Full Report Card: Presidential Race, First Look - 2016

Now that Florida has been called, I can officially admit that I got one state wrong in the Presidential race.  I feel good about getting 49 out of 50, an improvement of one state from the 48 out of 50 that I called right in 2008.  I also feel good that my only miss was by far the closest state in the race.  However, what I feel less good about, is that I clearly under called President Obama's support virtually across the board. 

Based on the currently counted ballots (which are not 100% complete still as there are still absentee and military overseas ballots to count in some states, but is about 98% complete nationally), here is what happened state by state versus my projection:

On a national level, it appears that Obama will finish at approximately +2.7% (50.6% for Obama, 47.9% for Romney and 1.5% for minor third-party candidates), an error of 1.8% and a bias of 1.8% for Romney.

To remind those of you who aren't statistics junkies - error is how wrong the projection is, bias is how much the projection favored one candidate versus reality.  In the case of a single point of data, like the national vote, they will be the same, in the case of the 50 states, they will be different since if I project two states and in one case I under projected Obama's vote total by 2% and the other I over projected his vote total by 2%, my average error will be 2% (the absolute amount I missed each state by), but my bias will be 0% (since I missed equally in both directions.)

As you can see, my average absolute error was 3.9% for all 50 states plus DC with an average bias of 1.9% for Mitt Romney.  The average error is higher than my national error because the average weights all states equally, while the national vote is influenced by a number of states that were called much more closely.

In the relatively close states, those decided by 10% or less, my average error was 2.3% and my average bias was 2.2% for Romney.  It makes sense that I called these states a lot more closely since there was a wealth of polling data in those states, versus virtually none in a lot of the non-competitive states.  The fact that the bias and error were so close speaks to the fact that with the exception of Ohio and Indiana, all of the other states showed a bias for Romney.

In total, I give myself a grade of about a B+ on calling the race.  On the plus side, I got 49 states right and an absolute average error of 3.9% across all 50 states is actually quite good given the limitations of public polling.  I ding myself some because clearly there was an almost across-the-board pro-Romney bias to the projections.  This speaks to the fact that while I had been saying and most pollsters had been polling a race somewhere between 2004 and 2008 in terms of turnout model, the actual turnout closely resembled 2008, showing the strength of the Obama team's ground game.

I don't see these results and find a need for a radical shift in my methodology.

But I do see the need to make one tweak.

Scott Rasmussen has generated a great deal of controversy over the past 8 years by publishing polls that are out of the mainstream of other pollsters.  

This year:

* He missed the national vote by about 4%, with a Pro-Romney bias, among the worst of the national polls

* In Ohio, he missed by 2% - Pro-Romney (worst of all polls), Colorado by 5% - Pro-Romney (worst of all polls), Wisconsin by 7% - Pro-Romney (worst of all polls), Iowa by 7% - Pro-Romney (worst of all polls) and on and on

In every close state, dropping Rasmussen from the averages would have improved the accuracy of my calls.

In 2008, his misses weren't as outrageous (he missed the national vote by about 1.5% Pro-McCain and missed most of the swing states with a Pro-McCain bias, but not as severely), but clearly Rasmussen is not equally likely to be wrong on either side.

Accordingly, going forward in 2016, if Rasmussen continues polling, I will be considering the Rasmussen poll to be a partisan poll rather than a non-partisan poll for purposes of my averaging.

First Look - 2016

Yes, I know, I should probably let President Obama enjoy the moment for a few days before I start writing about the 2016 race.  But, it's been 5 whole days since we had an election!  Plus, the President doesn't have to worry about 2016, since he won't be in the mix.

First, let's have a look at the map and what we learned Tuesday night about the states that may be in play in 2012.  Let's first assume that states that were D+10 or R+10 (that is, voted 10% more Democratically or 10% more Republican than the nation as a whole) are more-than-likely not going to be in play in 2016 either.  They could flip if there is a landslide election, but are probably irrelevant to a close race.  We'll take a look at the ones between 10-15% for those rare exceptions such as Indiana in 2008, but anything above 15% is solidly out of play.  

These states give us the following:

Safe Republican (>+15% R)

Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Alabama, Kansas, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Alaska, Texas, Montana.

Strong Lean Republican (+10-15% R)

Mississippi, South Carolina, Arizona, Missouri, Indiana, Georgia

Lean Republican (+5%-10% R)

None

Toss-Up (Between +5% R - +5% D)

North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Wisconsin

Lean Democratic (+5% - +10% D)

Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon

Strong Lean Democratic (+10-15%D)

Washington, Maine, Illinois, New Jersey

Safe Democratic (+15% D)

Connecticut, Delaware, California, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, District of Columbia

As you can see, including all the states that are either greater than D +5% or greater than R +5% yields an electoral map that is 217 Democrats, 191 Republicans.

Looking at the swing states, we can understand where the fights may take place.  We'll look at 2012 position relative to the national vote, the history in the last 7 election cycles (which saw 4 Democratic wins and 3 Republican wins nationally) and the trend the past 8 years:

North Carolina:

2012 Rating: R +4.9%

History Last 7 Elections: 6 Republican, 1 Democrat (Obama in 2008)

Trending: Democratic - (R +10.0% in 2004, R +6.9% in 2008, R +4.9% in 2012)

My Notes: North Carolina had never been a swing state until 2008, when Barack Obama pulled off a shocker in the state.  It's trend was similar in 2012 to 2008.  It is still more conservative than the nation as a whole and its socially conservative demographics are changing.  If the trend continues in the next 4 years, it will be a swing state in 2016, but one that still favors the GOP in a close race.

Florida:

2012 Rating: R +1.8%

History Last 7 Elections: 4 Republican, 3 Democrat (Clinton in '96, Obama in '08 & '12)

Trending: Mixed (R +2.6% in 2004, R +4.4% in 2008, R +1.8% in 2012)

My Notes: Florida is definitely a swing state, but one that has consistently favored Republicans in very close elections.  While 2012 saw the closest match to the national vote since 2000 (when it was R +0.5%), there is no clear trend here and it always appears to be on the Republican side of the ledger.  Florida seems unlikely to be decisive in 2016.

Ohio:

2012 Rating: R +0.8%

History Last 7 Elections: 4 Democrat, 3 Republican (matched national results)

Trending: Mixed (D +0.3% in 2004, R +2.5% in 2008, R +0.8% in 2012)

My Notes: Ohio is the swingiest of swing states, picking the Presidential winner every year since World War 2.  It has no clear trend in either direction and is likely to mirror the national vote again in 2016, favoring whoever wins the national vote.

Virginia:

2012 Rating: D +0.3%

History Last 7 Elections: 5 Republican, 2 Democrat (Obama in '08 and '12)

Trending: Democratic (R +6.8% in 2004, R +0.8% in 2008, D +0.3% in 2012)

My Notes: The growth of Northern Virginia has swung the balance of power in Virginia.  It could certainly be winnable by a strong Republican candidate in 2016, but all of the demographic trends favor it going Democratic in a close election.

Colorado:

2012 Rating: D +2.0%

History Last 7 Elections: 4 Republican, 3 Democrat (matched national results except went for Dole in '96)

Trending: Democratic (R +2.3% in 2004, D +1.9% in 2008, D +2.0% in 2012)

My Notes: Hispanic population growth have turned this traditional swing state from a lean Republican to a lean Democratic orientation.  If Republicans can't cut into the Democrats 3:1 edge with Hispanic voters, they will struggle here in 2016.

Pennsylvania:

2012 Rating: D +2.5%

History Last 7 Elections: 6 Democrat, 1 Republican (Bush in '88)

Trending: Republican (D +4.9% in 2004, D +3.2% in 2008, D +2.5% in 2012)

My Notes: The last several cycles, Republicans have invested heavily against this large electoral prize only to come up significantly short.  Republicans are chipping away at the Democratic edge here, however, as growth in Democratic Philadelphia slows and Republican Pittsburgh is resurgent.  I expect Pennsylvania to be legitimately in play in 2016.

Iowa:

2012 Rating: D +2.9%

History Last 7 Elections: 6 Democrat, 1 Republican (Bush in '04)

Trending: Democratic (D +1.7% in 2004, D +2.5% in 2008, D +2.9% in 2012)

My Notes: Iowa has been more Democratic than the nation every election cycle since 1988 and is trending that way now.  Agriculture is still strong but other sectors of the economy are starting to eclipse it.  I see it as favoring the Democrats in 2016.

New Hampshire:

2012 Rating: D +3.1%

History Last 7 Elections: 4 Democrat, 3 Republican (matched national results)

Trending: Mixed (D +3.8% in 2004, D +2.5% in 2008, D +3.1% in 2012)

My Notes: New Hampshire keeps picking winners.  It is a swing state, but one that consistently favors the Democrats by a few points.  It is also only 4 electoral votes, which makes it less likely to be decisive in a close race...although it certainly was in 2000.

Nevada:

2012 Rating: D +3.9%

History Last 7 Elections: 4 Democrat, 3 Republican (matched national results)

Trending: Democratic/Mixed (R +0.2% in 2004, D +5.6% in 2008, D +3.9% in 2012)

My Notes: Growing Hispanic population and growing Democratic Hispanic margins pushed the state from a true swing state to a lean Democratic state in 2008.  That lead has moderated somewhat, but demographics will continue to swing to the Democrats unless the GOP can make inroads with Mexican Hispanics.

Wisconsin:

2012 Rating: D +4.0%

History Last 7 Elections: 7 Democrat, 0 Republican

Trending: Mixed (D +2.8% in 2004, D +6.9% in 2008, D +4.0% in 2012)

My Notes: No Republican has won Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan ran the table in 49 states in 1984.  Paul Ryan no doubt helped the GOP some in 2012 and the Scott Walker revolution showed that the state is swingable, but this seems like a tough climb for the GOP in 2012.

Of note, if you take the 2012 and make the national popular vote exactly even, keeping the same leanings of the states, the Republicans pick up North Carolina, Florida and Ohio, giving them 253 states.  Democrats pick up the balance of the states, giving them 285 electoral votes.  This is the structural advantage the Democrats have, that I spoke of often during the 2012 race.

The easiest pick-up in a close race from there would appear to be Virginia, but there are two problems.  One, winning Virginia would still give the GOP only 266 electoral votes, meaning they would also need Colorado.  Second, Virginia is trending Democratic.  A more plausible scenario is to pick up Pennsylvania, which is trending their way of late, which would give the GOP 273 and the win.

Next time, I will look at the potential 2016 candidates for both parties since, for the first time since 2000, both parties will have a more-or-less open field.

In December of 2008, when I first looked at the possible candidates in 2012 for the GOP, I said I thought the front-runners were Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, with Romney having the edge as the "next guy in line", a distinction that has historically been very important in GOP nominating contests.

I was wrong about Palin running, obviously.  The other 3 did run and Romney did win, although I, along with virtually everyone else, missed projecting the insurgent campaign of Rick Santorum in the race.

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No Change in Presidential Race, Democratic Prospects Brighten in Senate But Not in House, The Voter Turnout Debate Rages On

First Polls Open In: 4 Days, 9 Hours
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.7% (up 0.1% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 290, Romney 248 (unchanged from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 66%, Romney 34% (Romney up 1% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 57%, Romney 39%, within 0.5% - 4%

Not much has changed in the Presidential picture in the past 24 hours, other than Mitt Romney has 24 less hours to close what is, in my analysis, an electoral gap.  The news cycle continues to be dominated by hurricane coverage with only passing mentions of politics.  I expect the election coverage to pick up in earnest this weekend.

We are technically past the point of an October surprise - it is November, after all, but not too late for a late-breaking revelation, although one seems highly unlikely given that:
a. Obama has been in office for 4 years and has been vetted for smoking guns by the GOP as well as the Donald Trumps of the world and no smoking gun has been found.
b. Mitt Romney has essentially been running for President for at least 6 years and has been thoroughly investigated by two slates of GOP candidates without a smoking gun.

Given the relative stability of the Presidential race, I thought I'd devote some time to the races that I haven't been covering enough - the down ticket federal races for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

In the Senate, Democratic prospects have improved significantly over the past several months.  Races that many, including myself, once believed would be easier wins for the GOP are now competitive, while Democrats have largely held safe the seats I believed would be safe.

Democrats have 30 seats that are not up for re-election and 13 races that I consider safe (>10% lead), giving them an effective starting point of 43 seats.

Additionally, there are two seats where an Independent will safely win who will likely caucus with the Democrats - Socialist Bernie Sanders will easily hold on for another term and former Governor Angus King is a lock to win in Maine and is believed to be headed to the Democratic Caucus.

On the GOP side, they have 36 seats not up and 5 races I consider safe.

Here is the polling averages associated with the remaining races and the build to my projection:

My current projection is for 52 Democrats, 46 Republicans and 2 Independents in the new Senate, or an effective working majority of 54-46 for the Democrats.



Of course, there are a number of exceptionally close races, most notably in Virginia, Montana, Wisconsin and Arizona.  And the polling in many Senate races is not nearly as broad as in the Presidential race, so the margin of error in these projections will be higher.

In the reasonable best case for the GOP, if they pick up all 4 of those ultra-close races, we would be looking at 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 2 Independents, which would still give Democrats a 51-49 working majority.  Basically, the tipping point races for control would be Ohio and Missouri.  The GOP would need both if Obama wins re-election and Joe Biden becomes the tie-breaker in a 50-50 Senate.  They would need only 1 of those 2 if Mitt Romney wins and Paul Ryan is the tie-breaker.

In the House, Democratic prospects are not nearly as bright.  Current aggregation of generic polling indicates that the GOP is at +0.5%, which implies a GOP majority of 243-192.  Because of the lack of polling data, I do not project individual House races, but the generic polling contrasted against the composition of House districts typically yields a pretty good proxy in aggregate.  The GOP have been huge beneficiaries of the last redistricting cycle.  Because of the shape and demographics of the new House maps, which were largely drawn by GOP legislatures because of the drubbing that Democrats took in 2010 in state houses, a national even split of the vote (that is if exactly 50% of people voted for each party, approximately in line with their demographics) would produce approximately 238 GOP House seats.  To get to a House majority, Democrats would need to be about +2% in the national vote, a margin they don't appear to be near as the election nears.

Turnout Models Reveal This Simple Truth - Turnout Determines All Close Elections
I can't remember a Presidential election where the question of voter turnout and the composition of the electorate has been the subject of so much debate in polling.

Gallup and the National Journal aren't getting broadly divergent polling results because they are talking to different types of voters - they are largely getting divergent results because they disagree on who will actually show up to vote.  I use these two as the two extreme in national polling - the last Gallup poll had Romney up 5%, the last National Journal poll had Obama up 5%.

Who is going to turn out in an election is the hardest thing that a pollster has to determine.  Asking people how likely they are to vote is often an unreliable barometer, typically many more people answering a survey SAY they will show up to vote than ACTUALLY do.

Leveraging history is tricky, and here is the rub between the two polls and competing schools of thought.

Gallup's turnout model looks largely like a 2004 model.  Gallup would argue (and the GOP talking heads would agree) that 2008 had a unique set of circumstances that drove up Democratic turnout.  Youth turnout surged to an all-time high.  Turnout from both blacks and Hispanics was higher than in any previous election - and not by a small margin.  Hope and change was in the air and Democrats were fired up.  It is certainly fair to argue that they are less fired up today.

The National Journal has a model that looks more like 2008.  They would argue that while there may be some dampened enthusiasm in some demographics - such as the youth vote, the black vote will show up for Obama in the end and the Hispanic population has grown significantly, meaning that even if Hispanic turnout is down, overall Hispanic share of the electorate will remain roughly flat.

Knowing who is right is very difficult, since, as I said, there are no highly reliable ways to know.

My belief is that the truth is somewhere in between.  The point of using models, as I do, that average and aggregate polls in multiple ways, is that meeting in the middle of the sets of assumptions from experts generally produces a far more accurate result than picking a model on either extreme because you like it.

We will know in a few days who is right.  But there are two things that this turnout debate makes crystal clear:
(1) Watching voter turnout on election day will give us a great indication as to who has won the election
and
(2) Get out and vote!  Whichever candidate you like, whether you and others like you turn out or not will determine whether he wins or not.

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6 Days to Go - Is the Map Contracting or Expanding?, Is Hurricane Sandy This Election's Defining Moment?

Days Until The Election: 6
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.6% (up 1.0% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 290, Romney 248 (unchanged from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 67%, Romney 33% (Obama up 3% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 56%, Romney 44%

President Obama gains in my popular vote projection today on the tailwind of some strong polls released today.  There is still a large spread across the polls, all the way from +5% for Romney to +5% for Obama.  Clearly, pollsters have divergent views on the composition of the electorate that will actually show up in 6 days.  I thought it would be interesting to look at all of the polls as well as the accuracy of those polls that existed in 2008 to assess which scenarios are most likely.

Note that in my analysis, I exclude partisan-affiliated polls such as Public Policy Polling, as partisan motivations can obscure objectivity of polling, although PPP's poll currently shows an even race, largely in line with the other national polls.

There are a bunch of ways to aggregate this information to produce an average.  Taking a pure mean (adding up all the margins and dividing by the number of polls) yields Obama at +0.5%.  Taking a median (the middle number), yields Obama at +1.0%.  Taking a sample-weighted mean (applying more weight to polls with larger sample sizes) yields Obama at +0.3%.



Looking at the issue of historical accuracy, if we take only the 4 most accurate polls from 2008 (those that called it within 1% of the actual result), we get a mean of 0.0% (an even race) and a median of Obama +0.5%.

So if I distill it down, there are a ton of ways to average this thing, but just about any way you slice it, we are very close to the even line.  Having a polling spread of 10 points is actually not all THAT unusual...the final polls in 2008 had an 8 point spread.  The averaging techniques take the noise out of the system and the wisdom of the crowd usually pays off - consider if you will that if you aggregate all the polls, you are looking at results from over 16,000 surveys and inserting the wisdom of a dozen professional polling firms in determining turnout.

Of course it could all be wrong or change - but it's normally fairly accurate.

Relative to the states, I have been discussing what I view as a contracting battlefield recently.  Today, I think the true battlefield further contracts to 5 states: Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Ohio and New Hampshire.  You could make an argument for Nevada, especially knowing the history of poor polling performance, but bear in mind that poor polling performance has largely been biased against the Democrats - in 2008 President Obama won the state by about 4% more than the margin of the polls, ditto for Harry Reid in 2010, who grabbed victory from the jaws of defeat.

This runs contrary to what the Romney campaign has been saying and to some extent doing - they claim that they have expanded the map and the next 6 states are in play: Nevada, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.  And they are spending money on ad buys in those states.

Don't trust necessarily what campaigns are saying - of course the Romney campaign is going to say the map is expanding.  And in an era of virtually unlimited political money, don't necessarily trust the fact that they are placing ad buys.  The 5 "true" battlegrounds are already so saturated with ads that spending more money there doesn't help.  What would be the true sign that the GOP believes they can provide an alternate path to victory for their candidate is if Mitt Romney himself starts appearing in those 6 states.

Of course, Romney is basically off the campaign trail for the time-being in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, so we don't know if he will put his time where his campaign's mouth is.  I just can't see him winning any of those states except in the event of an unexpected landslide, in which case they are irrelevant anyway.  They won't provide Romney with electoral vote number 270.

Assuming my scenario is right, Romney now has a must win in 4 out of the 5 remaining battlegrounds and those 4 MUST include Florida, Virginia and Ohio.

It is not an insurmountable task, but it's a tough road for Romney in 6 days.

Particularly in light of:

Presidents Look Presidential in Crises
President Obama is all over the news, looking Presidential, caring and responsive.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is lavishing praise on his administration's response, as are local officials in impacted areas. 

Unfortunately for Romney, presidential candidates have very little place in these crises.  He is trying to tour disaster sites, but it looks brazenly political, while the President's visits look useful. 

The news cycle is all about the disaster and the government's response, which has so far been good.

And there is that little clip of Mitt Romney in the primary debates all but saying that FEMA should be dissolved and responsibility sent back to the states.

Can he turn the tide and recapture the news cycle?  His number of days to work with to do so is going to be small.  Expect Hurricane coverage to dominate the week...Mitt will basically have only the weekend and Monday to work his way back in.

While a Mitt Romney victory is certainly not outside the realm of possibility (if you believe in the wisdom of crowds it has about a one third chance of happening), at this point, Obama winning a sound victory, perhaps reaching 332 electoral votes and losing only Indiana and North Carolina from his 2008 coalition, actually seems more likely

Advantage still Obama.

The Big 2012 Map: Stable But Divergent National Polling, Could There Be a Hurricane Sandy Effect?

Days Until The Election: 9
Projected Popular Vote Total: Romney +0.1% (Romney down 0.1% from 4 days ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 281, Romney 257 (Obama up 4 from 4 days ago)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 63%, Romney 37% (Obama up 3% from 4 days ago)

As I alluded to in my shorter write-up yesterday, the numbers really stopped moving after the effect of Romney's first debate performance was fully factored into the race.  The last two Presidential debates and the VP debate, along with all the associated news cycle, are not moving the race much.

Today, we see some positive developments for both sides.  Barack Obama flips New Hampshire back into his column, along with its 4 electoral votes.  On the plus side for Romney, Minnesota has inched closer over the past few weeks and now falls into our "Leans Obama" category, at least theoretically putting it in play.  Neither campaign has events planned in Minnesota that include members of the ticket, although the Obama campaign did recently make a $500K ad buy in the state, although they claim it is in border cities and designed to reach Wisconsin voters, where both campaigns are fighting hard.  I don't seriously consider the possibility of a Minnesota victory for Romney unless the national race breaks hard in his favor in the waning days of the campaign, at which point, it won't be that relevant anyhow.  In other words, Minnesota is unlikely to be a "tipping point" state, as Romney will only win it if he has already comfortably won key states like Ohio and Wisconsin.

The divergence of national poling continues.  On one wing, we have the Gallup poll, which continues to show Mitt Romney with a 5% national lead.  On the other extreme, you have the RAND poll, which shows President Obama up by 6%.  Neither of those results seem particularly likely, as the breadth of other polling shows a much closer national race.  The remaining 6 national polls show somewhere between a 3% lead for Romney and a 2% lead for Obama, with our weighting methodology giving Romney a razor-thin lead in the national vote.

Analyzing the swing states, I find it is instructive to look at several factors - the amount of state polling that has been taking place, the consistency of the results of that polling, the historical reliability of polling, the current betting odds in the state and the investment of resources by the campaigns in those states.

Let's run down the states within 5 points and analyze:
Arizona:
Breadth of polling - very low - the last poll released had a sample end date of October 10th - in other words, we have no poling data from the past two weeks and scant data even before then.
Consistency of polling - low - the last three polls have an 11 point spread - all the way from Romney +9% to Obama +2%
Historical polling reliability - medium - Arizona polling has been about average in terms of projecting actual results - population and demographic shifts happen at a moderate pace and the large non-English speaking population presents some polling challenges
Campaign resource investment: low - neither campaign has events planned in Arizona, meaning they probably believe it is relatively safer for Romney
Intrade Odds - Romney >90% (not enough betting volume to get an accurate exact number)
Prognosis - the campaigns are more likely to be right than not that this one is in Romney's camp, but the scant and divergent polling give Arizona at least some shock potential on election day.  I'd like to see some more polls here.  My degree of confidence in Romney's lead is moderate in the absence of fresh data.

Florida:
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 10 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - high - polls from the past week show only a 3 point spread, from Romney +2% to Romney +5%
Historical polling reliability - medium - Florida's demographics and turnout variability present some challenges, but polling has historically been within a few points of the actual result.
Campaign resource investment: medium - both campaigns are spending a lot on TV in key markets, but campaign events have been decreasing, perhaps recognizing that Florida has been moving to Romney and the tipping point is elsewhere.
Intrade Odds: Romney 74%
Prognosis - my degree of confidence in a small Romney lead is high.

Virginia:
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 6 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - medium - polls from this week have a 6 point spread, from Romney +4% to Obama +2%
Historical polling reliability - high - Virginia's demographics are stable, turnout is consistent and poll results generally get it pretty close on election day.
Campaign resource investment - high - Virginia is drawing a lot of top-of-the-ticket campaigning and both campaigns clearly view it as very much in play.
Intrade Odds: Romney 52%
Prognosis - a true toss-up, but likely one where Romney has a slim lead

Colorado:
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 6 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - low - polls from this week show an 8 point spread, from Romney +4% to Obama +4%
Historical polling reliability - medium - there are significant transient population factors and turnout variability to contend with in Colorado.
Campaign resource investment - high - both campaigns are investing a lot of time and money in the state.
Intrade Odds: Even (50%/50%)
Prognosis - another true toss-up and one that is hard to call.

Iowa
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 6 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - medium - polls from this week show a 5 point spread, from Romney +1% to Obama +4%
Historical polling reliability - high - stable demographics and consistent turnout make this a relatively easier state to project
Campaign resource investment - moderate - both campaigns are spending in the Des Moines market and dropping in on the way to other mid-west swing states.
Intrade Odds: Obama 67%
Prognosis - it appears likely Obama has a modest lead here

New Hampshire
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 7 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - low - polls show an 11 point spread, from Romney +2% to Obama +9% in the past week
Historical polling reliability - low - New Hampshire is demographically stable, but the large contingent of independents have made it very tough to project (think 2008 Democratic primary)
Campaign resource investment - high - for a 4 electoral vote state, New Hampshire is getting disproportionate attention.
Intrade Odds: Obama 62%
Prognosis - very hard to pick a leader here and definitely more subject to a late swing than other states.

Nevada
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 7 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - high - there is only a 3 point spread across the entire two week period, from Obama +1% to Obama +4%
Historical polling reliability - low - Nevada's large transient population, especially in Las Vegas, makes this a very hard state to call - most of the polls had Sharon Angle beating Harry Reid by a few points on election eve 2010 and got it wrong.
Campaign resource investment - medium - there is a lot of TV spend but few campaign visits, perhaps as Nevada is not particularly close to the rest of the battlegrounds.
Intrade Odds: Obama 83%
Prognosis - all the evidence seems to suggest a consistent Obama lead, but historical inaccuracy of Nevada polling gives some pause.  Bias has tended historically to be Pro-Republican in polling, so I still give Obama the edge here.

Ohio
Breadth of polling - very high - there have been 14 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - high - of all 14 of those polls, there is only a 5 point spread, from even to Obama +5%
Historical polling reliability - high - Ohio has stable demographics and fewer independents than most swing states - polling tends to be highly reliable.
Campaign resource investment - very high - 4 of the 10 most spent markets for TV are in Ohio and it is the most-visited state by both Presidential and VP candidates.
Intrade Odds: Obama 68%
Prognosis - Obama clearly has a small but meaningful lead here in my opinion.

Wisconsin
Breadth of polling - medium - there have been 5 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - medium - there has been a 6 point spread among the 5 polls, from even to Obama +6%
Historical polling reliability - high - similar to Ohio in many ways, pollsters generally get in right in Wisconsin.
Campaign resource investment - high - Romney has upped his game here and both campaigns are making lots of stops and ad buys.
Intrade Odds: Obama 72%
Prognosis - Obama seems to hold a small but meaningful lead here, but I would like more polls to validate.

Pennsylvania
Breadth of polling - high - there have been 7 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - high - over the entire two week period, the spread is only 4 points, from Obama +3% to Obama +7%
Historical polling reliability - high - Pennsylvania fits the same mold as Ohio and Wisconsin
Campaign resource investment - low - Romney does not appear to be making a serious play for Pennsylvania
Intrade Odds: Obama >90% (volume too low to get accurate odds)
Prognosis - Obama seems highly likely to win here, barring some major national shift.

Minnesota
Breadth of polling - medium - there have been 4 polls conducted here in the past two weeks
Consistency of polling - medium - there is a 7 point spread in the polls, from Obama +3% to Obama +10%
Historical polling reliability - medium - Minnesota has some of the independent streak of New Hampshire (see Jesse Ventura), leading to some late shifts that are hard to poll for, but in aggregate polls have generally been about as accurate here as nationally.
Campaign resource investment - low - Obama's small ad buy aside, there isn't much going on here.  Romney seems to be conceding this one to the President.
Intrade Odds: Obama>90% (volume too low to get accurate odds)
Prognosis - Obama appears highly likely to win here.

Based on all of this, in my estimation, Arizona and Florida appear highly likely to go to Romney, Minnesota and Pennsylvania seem highly likely to go to Obama and Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin are the 6 states where the final days of the election are likely to be fought.

If we give Romney Arizona and Florida and give Obama Minnesota and Pennsylvania and apply the intrade odds to the remaining states, we get a base of 237 electoral votes for Obama and 235 for Romney.  Applying Intrade odds for the remaining states in a random model, we get the following outcome:

Obama Wins Electoral College: 74%
Romney Wins Electoral College: 24%
Electoral College Tie (Likely Romney Victory in House): 2%

The possibility of a tie means that we cannot ignore Maine and Nebraska, the two states that split their electoral vote by congressional district.  Last time around, Obama won 1 of Nebraska's 5 electoral vote by taking its most moderate district.  He appears to be well behind this time.  This time, Romney is hoping to take 1 of Maine's two congressional districts, the 1st district.  He appears to be behind as well, but within striking distance, possibly trailing by only 3% or 4%.  This will only matter in a very, very close electoral college, but as you can see from this model, that is a possibility.

Hurricane Sandy Effect?
It's a good thing that Hurricane Sandy is projected to hit this Monday and Tuesday instead of next Monday and Tuesday.  If it had hit next week, it would have had a dramatic impact on voter turnout and created a major disruption at just the wrong time to people making an important election choice.

As things stand, the effect will likely be very little unless there are still major power outages on election day.  While this is possible, it appears unlikely, as utilities will have a month to get the power back on.  Stay tuned - I'm right in the path of the storm in Southern New Jersey, so if you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I don't have power to post my blog.

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Oh How The World Can Change in 2 Weeks

Days Until the Election: 28 (that's right, just 4 short weeks!)
Projected Popular Vote Total: Romney +1.2% (Romney up 2.8% since 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 281, Romney 257 (Romney up 66 since 2 weeks ago)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 62%, Romney 38% (Romney up 8% since 2 weeks ago)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a horse race. 

On the heels of the one of the most one-sided debate performances of my lifetime, the complexion of the 2012 Presidential race has shifted significantly.

Romney has surged to a narrow lead in the national polls and while he still trails in the electoral total, his paths to 270 suddenly seem numerous.  He could win the states he leads plus Ohio, where he is a mere 0.4% behind.  Alternatively, he could pick up Pennsylvania or Michigan and win it all.

Now, let's be clear - there is good reason why President Obama is still the betting favorite to win re-election despite trailing in the national polls.  The structural advantage he holds in the electoral college make Romney's path tougher even if he wins nationally.  Romney still has to hold all 5 of his close states plus take one of the big 3 others and I'm not candidly sure that Pennsylvania and Michigan are realistic targets unless Romney posts a 5%+ national lead (at which point the electoral map almost becomes irrelevant as he will win in almost any imaginable scenario.)

So Obama can basically play 3-state ball - go after Florida, Virginia and Ohio and all he needs to do is take 1 of the 3.

Plus, there are still 3 more significant events in the political season...the 3 remaining debates.  If we review the 4 that have occurred so far from my list of 7, it has been a mixed bag:
1.  Selection of Republican VP Candidate - minor boost for Romney
2.  Republican National Convention - weak or zero boost for Romney
3.  Democratic National Convention - moderate boost for Obama
4.  First Presidential Debate - moderate-to-large boost for Romney

I find it almost inconceivable that Obama will turn in 2 more performances as flat as the one last week or that Biden vs. Ryan will go as poorly as the first Presidential debate.  Romney doesn't need victories that large, but I think even 3 even debates is probably a big plus for the Obama camp since it takes some of the luster off Romney's first victory.

Obama is still correctly the betting favorite.  But certainly not as big a favorite as he was two weeks ago.  On to the VP debate.

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The Big 2012 Electoral Map - Condition Critical for Mitt Romney?, What's the Deal with the 47% Anyway?

Is the Romney Campaign on Life Support?
Days Until The Election: 44
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.6% (down 1.7% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 347, Romney 191 (Obama +15 from last week)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 70%, Romney 30% (Obama +4% from last week)

On most fronts, it was a pretty bad week for Mitt Romney.  The media focus continued to be on his 47% comment (more on that later) which largely blunted his attempt to make the message about the state of the US economy.

He lost yet another state on our electoral map, with North Carolina moving into the Obama column and a slew of new polls in Ohio suggest that his opportunity to win that state is rapidly slipping away.  As things stand today, Romney would need every single one of the the states I have bucketed as "lean Obama" in order to eek out a 272-266 Electoral college victory and running the table in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada AND Virginia seems like a daunting task.

The betting odds on him winning slipped again to a new low in the campaign, with the betting markets projecting only a 30% probability of a Romney victory, down from 34% last week.

There is one, very important slice of good news for Mitt Romney amid all the bad news however, and that lies in the two large Presidential tracking polls.  As I noted before, Gallup and Rasmussen are the two largest-sample national tracking polls being conducted throughout the race (many other tracking polls will be added during the month of October if history holds), with the former being a 7-day tracking average and the later being a 3-day tracking average.  The good news for Romney is that in both polls, the President's bump from the convention has faded and both show the race a dead heat, with Gallup at 47-47 and Rasmussen at 46-46. 

How to process the tracking poll data in light of other national polls (the National Journal just released a similarly timed poll that shows Obama up by a 50-43% margin and, in fact, every other poll released during the month of September showed the President with a lead, although the margin varied between 1% and 8%) is a tricky question.  I've been at this for a few election cycles now and have found it incredibly hard to project a "best poll" for the national vote.  In 2000, the Investor's Business Daily poll had the most accurate results.  In 2004, it was the Battleground poll.  In 2008, the CNN / Opinion Research poll called it the most closely.  For perspective, these two particular tracking polls had Obama at +7% (Rasmussen) and +11% (Gallup) versus a +7.3% actual result.

Since nobody ever knows which poll will get it exactly right, my process of aggregation and multi-factor averaging has produced better results than individual polls and as such, my statistical approach gives no more or less weight to these polls than other similarly-sampled polls would have.  But it is interesting.

Looking at the map, one might naturally wonder why the President is campaigning in Wisconsin this weekend.  The recent polls don't make it look like Wisconsin is truly up for grabs at this stage even with Paul Ryan on the GOP ticket, although it did look that way a couple of weeks ago.  I believe that the answer may be that the President is trying to quickly narrow the field.  If he can lock down his support in the mid-west and put Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania out of reach (the Romney camp seems to have largely abandoned Pennsylvania already), then he lock Romney's path to victory down to one - sweeping all the close states.  Mitt Romney is in Colorado this weekend, obviously working those light blue states, then heads to Ohio and Virginia.

With all that said, here is my assessment of the state of the race.  Mitt Romney is running out of time, but is not yet completely out.  Each day that goes by hurts his chance of winning.  That is what is happening with the betting odds - it is not so much that the race has swung to Obama, in fact the national numbers and the electoral college look a lot like they looked a month ago, it is that his time to shift the natural course of the campaign is dwindling.  Each news cycle where he is not making an impact is hurting him at this point.

He needs a breakthrough performance in the first debate, but the likely outcome is something akin to a draw.  Both candidates will likely be very well prepped and both are pretty lucid speakers when they are on-script, so if I had to guess, I'd guess that it won't move the needle that much.  But it is 90 minutes for Romney to try to roll the dice and move the needle.

The 47%
Quite a lot of controversy has surrounded the release of video that showed Mitt Romney speaking of the 47% who don't pay taxes.

Out of fairness, first let me give you the entire Romney quote, in context:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. These are people who pay no income tax. My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Who exactly Romney is referring to when he talks about the "47%" is not 100% clear to me from the quote.  47% is approximately the percentage of people who don't pay income tax, as he mentions late in the quote and perhaps the most reasonable interpretation of the quote is to say that he is referring to those people.  He could also be referring to people who receive some form of government assistance.  If you include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Welfare, Pell Grants and every other federal assistance program, the 47% is pretty close to the percentage of people who get something from the government.

I have a couple of problems with his statement.  First, the notion that all the people who pay no taxes or receive government benefits are all going to vote for the President is absurd.  Mitt Romney is leading among senior citizens, who are the largest group that don't pay income taxes and receive government benefits, largely because many of them are retired and living off of Social Security and Medicare.  Enlisted members of the military are also polling for Romney and they are one of the largest recipients of Food Stamps, which is a national disgrace that we should discuss at a later date.  Also, working poor white voters overwhelmingly favor Romney.  More than 60% of the voters in West Virginia, for instance, pay no federal income tax, and Romney leads West Virginia by almost 20% in my numbers, an impossibility if the 60% all voted for Obama.  So the notion that the "47%" of non tax-paying, government benefit-receiving people are all lined up for Obama is on-face absurd.

Secondly, I think the important question is WHY they don't pay federal taxes and WHY they receive benefits.  Mitt Romney has said of his own taxes "I pay what is legally required and not a penny more" and I happen to agree with him - it's an unreasonable expectation that people should send checks to the government that are not required.  The 47% pay no federal income taxes because they are not REQUIRED to because largely of three things.  The first is the Earned Income Tax Credit, a concept pioneered by populist conservative Jack Kemp to encourage poor people to work rather than receive welfare by creating the economic incentive of subsidizing their income if they did.  The second is the expanded Child Tax Credit, an idea implemented by Bill Clinton, but also championed by Newt Gingrich and extended by George W. Bush.  The third is the Bush tax cuts, which slashed all rates and moved up the amount of the first dollar of income taxed.  So, largely, those who are NOT senior citizens (who, I guess we can blame FDR and LBJ for creating Social Security and Medicare for their not working and paying taxes) are not doing so because of conservative policies.

Thirdly, not paying income taxes or receiving some form of federal benefit is a poor yardstick for being a freeloader.  Most of the working poor who do not pay taxes still pay payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), federal gas taxes (who doesn't pay gas taxes!), federal alcohol and tobacco taxes and a whole bevy of state and local taxes (sales taxes, property taxes, etc.)  The yardstick of paying federal income taxes being equated to being a contributing member of society would mean that everyone who lived in the country before 1913 was a freeloader, since the federal government couldn't even impose one until the ratification of the 16th amendment.

As for receiving a federal benefit, that is also a very poor benchmark.  Most recipients of Social Security and Medicare, who paid into the system their whole lives and are no receiving their legally promised benefits, don't consider themselves freeloaders.  I'm sure Mitt doesn't consider his father, who was on welfare in his early adulthood, but went on to be a very successful businessman and politician, a freeloader.  I think most of you with kids in college that received Pell Grants to be freeloaders.  Three years ago, I took advantage of a tax rebate to put more energy-efficient windows in my house, I don't consider myself a freeloader.

Lost in all of this though is the fact that I DO agree with Mitt that the income tax system is not healthy and it is probably not a great idea as a matter of policy to have 47% of people pay no federal income tax.  But what exactly is he proposing that would solve it?  End the Bush tax cuts?  He's against it (as is President Obama for the income-brackets we are discussing.)  Repeal the Child Tax credit?  Both he and the President are opposed.  End the Earned Income Tax Credit?  Again, both candidates are against doing so.

The solution would be to create a graduated system with less deductions.  Romney has proposed to do so but won't say which deductions he would eliminate, other than that he wouldn't eliminate the two largest ones - the mortgage interest deduction and the charitable contribution deduction.

Maybe Mitt Romney, faced with the long odds he has now, will get serious about putting forward a more serious policy proposal on taxation.  That would be a great thing for the national dialogue.  But I'm not holding my breathe. 

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The Big Electoral Map - Could This Already Be Close to Over?, A Survey of the Projection World

Days Until The Election: 52
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.3% (down 1.7% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)

We are now a week removed from the conventions and one thing is very clear to me: Mitt Romney has a big uphill climb if he is going to unseat the President.  It is not so much that the polls are dramatically different from prior to Romney's selection of Paul Ryan and the two conventions, it is that time and the number of potentially game-changing events is dwindling.

Looking back at the history of the race, we are more or less exactly where we were the first week in August, when Obama led by 3.8% and had an identical electoral vote total (332) to today.  Since then, Romney selected Paul Ryan, surging to within 1.1% on the eve of the conventions and closing the electoral gap to 294-244.  GOP loyalists at that point no doubt hoped that a successful convention would vault the race to parity or better.

There are a few disconcerting things about what has happened since:
(1) In spite of a widely lauded pick of Paul Ryan, Romney's initially bounce from that pick has been entirely wiped out.
(2) We are now 52 days out from the election and Mitt Romney has never led and never had a map that is higher than 244 electoral votes.
(3) Romney's best chance to make hay between now and election day is in the debates and Barack Obama has historically shown a strong ability to compete in those events
(4) All of this is in spite of what would appear to be lousy economic news and unsettling news in the Arab world.
(5) To win at this point, Romney virtually needs to run the table in the remaining swing states, as he needs 64 of the 91 possible electoral votes in play and especially needs Ohio and Florida, both of which show the President with stable, although not huge leads.

The oddsmakers have noted these trends and the President has broken out ohttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5151723204466895344#editor/target=post;postID=6984005523815463150Obf the range of betting odds on his victory, which had been bound between 50% and 60% for the entire year and, as of this morning, is a 66% favorite to win re-election.

The election is certainly not over as some unforeseen event could no doubt shift the balance of the race, but the natural arc of the race at this point would be an Obama victory.  Mitt Romney needs an ultra-strong victory in the first debate and a much more organized strategy.  Taking cheap midnight potshots at Obama's foreign policy isn't going to cut it at this point.

Maybe, just maybe, Romney will conclude that he needs to take a risk and present a real economic and budgetary plan, with details.  I sure hope so.

A Survey of the Projection World
I'm obviously not the only one looking at these electoral maps.  Here is a view from some of the other major sites that look at this stuff:

realclearpolitics (no toss-ups) -  Obama 332, Romney 206
CNN - Obama 237, Romney 191, 110 Toss-Up
Karl Rove - Obama 225, Romney 191, 122 Toss-Up
Joe Trippi - Obama 270, Romney 191, 77 Toss-Up
Electoral-Vote.com - Obama 332, Romney 206
Huffington Post - Obama 316, Romney 206, 16 Toss-Up
Intrade.com - Obama 332, Romney 206
New York Times - Obama 237, Romney 206, 95 Toss-Up

So, the picture others are looking at is largely similar to the one I am.  The 3 sites that don't have toss-ups all show an identical map to me.  The other sites largely give Romney either all the states I've given (the ones with 206 totals) or all the states I've given less North Carolina (leading to a 191 EV total) and don't give the President many of the states that I have as very light blue.

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The Big Electoral Map - Obama's Big Convention Bounce - Will It Last?

Days Until The Election: 58
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +5.0% (up 4.2% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (Obama +38 from last week)

We are just a few days removed from the back-to-back conventions and the polling verdict is in: advantage Obama.

He has surged in the national polls, breaking out of a range he had been in of +0-3% to go up a full 5 points nationally.  He reclaims all of the ground on the electoral map that Mitt Romney had chipped away following the announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate.

There is good news and there is bad news for Romney related to these latest batch of polls.

The good news is that not all convention bounces stick.  Michael Dukakis was famously up versus George H.W. Bush in 1988 and went on to lose badly.  Bounces often happen for a few days as people bask in the patriotism and unity presented at these events, then fade as cooler heads prevail and people remember the reasons that they didn't like a candidate in the first place.

The bad news for Romney is that the shifts in national polling are not even yet fully reflected in the state polls as many of the state polls in my averages are still from prior to the DNC.  It is very possible that Romney is behind in North Carolina as I write this and that Obama's margins in key states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia are larger than I am currently reflecting.

There is still a lot of race left - 58 days is an eternity in Presidential politics and there are still the 4 debates (3 Presidential and 1 Vice-Presidential) to take place, all of which represent potential key turning points in the race, but Romney has his work cut out for him.

To give perspective - the odds on this race are presently at 59%-41% on Intrade, favoring Obama, but not by a massively larger amount than it has favored him for the bulk of this year.

As a reminder, here is the debate schedule for this year (all times are Eastern):
October 3rd - Denver, Colorado - 9 PM - Focus: Domestic Policy (Moderator: Jim Lehrer - PBS)
October 11th - Danville, Kentucky - 9 PM - VP Debate (Moderator: Martha Raddatz - ABC)
October 16th - Hempstead, New York - 9 PM - Focus: Open - Town Hall Format (Moderator: Candy Crowley - CNN)
October 22nd - Boca Raton, Florida - 9 PM - Focus: Foreign Policy (Moderator: Bob Schiffer - CBS)

Notably losing out on debate moderation is NBC, which hasn't had the same kind of gravitas in the political world since the death of Tim Russert, who surely would have scored one of the moderator roles, had he wanted it.  Also missing are the partisan MSNBC and Fox News.

What will be interesting in the lull period between now and the debates (which is almost 4 weeks) will be to see if Obama's post-convention bounce fades and if Romney's series of ads in 8 key swing states have an impact.

If Romney can chip away at Obama's lead in the next 4 weeks and make it a 1 or 2 point race come the first debate, then he will only need to perform solidly to stay in contention.  If he is not able to move the needle between now and then, he will need a game-changing performance.

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of the Democratic National Convention, Do the Conventions Matter at All Anymore?

Last week, I looked at the best and worst of the Republican National Convention.  This week, I do the same for the Democrats, who, as expected, had a similarly hyper-produced package of material for consumption by us politicos and whatever undecided voters actually still watch this kind of stuff.

Here is my rundown:

The Good (and Very Good)
(1) Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton
Love him or hate him, Bubba is the master.  I have never in my lifetime seen a politician who can break down complex arguments in simple ways that are equally compelling to the political in-the-know and the casual observer.

Clinton's strident defense of Obamacare, including citing insurance rate declines, arrested health care inflation and stories of the ill protected was truly compelling and frankly made me wonder where the heck the Obama administration has been in the defense of its signature policy.

His dismantling of Romney and Ryan's economic proposals was wicked red meat and incredibly quotable, containing such memorable one-lines as "double down on trickle down" and "they say we need to have the courage to make the tough choices but don't have the courage to tell us what choices they would make."

He made the strongest possible case for Obama, stronger than anyone else at the convention.

(2) Joe Biden
We knew that Clinton would be good - he has always been a great speaker.  The whole Democratic Party might have been nervous about Biden, who is often prone to gaffes and wild overstatements of arguments that make him vulnerable to criticism.

Biden's speech was fiery, but also emotionally connecting and persuasive.  After all the fire he has brought over the past 4 years, it is easy to see after that speech why the President liked him so much in the first place - at his best, Biden comes across as genuine, decent and loyal.

"Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive" will likely live on as a campaign mantra.

(3) Brian Switzer
The cowboy Governor of Montana is a hidden star in the Democratic party.  His dissection of Governor Romney's term in office, while less comprehensive than the speech delivered by Deval Patrick two days earlier, was more compelling in my mind because it made several simple points clearly - Romney left the state in greater debt and his claim of not raising taxes is a shell game.

The line "when you want to raise taxes and not tell anyone it's a tax increase, you call it a fee" cracked me up, as did his follow-up line about being mad at Romney about raising the cost of gun licenses.

Switzer is this decade's answer to Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

The Bad
(1) President Obama's Speech
I frankly found this to be the worst major speech of the President's career.  His attempt at lofty inspiration and appeal to our better natures felt vacant and flat to me in the face of the bitter partisanship and tough circumstances in which the country finds itself and of which the President has been a part.

He fired away at Romney and Ryan for not offering any specifics (a claim that is utterly fair) but then followed that by offering no real agenda of his own, other than some vague policy goals with long timeframes.

What exactly would the President prioritize if re-elected?  I'm not at all sure after watching that speech and that's not a good thing.

(2) The Long Line of Celebrities
Does everyone from Hollywood have to be given 15 minutes at these things?  I will admit that Eva Longoria gave a smart, poignant speech (she knows her stuff in politics), but the rest of the celebrity speeches sort of felt like an insult to the audience and left me wondering, what exactly qualifies them to be here telling me how to vote?

The Ugly
(1) The platform fight
This might or might not have life as an issue, but what the Democrats did relative to their platform change was a disgraceful subversion of Democracy.

To set context for those who didn't follow it, for whatever reason (oversight or intention), the platform initially omitted language which had been included in the 2008 platform pertaining to the State of Israel being our strongest ally in the Middle East and Jerusalem being the capital of Israel.

As the media and the GOP caught the shift and outraged ensued, the Democrats scrambled to change the platform back to the 2008 language (which also aligned with the state policy of the Obama administration.)

No problem with doing that, other than that convention rules require a vote of 2/3rds of the delegates to amend the platform after it has been adopted (which it already had.)  When the amendment was proposed on the floor, Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaragosa took a voice vote three separate times.  Each time, it appeared that the vote from the floor was no better than 50/50 for the platform change and clearly NOT a 2/3rds vote (plenty of video is available on YouTube.)  Nonetheless, Villaragosa decided that 2/3rds had voted for the change and it was adopted.

Shame on Villaragosa and shame on the party leaders for allowing this.  You cannot be the party of Democracy if you don't even practice it in your own party.

Overall, my impression is that the conventions were a relative wash - Romney was stronger than Obama in the nomination speeches but Biden was better than Ryan and Clinton was miles better than any speaker on the GOP side.

All of which leads to the key question:

Does Any of This Matter?
When I laid out my 7 key events to the last 100 days of the election (the selection of Romney's VP, the two conventions and the four debates), my assumption was that each of these 7 events could at least have the potential to shift polls in a meaningful way.  It is clear to me that the Paul Ryan nomination helped Romney at least some, possibly facilitating as much as a 2 point swing in the polls, which is significant in a close race.

So are the conventions having a similar effect?  It is too early to have numbers from the DNC, but we can see if there is an effect from the RNC by looking at the two tracking polls that are consistently publishing every day, the Rasmussen and the Gallup polls.

Both polls have their flaws - Scott Rasmussen is clearly a Republican-leaning, if not Republican-affiliated pollster and his polls early and in the middle of races consistently show the GOP doing better than virtually all independent polls.  Somehow, as elections draw near, his polls tend to intersect other polls, so his final numbers always look respectable.  So, I read the Rasmussen polls but always take them with a grain of salt if there are not other, independent polls that verify his findings.

Gallup certainly does not have polling bias, it is probably the most respected and storied polling firm in history.  My gripe with Gallup is that at this stage in the race, they use a registered voter sample rather than a likely voter sample.  Their argument has always been that until late, it is too difficult to effectively screen who is actually likely to voter, as each election has different turnout patterns.  There is validity to that argument, by the by-product of simply ignoring the likeliness of people to actually show up, Gallup can, at times, over-represent the Democratic vote.  This was not the case in 2008, when Democratic turnout was huge, but was most definitely the case in 2004, when Democratic turnout lagged GOP turnout.

Of the 2 polls, I prefer the Gallup poll, which is much more stable with a larger sample size and a longer tracking period (7 days versus 3 days for Rasmussen.)  I also like the fact that they make their tracking results available to the public (you have to pay to get the history on the Rasmussen poll, although they publish their daily number once per day free of charge.)  I will present the Gallup poll but tell you that the Rasmussen poll has tracked in the same general direction, but has been about 2-3 points consistently more favorable to Mitt Romney, for the reasons described above.

Here are the tracking changes in the Gallup poll through the convention season:

The RNC is an absolute flatline - no change in the polling whatsoever.  It remains to be seen whether the uptick in the poll yesterday for Obama is an outlier or the start of a trend up as a result of the DNC.

At any rate, while Romney was successful in changing his trajectory to some extent with the selection of Paul Ryan, it appears he was not successful in getting a "bounce" out of the RNC.

We now have a few weeks to argue over all this until the next major event, the first Presidential debate, on October 3rd.

The ads will start flying fast and furious in the meantime as the Romney campaign just announced a huge ad buy in 8 key swing states.  The choice of the 8 states is highly instructive as to his strategy. The ad buys are in: North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Florida and Nevada.  Notably missing are Michigan and Wisconsin, two states that I thought were at least marginally in play and represent big electoral prizes.  Also missing is Pennsylvania, a state every Republican candidate in my lifetime has tried to compete for but that the Republicans haven't won since 1988.

All 8 of the states are states Obama won in 2008.  Assuming Romney wins all the McCain states (a reasonable assumption as of all those states, only Missouri and Arizona are even marginally competitive and both appear likely to go to Romney in the end) and picks up Indiana with relatively little effort (also a fairly safe assumption, given recent polling), these 8 states would put Romney at 291 Electoral Votes, 21 more than he needs to win.

It still shows the tough electoral map for Romney.  He could run the table everywhere but Florida and he would still lose.  The reason he is competing in a 4 electoral vote state in New Hampshire is that if he losses Ohio, he needs all of the other 7, including New Hampshire to win (in actuality losing Ohio and New Hampshire and winning the other 6 creates an almost unthinkable 269-269 tie that would probably wind up with the House of Representative selecting Romney, but let's not even go there right now.)  He can lose a few of the smaller states if he takes the big prizes of Ohio and Florida.  He could lose Iowa, Nevada and Colorado in that scenario and still eek out a 270-268 victory.

Expect the President to push very hard in Ohio and Florida to try to score the knockout punch.  He has also shown a lot of energy for going after North Carolina, which would considerably complicate Romney's path.

The battlegrounds are fairly clear.  Get ready for the ad carpet bombs from the campaigns and the Super PACs.

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On the Eve of the RNC, A Tight Race

Days Until the Election: 74
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.1% (down 0.8% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 294, Romney 244 (Romney +29 from last week)

There is no doubt that over the past few weeks, since the announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has been gaining momentum.

In 3 days, weather permitting, the Republican National Convention will begin.  It is a star-studded event, whose speakers are highlighted in my earlier post.  It will be carefully scripted and messaged and put together well,  Mitt Romney should get a boost.

There is a decent possibility, perhaps even a probability, that Mitt Romney will be leading following the RNC (the second of my 7 key events in the race.)  What happens after that at the DNC will set the trajectory going into the debates.

Stay tuned over the next week, the next chapter of Presidential history is well underway.

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The Big 2012 Electoral Map - Ryan Selection Shows Some Gains for Romney, Conventions Take Form

Race Tightens
Days Until Election: 80
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.9% (down 1.9% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 323, Romney 215 (Romney +9 from 2 weeks ago)

State Changes: Colorado swings from Romney to Obama (9 electoral votes)

Since the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate, media coverage has been largely focused on Ryan and has largely been positive.  This, plus Joe Biden firing off yet another in his seemingly endless string of gaffes, have moved the polls back towards Romney.

In addition to Colorado swinging from Obama to Romney, Ohio and Florida are now even closer (arguably well within the margin of error) and Ryan's Wisconsin roots puts that state in contention in a more meaningful way.

So, at least in the short-term, the selection of Ryan appears to have been a success for Romney.  This was the first of 7 scheduled significant events in the last 100 days of the election that I discussed previously, with the 2 conventions and the 4 debates comprising the other major events.

Romney still has ground to make up, obviously.  Even if Romney manages to flip Ohio and Florida, he will be at 262 electoral votes and will need to either flip Virginia or Wisconsin or some combination of two states between Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

The next major events are the Republican convention in Tampa and the Democratic convention in Charlotte.  Let's turn our attention there.

Convention Speaker Roundup
The GOP is rolling out the A-list for the convention and largely excluding the more polarizing wing of the party.  Confirmed speakers are listed below, including keynote speakers.

Chris Christie, NJ Governor, Keynote
Jeb Bush, Former FL Governor
Nikki Haley, SC Governor
Mike Huckabee, Former AR Governor
John Kasich, OH Governor
Susana Martinez, NM Governor
Rick Scott, FL Governor
Scott Walker, WI Governor
Mary Fallin, OK Governor
Luis Fortuno, PR Governor
Condoleezza Rice, Former Secretary of State
Pam Bondi, FL Attorney General
Sam Olens, GA Attorney General
Ted Cruz, TX Senate Nominee
Artur Davis, Former Democratic Representative
Rand Paul, KY Senator
John McCain, AZ Senator
Rick Santorum, Former PA Senator

A few key things to note.  First of all, the outside-the-beltway focus is evident, with 10 current or former governors and 2 AG's speaking (12 state-level speakers) and only 3 current or former Senators, 1 Senate nominee, 1 former Representative and 1 former cabinet official (6 national politicans.)  So, two thirds of the convention will feature people from primarily outside-the-beltway.

Also notably absent are the most controversial of the Republican politicians.  Sarah Palin is not featured.  Neither is George W. Bush or Dick Cheney.  Newt Gingrich is missing, as is Herman Cain.  This is, perhaps, the first time I can recall a living, healthy ex-President not making a speech at his party's convention, although there is still time for Bush to be given a speaking spot and if not, one can certainly understand Romney's desire not to remind people of the last Republican President.

Also of note is the diversity of the speakers.  Of the 18 that have been named, fully one third are ethnic minorities with 3 featured hispanics (Cruz, Fortuno and Martinez), 2 featured African-Americans (Davis and Rice) and 1 featured Indian-American (Haley.)  5 of the 18 speakers are women (Bondi, Haley, Martinez, Rice and Fallin.)

I think the focus on diversity is progress.  While Democrats will say it is a cynical attempt to win hispanic votes and appear inclusive to swing white voters, I say that even if that is the motivation, the very fact that the GOP chooses to focus on highlighting diversity in the party is a good thing.

On the Democratic side, the schedule is far less formed.  Confirmed so far are:
Bill Clinton, Former President
Jimmy Carter, Former President (by video)
Michele Obama, First Lady
Julian Castro, San Antonio Mayor
Elizabeth Warren, MA Senate Candidate

Stay tuned.

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Who is Rep. Paul Ryan and What Does His Selection Mean?

Vice Presidential candidates generally don't decide general elections.  Some of the most widely panned Vice Presidential selections have still resulted in candidates being elected, Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle being obvious examples.  Many great Vice Presidential picks have failed to life tickets, including the original compassionate conservative, Jack Kemp in 1996 being an obvious example.

Vice Presidential candidates who don't win become forgotten in history.  Does anyone remember who Adali Stevenson's running mates were in 1952 and 1956?  Let's try an easier one - do you remember who Gerald Ford ran with in 1976?  The answers, for the curious, are John Sparkman, Estes Kafauver and Bob Dole, two names you probably don't even know and one that you know only because he was a Presidential candidate 20 years later.

So, to reinforce what I've often said, I find it highly unlikely that the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) as Mitt Romney's running mate will make or break the election either way.  He is unlikely to torpedo and otherwise winning ticket and he is unlikely to bolster an otherwise faltering ticket in a meaningful way.

But Vice Presidential picks do reveal a lot about the Presidential candidates, as they are the first governing choice that they will make.

In 1980, we learned that Ronald Reagan, in spite of lofty rhetoric, was at heart a pragmatist, understanding that he needed to surround himself with smart people who knew more about areas like foreign policy, than he did.  George Herbert Walker Bush had been a bitter primary rival and was very much at odds with Reagan's economic policy, but Reagan knew a good executor when he saw one.

In 1988, we learned that George Herbert Walker Bush wanted nothing so much as to appease the right wing of the party.  Everyone realized Dan Quayle wasn't the best qualified candidate for the job, but Bush had fences to mend with conservatives.

In 1992, we learned that Bill Clinton prized an intellectual equal and wanted to be surrounded by very bright people.  It was also an indication that Clinton, a classic Center-Left Democrat, might have a little more left in him than center.

In 2000, we learned that George W. Bush prized loyalty immensely and wanted to be around people he was comfortable with, a theme we saw throughout his administration, where he frequently surrounded himself with people who had been with him his whole career.

In 2008, we learned that Barack Obama wanted to "first do no harm", picking a clearly qualified Veep who was uncontroversial and unlikely to get him trouble (frequent gaffes aside.)  We also learned that Obama didn't like being told what to do, roundly rejecting the easy choice of Hillary Clinton to forge his own path.

So what do we learn about Mitt Romney in 2012?

First, we learn that he is first and foremost, going to run an economic and budgetary campaign.  This comes as no surprise as economics are front and center in the national concern and Romney has always showed something between disdain and discomfort discussing social policy.  Secondly, we learn that Romney behaves in his hiring decisions like a CEO - he needs an economic and budgetary plan, so he hires the smartest young economic thinker in the GOP.  We also learn from a political standpoint that Romney is far more interested in running a base turnout election than a swing-voter election - Ryan energizes economic conservatives and tea party-types but does little with moderate voters and opens Romney up to all kinds of attacks about Ryan's plans for Medicare and Medicaid.

Paul Ryan would not have been my first choice if I were a political adviser to Romney.  Bobby Jindal would have been a solid conservative (appease the base), experienced governor (buttresses Romney's executive experience argument) and a non-overshadowing force in the campaign.  Paul Ryan does not bring governing experience - how can Romney argue business and governing experience is so critical when his 2nd choice for President doesn't have any?  Ryan may overshadow Romney as he is a much more respected thinker in the party.

But, apparently, CEO Romney is much more concerned with hiring the guy with the plan than what that guy will mean to the campaign.  And like I said, it probably won't decide the election, so Romney is probably well-advised to pick someone with whom he is comfortable.

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