­ver of late, Nevada remains “Leans Obama”.
  • New Hamp­shire was polled before the debate by WMUR/​University of New Hamp­shire. They saw an aston­ish­ing 15 point lead for Obama. While I sus­pect that’s an out­lier, it’s not going to be a double-​​digit out­lier. I said last week that I’d move New Hamp­shire back to “Leans Obama” if I saw con­fir­ma­tion of his lead, and now I’m doing so.
  • Ohio was polled five times this week. Before the debate, The Colum­bus Dis­patch ran an auto­mated poll, which found a nine point lead for Obama, close to the eight point lead seen by NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist (who uses one of the most rig­or­ous polling method­olo­gies of all the firms). Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling saw a four-​​point Obama lead. On the other hand, in the two post-​​debate polls, Ras­mussen found Obama up by a mere one point, and WeAskAmer­ica came away with a Rom­ney lead by one. On bal­ance, Ohio remains “Leans Obama”…mostly because peo­ple have been able to vote in Ohio for nearly a week. But it’s clear that Obama’s com­fort­able pre-​​debate lead in the Buck­eye State has all but evap­o­rated. Another week like the Ras­mussen and WeAskAmer­ica polls, and Ohio will become a “Tossup” state.
  • Wis­con­sin got polled before the debate by Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity, who saw an 11 point Obama lead. Given last week’s auto­mated poll from WeAskAmer­ica, this num­ber is cred­i­ble. I no longer con­sider last week’s poll an out­lier. Instead, I’m mov­ing Wis­con­sin out of “Leans Obama” into “Likely Obama”.
  • Michi­gan was polled before the debate by WeAskAmer­ica. That new poll indi­cates a dozen point lead for Obama. Bar­ring a sig­nif­i­cant shift to the right, Michi­gan is suf­fi­ciently deep into “Likely Obama” ter­ri­tory that it drops off the list after this week.
  • New Mex­ico was polled twice before the debate. WeAskAmer­ica’s auto­mated poll gave Obama a ten point lead, close to Ras­mussen’s 11 points. Like Michi­gan, this is the last we will hear from New Mex­ico unless we see a dra­matic lurch to the right.

There was a lot of move­ment in both direc­tions this week. Pre-​​debate polls in Col­orado, Iowa, New Hamp­shire, and Wis­con­sin shifted those states to the left. The post-​​debate polls in swing states shifted Vir­ginia and Florida to the right, and are in dan­ger of doing the same to Ohio. Based on the model, Obama has a prob­a­ble 303 elec­toral votes. It’s been three con­sec­u­tive months in which Obama could lose all tossups and still stay in the White House.

But the post-​​debate polls are just begin­ning to show up, and they are not look­ing good for the President.

Con­clu­sion

If I had to pre­dict an Elec­toral Col­lege result based on the model, I’d keep things close to where they have been for three months. The lone Tossup, Vir­ginia, would go to Obama. That pre­dic­tion would give Obama 303, and Rom­ney 235. That’s the same as it has been for a cou­ple of months.* But I sus­pect we’re going to see more states shift to the right in the next week.

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

*Editor’s note: I did some bad math in an ear­lier ver­sion of the article.

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