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| English: Cartogram of the 2008 Electoral Vote for US President, with each square representing one electoral vote. Nebraska, being one of two states that are not winner-take-all, for the first time had its votes split, with NE-2 voting for Obama and the rest of the state for McCain. Cartogram-2008_Electoral_Vote-es.svg (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
What State Polls Suggest About the National Popular Vote
pretty much every method for evaluating the election based on state polls seems to hint at a very slight popular vote lead for Mr. Obama, along with an Electoral College one...... Obama leads nationally by 1.9 percentage points — by no means a safe advantage, but still a better result for him than what the national polls suggest. ...... Obama would lead by two percentage points in the consensus forecast weighing the states by their 2004 turnout. ...... Or we can weigh the states by their turnout in 2010, a very good Republican year. But that doesn’t help, either: instead, Mr. Obama leads by 2.1 percentage points based on this method. ..... Obama’s lead in the Electoral College is modest, but also quite consistent across the different methods. The states in which every site has Mr. Obama leading make up 271 electoral votes — one more than the president needs to clinch victory. The states in which everyone has Mr. Romney ahead represent 206 electoral votes. ..... In recent elections — since state polling data became more robust — it’s the state polls that have done a bit better. This was especially so in 1996, when national polls implied a double-digit victory for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole (and Ross Perot) but state polls were more in line with the single-digit victory that he actually achieved. In 2000, state polls provided an accurate portrayal of a too-close-to-call race, while national polls missed high on George W. Bush vs. Al Gore. ...... the historical evidence weighs in slightly more heavily on behalf of the state polls, in my view, when they seem to contradict the national ones. If the state polls are right, than Mr. Obama is not just the favorite in the Electoral College but probably also in the popular vote. ..... Obama made gains in the FiveThirtyEight forecast on Tuesday, with his chances of winning the Electoral College increasing to 77.4 percent. ...... A fair amount of this boils down to Ohio, where three polls released on Tuesday gave Mr. Obama leads by margins ranging from three to five percentage points. ..... the poll by Quinnipiac University for The New York Times and CBS News, which had Mr. Obama five points ahead in Ohio ..... Mr. Obama had a somewhat above-average day in national polls on Tuesday, which had him up in the race by about one percentage point on average. Part of this is because the Gallup poll, which has shown very poor results for Mr. Obama, did not publish results on account of Hurricane Sandy. .......... the poll from Google Consumer Surveys. (Yes, Google has begin to conduct surveys online.) That poll had Mr. Obama ahead by four percentage points ...... The Google survey could be an indication that the effects of the hurricane will play somewhat to Mr. Obama’s political advantage.In Swing States, a Predictable Election?
the polling in most swing states now looks very similar to the way it did for much of the late spring and summer. ....... our projected leader in all 50 states is the same as it was at our launch of the forecast in June. ..... In June, Mr. Obama was projected to a 3-point lead in Nevada, a 2.3-point lead in Iowa, a 1.3-point lead in Virginia, a 1.1-point lead in Ohio and a 1-point lead in Colorado. The forecast in those states has moved just four-tenths of a point since then, on average; the largest shift has been in Ohio, where Mr. Obama’s polling has been reasonably resilient and he now has a 2.2-point edge. ...... New York is one exception; polls there have shown an especially large lead for Mr. Obama ..... Of the remaining gains that Mr. Romney has made in national polls, much of it may have come from his improved performance in deeply red states; that is where our state-by-state forecasts show his numbers improving the most. ....... this race has been fairly stable relative to most presidential elections. ...... the results we’re now seeing are quite consistent with what the economic fundamentals might dictate: a very tight race, narrowly favoring Mr. Obama. ..... our forecast in every state on Nov. 6 will be the same as it was on June 7. Colorado, Virginia and Florida, being the closest states in the forecast now ..... a mild recovery for Mr. Obama over the past week or so in the polls. ..... Obama’s predicted probability of winning the Electoral College has improved as a result (to 74.6 percent as of Sunday).In Polls, Romney’s Momentum Seems to Have Stopped
On average, Mr. Obama gained about one point between the eight polls. ..... This is the closest that we’ve come in a week or so to one candidate clearly having “won” the day in the tracking polls — and it was Mr. Obama. ..... Our “now-cast” also finds a slightly favorable trend for Mr. Obama over the course of the past 10 days or so. Mr. Romney’s position peaked in the “now-cast” on Friday, Oct. 12, at which point it estimated a virtual tie in the popular vote (Mr. Obama was the projected “winner” by 0.3 percentage points). As of Wednesday, however, Mr. Obama was 1.4 percentage points ahead in the “now-cast,” meaning that he may have regained about 1 percentage point of the 4 points or so that he lost after Denver. ....... Since the Denver debate, Mr. Obama has held the lead in 16 Ohio polls against 6 for Mr. Romney. In Nevada, Mr. Obama has had the lead in 11 polls, to Mr. Romney’s 1. Mr. Obama has led in all polls of Wisconsin since the Denver debate, and he has had five poll leads in Iowa to one for Mr. Romney.
