This week has been another time of major change. We have much more post-​​debate data.

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 Repub­li­can has taken the lead for the first time ever. After the Pres­i­den­tial debate, Obama’s num­bers have fallen and Romney’s have risen. The President’s posi­tion is now 2.5 points behind Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s on this date eight years ago, and 8.5 points below his posi­tion four years ago.

Going into the debate, Obama’s favor­a­bil­ity polls all exceeded 50 per­cent. Since then, two of four dipped below that magic num­ber. Romney’s favor­a­bil­ity polls have con­tin­ued to improve, and he finally broke the 50 per­cent ceil­ing on a sin­gle FOX News poll (one for which Obama also was above 50). Obama has con­sis­tently held a three to five point edge over Rom­ney all year, and was at six points going into the debate. After the debate, his lead dropped back to three points.

The national polls, for the first time, sug­gest that Obama might lose the upcom­ing election.

As of yes­ter­day, Intrade had Obama at 62, down seven points from last week, and 17 from two weeks ago. The mar­kets still believe that Obama will be reëlected, but they show far less con­fi­dence than they did a cou­ple of weeks ago.

Over­all, thinks on the national level look sketchy for the President.

Early Vot­ing

Last time I men­tioned states with early in-​​person and absen­tee vot­ing open. This time, I’m sep­a­rat­ing them out so you can see which are which. The green states are accept­ing absen­tee bal­lots, but not early in-​​person bal­lots, while the gold states are accept­ing both.

 

All bat­tle­ground states other than Col­orado and Nevada are at least tak­ing absen­tee bal­lots; those last two open this com­ing week. Ohio and Iowa are the only two bat­tle­ground states with open early in-​​person vot­ing. North Car­olina’s in-​​person vot­ing opens next week.

The Elec­toral College

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

With the recent expo­sure of Gravis Mar­ket­ing, I’m drop­ping them from the model. It turns out that drop­ping them didn’t impact the results, as I was already com­pen­sat­ing for their five-​​point Repub­li­can lean rel­a­tive to the con­sen­sus. The tim­ing of polls this week is espe­cially impor­tant in deter­min­ing the con­tour of the Rom­ney debate bump. I out­line the details in each state below.

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 hasn’t been polled recently, but I’m now start­ing to include Intrade mar­kets in these descrip­tions (though not as input to my model). And Intraders are con­fi­dent that the Grand Canyon state will go for Rom­ney; his secu­rity shows a 90 per­cent chance of him win­ning. Ari­zona remains “Likely Rom­ney”, though not by enough to drop off the list entirely.
  • North Car­olina was polled twice after the Pres­i­den­tial debate. Ras­mussen saw Rom­ney ahead, by three points. Account­ing for Rasmussen’s, that puts North Car­olina in Rom­ney ter­ri­tory by about two points, which is con­sis­tent with the over­all national post-​​debate shift. Of those request­ing absen­tee bal­lots, 54 per­cent are reg­is­tered Repub­li­cans. North Car­olina remains a “Leans Rom­ney” state. Intraders give Rom­ney a 73 per­cent chance of car­ry­ing the Tarheel State.
  • Florida got polled five times after the Pres­i­den­tial debate. I men­tioned the Ras­mussen and WeAskAmer­ica polls last week. In addi­tion, the Uni­ver­sity of North Florida con­ducted a poll that strad­dled the debate, and found Obama up by four points. It’s a ten-​​day poll from a group with­out any his­tory this cycle, so I’m not lend­ing it any cre­dence here. More recently, NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist saw Obama up by one, while Tampa Bay Times/​Miami Her­ald/​Mason-​​Dixon, Amer­i­can Research Group, and Ras­mussen found Rom­ney up by seven, three, and four, respec­tively. All in all, it appears that Marist is the out­lier. Florida still “Leans Rom­ney”. Florid­i­ans have been able to vote for nearly two weeks. Intraders give Rom­ney a 61 per­cent chance of pick­ing up Florida’s 29 elec­toral votes.
  • Vir­ginia was moved to “Tossup” last week, because the two post-​​debate polls pub­lished then by Ras­mussen and WeAskAmer­ica saw Rom­ney leads. The four sub­se­quent polls tell a con­flict­ing story. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling and CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac’s polls con­ducted late last week both found Obama ahead, by three and five points, respec­tively. NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist’s Sunday-​​to-​​Tuesday poll came away with Rom­ney ahead by one. And Rasmussen’s Thurs­day poll had Rom­ney up by two. The con­flicts leave Vir­ginia a “Tossup”, which strongly sug­gests that Suf­folk Uni­ver­sity is mis­taken in call­ing the Old Domin­ion a cer­tain Rom­ney state. Vir­gini­ans have been able to vote by absen­tee bal­lot for three weeks now, and Obama was ahead for about half of that time. The Intrade mar­ket has Rom­ney slightly ahead, at 53 percent.
  • Col­orado was polled before the Pres­i­den­tial debate by Republican-​​funded McLaughlin/​American Con­ser­v­a­tive Union, who saw a four point Rom­ney lead. Given the prove­nance, tim­ing, and lack of his­tor­i­cal data, I don’t count this in the mix. After the debate, six firms con­ducted polls. Amer­i­can Research Group, The Den­ver Post/​SurveyUSA, and CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac found Rom­ney ahead by four, one, and one point, respec­tively. On the other hand, the Uni­ver­sity of Den­ver and Ras­mussen came away with Obama leads by four and one point, respec­tively. Other than Ras­mussen, all polls were con­ducted over sev­eral days after the debate (Sur­veyUSA on the 9th and 10th). This makes it excep­tion­ally dif­fi­cult to shape the bump con­tour. If we lend a lot of cre­dence to Ras­mussen, the bump fully dis­si­pated by last Sun­day, but Sur­veyUSA sug­gests oth­er­wise. Last time I moved Col­orado to “Leans Obama”. This week, I’m mov­ing Col­orado back to “Tossup”. Intraders dis­agree with me (and Ras­mussen), assign­ing a 54 per­cent chance to Romney.
  • Nevada got polled after the Pres­i­den­tial debate by the Las Vegas Review Jour­nal/​SurveyUSA, Ras­mussen, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and Suffolk/​KSNV. All except Sur­veyUSA were con­ducted entirely after the debate (Sur­veyUSA strad­dled it), and all except Ras­mussen saw small Obama leads. Ras­mussen found the race tied. Obama’s house-​​bias adjusted lead from these four polls is one point, small enough to move the Sil­ver State to “Tossup”, par­tic­u­larly since most of the polls were late enough for the debate bounce to dis­si­pate. Intraders still have faith in the Pres­i­dent here; he is trad­ing at 70 percent.
  • New Hamp­shire was polled Tues­day by Ras­mussen, who saw the race as tied. Amer­i­can Research Group polled Tues­day through Thurs­day and found Rom­ney up by four. While both have Repub­li­can biases, account­ing for the biases still moves the Gran­ite State into “Tossup”, and much higher on this list. On Intrade, Obama has the lead at 58 percent.
  • Ohio was polled eight times after the Pres­i­den­tial debate. I men­tioned Ras­mussen and WeAskAmer­ica last week. The six new post-​​debate polls were con­ducted by Amer­i­can Research Group, CNN/​Opinion Research, Sur­veyUSA, NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist, and Ras­mussen (again). All found Obama ahead except for ARG, who has been to the right of the con­sen­sus. ARG saw Rom­ney ahead by one point. On bal­ance, Ohio barely remains “Leans Obama”. Buck­eyes have been able to vote for two weeks now, and absen­tee bal­lots appear to be com­ing in from the urban zones at a higher rate than in 2008, though thus far they still rep­re­sent only three per­cent of the 2008 vote total. The Intrade mar­ket gives the edge to Obama, at 59 percent.
  • Iowa was polled by Ras­mussen, who saw a two point Obama lead last Sun­day. Iowa remains “Leans Obama”, which is impor­tant since Iowans can cur­rently vote by absen­tee bal­lot, and in person…and have been doing so; over 200,000 votes have already been cast, about 15 per­cent of the total 2008 vote total in Iowa. On Intrade, Obama has the lead here, with a 60 per­cent chance.
  • Wis­con­sin got polled three times after the Pres­i­den­tial debate by Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac, and Ras­mussen. They saw Obama ahead by two, three, and two points, respec­tively. It’s clear that Obama’s lead here dimin­ished appre­cia­bly from its pre-​​debate highs, but by how much really? Both PPP and Quin­nip­iac are smeared across the post-​​debate week, while Rasmussen’s was con­ducted this past Tues­day. This sug­gests that Obama remains ahead by about four points among likely Bad­ger vot­ers. This late, a steady four point lead would be “Likely Obama”, but a four point lead that is clos­ing is “Leans Obama” instead. For now, Wis­con­sin moves from “Likely Obama” to “Leans Obama”. Intraders remain con­fi­dent in Obama here, trad­ing him at 69 percent.
  • Michi­gan was polled five times since the Pres­i­den­tial debate. Baydoun/​Foster, EPIC-​​MRA, the Detroit News, and Ras­mussen all saw Obama ahead, by three, three, seven, and seven points, respec­tively. Despite being funded by the Democ­rats, Baydoun/​Foster has con­sis­tently been far to the right of the con­sen­sus, by an aver­age of five points. On the other hand, EPIC-​​MRA has been pretty close to the con­sen­sus. Rasmussen’s poll was the most recent, on Wednes­day. All of this implies that Obama’s lead in Michi­gan is prob­a­bly closer to the Detroit News num­ber. Michi­gan stays “Likely Obama”, but no longer by enough to be off the list entirely. At Intrade, Obama is trad­ing at 81 per­cent here.
  • Penn­syl­va­nia is back on the list this week. Polls were con­ducted after the Pres­i­den­tial debate by Siena, Susque­hanna, the Philadel­phia Inquirer, and Ras­mussen. All saw Obama ahead, by three, two, eight, and five points, respec­tively. Siena was the only poll­ster to strad­dle the debate, and Ras­mussen was the only one to exclude the early post-​​debate bump days. Susque­hanna was unchanged from its results of Sep­tem­ber 18–20, when it was about seven points to the right of the con­sen­sus. Over­all, then, it appears that Obama lost about two points in the Key­stone State, which isn’t enough to yet move it from “Likely Obama”, though it’s clearly not as safe as it was in late Sep­tem­ber. Unsur­pris­ingly, the mar­kets at Intrade agree with this one, putting the Pres­i­dent at 83 percent.

Move­ment this week has been pretty con­sis­tent, and it points in Romney’s favor. Col­orado, Nevada, and Wis­con­sin shifted one col­umn to the right. Based on the model, Obama has a prob­a­ble 275 elec­toral votes, down 28 from last week, but still enough to win. It’s been more than three con­sec­u­tive months in which Obama could lose all tossups and still stay in the White House.

Are we see­ing a momen­tum shift, or a new plateau? The num­bers I’m see­ing look like the lat­ter, since more recent num­bers show a slight rever­sion in the pre-​​debate direc­tion (though most of the boost has been sticky). For now, then, it appears that Romney’s high-​​water mark was Octo­ber 4th and 5th. On Tues­day, both can­di­dates have an oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate a sim­i­lar shift. His­tor­i­cally, how­ever, the first Pres­i­den­tial debate has had a greater impact than sub­se­quent debates.

Con­clu­sion

The national polls show Rom­ney ahead by close to two points, while the state tallys indi­cate a com­fort­able Obama lead. They can’t both be right, since there can real­is­ti­cally be a max­i­mum of a point or so by which one can lose the national pop­u­lar vote and still win the elec­toral vote. His­tor­i­cally, the state-​​by-​​state tal­lies have been more accu­rate than the national ones, which leads me to believe that Obama still has the edge.

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 Tossups would go to Obama, only because they are cur­rently a hair to his side of the mid­dle in the polls. That pre­dic­tion would give Obama 303, and Rom­ney 235. That’s the same as it has been for a cou­ple of months.

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

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