Although national polls show a close race between Obama and Romney, their significance is dulled by two facts: (1) It's still almost five months until the election; we've had no conventions and no debates as yet. (2) There is a different story when you look at individual states and electoral totals.
Huffington Post keeps a daily map of states according to whether they are in a candidates' column (> 6% in polls), leaning to that candidate (4 to 6%) or battleground states (< 4% difference).
A couple of the states keep moving in and out of battleground status, but the ones in play seem to be: Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, Florida. Right now Ohio is battleground but just last week it was leaning Obama. Missouri is currently leaning Romney but last week was battleground. So it's a moving target but these are generally the states in play. Add to that Arizona (leaning Romney), Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina (all leaning Obama) as possibly also movable.
As it stands today, giving the "leaning" states to that candidate and not assigning the 6 battleground states, Obama has 270 electoral votes (the required number to win) and Romney 191.
So, in order for Romney to win, he would have to take all of the battleground states (CO, IO, OH, NC, FL) plus one of the states that is now leaning to Obama -- perhaps Nevada or Virginia or Michigan.
That's a pretty tall order -- but it could happen. Because if the tide turns against Obama (like a further economic downturn or a terrorist attack), all of those states in play could quickly shift.
On the other hand, here's another hopeful sign. In some of the battleground states, the job situation is improving more than the national average. Ohio, for example, has an unemployment rate (7.4%) that is significantly lower than the national average of 8.2%. Florida is still above the average at 8.7%, but it has been steadily dropping for a year now.
A lot can happen between now and November. But these factors seem more important than a national popular vote poll this far out.
Ralph
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Nate Silver has done much more thorough research into this electoral vote matter, analyzing six separate sources and comparing their allocation of electoral votes.
ReplyDeleteThey vary in how much of a win they predict, but every one gives the advantage to Obama. The New York Times is the most cautious, giving him an 11 point advantage, all the way to a group called Pollster, which gives him a 70 electoral vote advantage.
On another scale, Silver himself calculates the chances of Obama winning at 62.8% of the electoral vote, while winning only a predicted 50.5% of the popular vote.
Correction: I misread Nate Silver's charts. The figures above are what the predictions were last November.
ReplyDeleteThe current prediction gives a 77.4% chance of winning the electoral vote and a 50.3% chance of winning the popular vote.
The probability state by state gives Obama the swing states of Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, and Virginia; and it gives Romney the swing states of Missouri, North Carolina and Florida.