Final Projections & My Guide to the Election

Final Projections for President
8 Hours Until the Election-Day Polls Open
Final Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.9%
Final Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 303, Romney 235
Election-Eve Betting Odds: Obama 67%, Romney 33%
Election-Eve Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 60%, Romney 38%, within 0.5% - 2%

Of note on the election eve:
(1) No earth-shattering changes on election eve in the state-by-state count.  The closest and hardest-to-call statements (within my historic margin of error) are Virginia, Colorado and Florida, in that order.  Neither of those 3 are likely to be the tipping point state in the election.
(2) Romney HAS made real gains in Pennsylvania with his late campaign effort and spending, but appears to be falling just short.  Interestingly, in my calculation Pennsylvania IS, at this point the tipping point state in the election.  One to watch on election night.
(3) Minnesota is effectively off the table as a swing state
(4) The popular vote vs. electoral vote polling disparity has disappeared.  My state-by-state projections, when run through the 2008 electorate, produces a margin of 1.0% for President Obama.  The national polling implies a 0.9% advantage for him, insignificantly different.

I remain comfortable with my projection that the President will carry the day.  But this is certainly not 2008, where I make that projection with near 100% certainty.

One note that I should make is that I am making all of my final calls on election eve.  Polls will continue to be released during the day tomorrow and many websites "final" calls are based on these polls.  In my mind, if you don't project it ahead of time, it isn't really a projection.  So, the other websites in many cases have an advantage of newer information, but I will continue to benchmark my performance against what they call their "final" projections.

It will be extremely difficult to meet the accuracy of my popular vote projection in 2008, when I was dead-on to the final result (although I ironically believed that I had missed by 0.7% based on the preliminary election results.)  I don't have any aspiration of being so exact again.

Last time I called 48 states right.  I'd like to match that benchmark and believe I could, although I find 3 states very difficult to call, so a reasonable range would be to get 47-50 states right.

Of course, either candidate could significantly outperform the polls and I could be far worse than last time - we'll have to tune in to see.

Final Projections for the Senate
Projected Senate composition: 52 Democrats, 46 Republicans, 2 Independents (effective Democratic working majority of 54-46)

The Democrats are poised to retain the Senate.  The closest races, in Virginia, Wisconsin and Montana will provide the margin.  The Republicans best chance to pick up the Senate would be to win in the states that I project plus win in very-close Wisconsin and Virgina, pick up the tough fight in Massachusetts and find one other state to take, plus win the Presidency, a near-impossible task unless there is an overwhelming surge for Romney, with coattails.

Final Projections for the House
Final generic ballot average: Republicans +0.1%
Projected House composition: 239 Republicans, 196 Democrats

Republicans will comfortably retain the House, thanks to very favorable redistricting and a strong incumbency position.

Other Projections
Here is what others are projecting in the electoral college:
Fivethirtyeight (Nate Silver) - Obama 332, Romney 206
realclearpolitics (no toss-ups) - Obama 303, Romney 235
electoral-vote.com - Obama 281, Romney 206, 51 Tied
electionprojection.com - Obama 290, Romney 248
Fox News - Obama 202, Romney 192, 146 Toss-Up
CNN - Obama 237, Romney 206, 95 Toss-Up
PBS - Obama 247, Romney 246, 85 Toss-Up
Karl Rove - Obama 184, Romney 180, 174 Toss-Up (seriously?  174 toss-ups?  I could've made that projection 2 years ago!)

Of the sites that endeavor to make a projection in every state, there only real area of disagreement is about the closest state - Virginia.  Virginia is certainly extremely close and very hard to call, so this is understandable.  The other states we are in violent agreement, mainly because we all read the same polls.  So we are only going to be wrong when the polls are in agreement if the polls are systemically wrong.

Poll Closing Times (all times in Eastern Time)
Of critical importance as you are following the coverage is when polls close in each state as this will be the first look we get at exit poll data in those states as well as the ballots actually beginning to be counted.  Here are time horizons for all 50 states.  Note that I have sorted them based on when the LAST polls close - as an example the majority of polls in Florida close at 7 PM ET, but the Central Time Zone polls in the panhandle close at 8 PM ET.  Typically, but not universally, states will not be called by the networks until all polls are closed.

7 PM Closing Time (6 states including 1 battleground)
Indiana (Eastern time zone polls close at 6 PM)
Kentucky (Eastern time zone polls close at 6 PM)
South Carolina
Georgia
Vermont
Virginia

7:30 PM Closing Time (3 states including 1 battleground)
North Carolina
Ohio 
West Virginia

8 PM Closing Time (17 states/territories including 3 battlegrounds)
Alabama
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida (Eastern time zone polls close at 7 PM)
Illinois
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Mississippi
Missouri
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Tennessee

8:30 PM Closing Time (1 state)
Arkansas

9 PM Closing Time (12 states including 2 battlegrounds)
Arizona
Colorado
Louisiana
Michigan (Eastern time zone polls close at 8 PM)
Minnesota
Nebraska
New Mexico
New York
South Dakota (Central time zone polls close at 8 PM)
Texas (Central time zone polls close at 8 PM)
Wisconsin
Wyoming

10 PM Closing Time (5 states including 1 battleground)
Iowa
Kansas (Central time zone polls close at 9 PM)
Montana
Nevada
Utah

11 PM Closing Time (6 states)
California
Hawaii
Idaho (Mountain time zone polls close at 10 PM)
Oregon (Mountain time zone polls close at 10 PM)
North Dakota (Central time zone polls close at 10 PM)
Washington

12 AM Closing Time (1 state)
Alaska (Alaska Standard Time polls close at 11 PM)

As you can see, Virginia and Ohio close pretty early in the night, so there are a lot of clues that we can glean from the early returns there.  If Mitt Romney is strong there, it could be a good night for him, or at least a long night and a close race.  If Obama can win in either of those 2 states, it is probably over.  Pennsylvania comes half an hour after Ohio and as my current projected "tipping point" state, will also be important to watch.

If we are still waiting around for the results of our last battleground, Nevada, which closes at 10 PM, we know we have a nail-biter election.

Things to Watch For:
(1) Turnout, Turnout, Turnout
The key debate among pollsters and the key talking point from the GOP for plausible path to victory for Mitt Romney has been that pollster are significantly overestimating youth and minority turnout, both of which were very strong for him in 2008.  If the electorate looks like 2008, it will be a good night for Obama.  If it looks like 2004, it could be a good night for Romney.

(2) Don't Just Watch the Totals, Look at WHERE the Votes are Coming From
We can get ourselves in trouble in early returns if we simply take the partial totals at face value.  To understand the impact on a projection, we need to look at the returns in the swing states by county and precinct and overlay them with the 2008 results, then understand what Obama's margin was in 2008 in that state for comparison.

For instance, in Ohio, Barack Obama won by 4.6% in 2012.  In Hamilton County, he won by 6.9%.  Therefore, if we see early returns in the state from Hamilton County that show him up by 3%, it probably implies a very close race.  If we see him trailing in Hamilton County, he's probably in trouble.

This concept is very important in Pennsylvania, which is essentially composed of Philadelphia (extremely Democratic), the suburbs and exurbs of Philadelphia (swing areas) and the rest of the date (strongly Republican.)  You could see an early lead that shows one candidate 30 points ahead and it still might not mean that he carries the state.

(3) Take the Exit Polls with a Grain of Salt
There has been a systemic problem for several election cycles of exit polling being biased towards the Democrats.  Early exit polls made many believe that John Kerry was going to soundly beat George W. Bush in 2004.  Similarly, in 2008, the raw exit polling data showed a much more massive victory for President Obama than actually materialized.

Unlike a pre-election poll, exit polls are very difficult to correct for participation bias - certain people are more likely to talk to pollsters coming out of a booth than others.  Also, it is much harder to be scientific  in the moment, without time to assess and reweigh demographics for this effect.

So if you see early indications of exit polls that show President Obama much stronger than the pre-election polls, be wary that they mean anything.

(4) Is There a Surprise State?
Could a state no one is thinking is in play and is therefore lightly polled actually show up as a battleground?  Since there isn't much polling in states that we all believe are safe in one direction, these surprises can happen, although they are rare.

Could Mitt Romney shock everyone and win a Maine or a New Mexico?  Could Barack Obama pull off a shocker in Georgia or Montana?  They seem unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

(5) Watch Intrade
The state-by-state and national markets are very liquid during an election, quickly incorporating all the new data coming in from multiple sources.  This is not to say that they are always right, but they are a great barometer of who is in the hunt.

Betters will make a "call" with their money long before gun-shy (since 2000) networks are willing to make a call in a state.

All the debates, campaigns and ads are done (well, maybe not all the ads, but almost!)

Nothing left to do but:
(1) Vote
(2) Watch the results roll in
(3) Congratulate the winner

I hope you will join me tomorrow night for live-blogging during the returns.  Please get out and vote for your candidate.  And if you like this site, tell your friends.

Penultimate Big Electoral Map Projection, President Obama's Promises, Keeping Up With the Other Projection Sites

First Election Day Polls Open In: 1 Day, 17 Hours
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.2% (up 0.1% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 303, Romney 235 (Obama +13 from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 65%, Romney 35% (Romney +2% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 57%, Romney 40%, within 0.5% - 3%

On the national level, we drop the NPR poll (which is now more than a week old), add back the Battleground poll (which is now up and running again) and add the NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll (a new poll issuance.)

Obama leads by 0.2% in my aggregation.  Of the 6 polls released in the past 24 hours (in green), the race is even in 4 of them and Obama has narrow leads in 2.

What will be interesting to see is that when Gallup, which had paused polling after Hurricane Sandy, makes its final release tomorrow (which it has promised), whether it falls in line with the other polls we are seeing or whether they continue to show a much more favorable picture for Mitt Romney than the other polls.

At the state level, Virginia flips over the President Obama today by the very narrowest of margins.  That is a little bit of noise, since it was only +0.1% for Mitt Romney before and is now +0.1% for President Obama.  So basically, in mathematical terms it has gone from being a state that Romney has a 51% chance of carrying to a a state he has a 49% chance of carrying.  It doesn't fundamentally change the dynamics of the race.

Of significant note is the tightening of the race in Pennsylvania, which as I've noted the past couple of days, Mitt Romney is now fighting hard for, with some progress.  It still seems very tough for me to believe that he can close the gap and actually win there, but he's got to do something as many of the other lean states are slipping away.

His attempted path to victory, based on where he is campaigning in the final days would appear to be:
Hold Florida
Take Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio - this would give him 286 electoral votes
Alternatively, if he holds Virginia but losses one of the two big states, he'll have 266 to 268 electoral votes, meaning he will only need 1 other swing state pick-up (Colorado is the most likely) to reach 270.

It is still a very tall order for Romney to win either Pennsylvania or Ohio and Virginia and Florida are no locks.

Think of it this way - in a very optimistic scenario for Romney, let's give him a 90% chance of taking Florida, an 80% chance of taking Virginia, a 50% chance each of taking Pennsylvania and Ohio and a 50% chance of picking up Colorado or something similar.  His odds are significantly lower to do all of these things, in my opinion, but bear with me to understand the math - Obama still wins more than half the time in our trial heats.

If you use more realistic odds - say Romney is 75% to take Florida, 50% to take Virginia, 30% each to take Ohio and Pennsylvania and 50% to take Colorado or a similar state.  This yields a result in trial heat testing of Obama winning 88% of the time, Romney winning 12% of the time, which I think is about where we are.

Having said all that, the Intrade betting odds are closer than what I am seeing, so you might choose to believe the market rather than me.  But I still project Barack Obama to win a 2nd term, in all likelihood.

I'm expecting an insane amount of polling to release tomorrow, as most of the firms release their last numbers before the election, so we may see some shifts - stay tuned for that.

Assessing President Obama's Campaign Promises
On the campaign trail in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama made a lot of promises about what he would do if he got to office.  Most Presidential candidates do.

The difference between the 2008 cycle and previous cycles is the level of documentation that has been made of those promises and the great work done by the folks at politifact.com and the St. Petersburg Times to track his progress against those promises.

In the first few years of his Presidency, I wrote fairly frequently about the topic of the President and how his performance tracked to what he promised on the campaign trail.  As the 2012 campaign has worn on, I've written significantly less on the topic as this space has largely been dedicated to documenting and analyzing the dynamics of the election battle.

But, as we approach the election, I think in the interest of making an informed decision in the ballot box, it is worth another look at the President's promises and what he has done.

First, my usual caveats.  This is about the President doing what he said he was going to do, NOT the wisdom of those choices.  For instance, one of the promises that the President has kept is to expand eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP, two health care programs that provide support to lower income people.  You may think this is a bad idea - that the expanse of entitlement programs is a big part of our deficit problem and the President was ill-advised to do so.  But he said he would do it on the campaign trail and he did it and that's all we are measuring here.

Similarly, you may feel that some of the promises that he broke were bad ideas and that he was right to reverse course.  For instance, one of the President's broken promises was to close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay.  You may feel that Gitmo should stay open and that reversing course was prudent.  But he said he would close it on the 2008 campaign trail and he did not, so it counts against him in this measure.

So, with that out of the way, how do the President's actions stand up to his words?

Decently, but not amazingly well.

Politifact documented 508 promises that the President made.  Of those, 2 are not measurable as the circumstances have not allowed for testing whether the President would keep his promises or not.

Of the 506 that are measurable, he has fulfilled 193 more or less in full, partially fulfilled or compromises on 79 and outright broken 88.  The remaining 146 either are stalled in congress or still being worked on, but action has not been decisive enough to categorize them as either fulfilled, compromised or broken.

If you look at the 504 ratable promises as the President's commitment as to what he would get done and give him a 100% score for the ones that he has kept and a 50% score for the partially fulfilled or compromised promises, then he has done 46% of what he said he would.  While there are not comparable benchmarks to previous Presidents as the level of documentation is not there for previous Presidencies to compare, I said at the time of his inauguration that if he could fulfill 50% of what he promised to do, he would be doing well.

Taken another way, if you assume the 146 where there is not decisive action to be out of the mix - the President, after all, did not say he would do everything in his first term, then he rates 65%.  Keep in mind that promises that were explicitly time-bound on the campaign trail are counted as broken.  65% is a solid, but not overwhelming score.

But those are just the raw numbers.  You must also look at the nature of the promises kept and broken, since certainly not all promises are created equal.

There are too many to list here (although I encourage you to go to politifact and read the complete list), but here are the major ones by category:
Kept:
* Expand Medicaid and SCHIP
* Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights
* Extend the Bush Tax Cuts for lower incomes
* Close the doughnut hole in Medicare prescription drug benefits
* A whole host of promises related to universal healthcare
* A whole host of promises related to better funding and supporting the Veterans Administration
* A host of promises related to withdrawing from Iraq
* Increasing troop presence in Afghanistan
* Expand the START treaty
* A host of promises related to educational reform
* Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell
* Sign the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act
* Seeking and killing Osama Bin Laden

Broken:
* Close Gitmo
* End Bush tax cuts for upper incomes
* Reform prescription drug industry, including allow reimported drugs
* Toughen rules for former lobbyists in his administration
* Increase the minimum wage to $9.50/hr
* Reduce earmarks
* Submit a comprehensive immigration bill in his first year in office
* Cut the deficit in half in his first term
* Pass healthcare reform with bipartisan support

You can draw your own conclusions on what is reasonable to ding the President for and what is out of his control on the broken promises.  You can also draw your own conclusions about whether the promises that the President kept were prudent approaches to the problems our nation faces.

But, in large measure, the promises that are broken by the President (the deficit being a MAJOR exception) are issues where he has either moved to the right of how he campaigned or failed to secure congressional support for his agenda.  A lack of leadership, perhaps, but I certainly don't see a bait-and-switch in his policies.

We pretty much got what you would have expected from the President in his first term if you'd paid attention to his campaign rhetoric in 2008.  The question going into the voting booth is if that is something that you support or not.

If you like this site, tell your friends.  And please vote Tuesday, if you have not already voted.

I'm Willing to Predict: Barack Obama Will Win a 2nd Term, Sandy Continues to Disrupt National Polling, Why Is Mitt Romney Headed to Pennsylvania?

First Polls Open In: 3 Days, 8 Hours*
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.4% (down 0.3% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 290, Romney 248 (unchanged from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 67%, Romney 33% (Obama up 1% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 56%, Romney 40%, within 0.5% - 4%

* An avid reader has pointed out that my "first polls open" denotation is technically incorrect.  Early voting is well underway in many states.  I guess "first election day polls open" would be the right term, but you know what I mean.

There were only a few new national polls today (more on that later), but Mitt Romney nudged slightly closer to President Obama in today's projection.

But the real action is happening at the state level.  The map continues to be stable, but at this stage of the game, the margins matter.  And we now only have 3 states within the 2% band that I consider within striking distance.  And those 3 states do not give Mitt Romney a plausible path to victory (more on that later as well.)

Accordingly, I am now comfortable projecting that Barack Obama will be re-elected to a second term as President of the United States.

Let me qualify that by saying that there is still a case to be made for a Mitt Romney win.  The arguments would go something like this:
(1) President Obama is still under 50% in virtually every national poll.  Undecideds will break late for the challenger and give Romney the narrow victory.
(2) No incumbent President has ever been re-elected to a second term winning less states than he won the first time around and it is impossible to see a path to President Obama winning more states than in 1988.  It's win big or go home for incumbents and Obama cannot win big.
(3) The polls systemically overestimate Democratic turnout and the actual results will therefore differ from the polls by several percentage points.
(4) The national polls show a tighter race than the state polls and the national polls are generally conducted by better-established, more reliable polling firms.  It is therefore reasonable to believe that swing states are actually in better shape for Romney than the state-level polling data would indicate.

While it is certainly not impossible that one of these arguments is true (the Intrade odds would indicate that people willing to wager money on the race believe there is about a 1 in 3 chance that it is), my counterarguments would be as follows:
(1) Recent history suggest no evidence of this rule of thumb.  Undecideds in 1980 surely did break for Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter late.  In 1984, they broke for Reagan again - this time as the incumbent.  In 1992, undecideds broke evenly.  In 1996, they broke for the challenger.  In 2004, they broke evenly.  There doesn't seem to be a pattern here to support the "rule of thumb" that an incumbent under 50% is in trouble - George W. Bush was under 50% in the polling and got 51% of the vote on election day.
(2) True, but irrelevant.  No one had ever won 49 states...until 1984 when Ronald Reagan did.  Candidates always win their home state - heck, even George McGovern and Walter Mondale did - until Al Gore lost Tennessee and the election with it.  The winner of Missouri always wins the election - until 2008 when Barack Obama won without it.  My point is that you can point to lots of things that are "always" true - until they aren't. 
 (3) We've dealt with this one extensively in previous posts.
(4) Generally, the evidence doesn't support this theory.  On average, state-wide polls have been at least as accurate and often more so than national polls on election day...see 2000 for a great example of this.  Secondly, while there are some smaller firms polling in swing states, there are also a lot of large ones - Rasmussen, CNN/OR and Survey USA are all poling Ohio and their results are actually well in line with other polls from smaller firms.

I don't see Romney winning the election - but, as always, I could be wrong.  Similar to my point in #2 - polls tend to be very predictive of elections - except when they aren't.

Few National Polls Available
The fine print on my national polling data is that some of the tracking polls are aging significantly.  Gallup, Ipsos and several others have not released polls in several days as they have suspended polling in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  I will continue to keep their data in the mix as long as it remains less than a week old, but this is surely hurting the accuracy of my aggregation model.  My hope is that we will start seeing new poll releases from these firms prior to the election to make a final projection.

Why Go to Pennsylvania?
I wondered if the Romney campaign would put their money where their mouth is - and they are.  Mitt Romney will be campaigning in Pennsylvania this weekend.  He's also spending a lot of time in Ohio and some time in Wisconsin, but the Pennsylvania visit suggest a shift in strategy that is meaningful.

So why go to Pennsylvania?

Romney's camp says it is because he is expanding the map.  Obama's camp says it is because Romney is desparate.

Truthfully, I think it is an ill-advised move.  Romney's internal polling numbers may make him believe that he is actually in much better shape in swing states than I have him.  But I still wouldn't go there. 

Here is why:
It is almost impossible for me to envision a scenario where Pennsylvania is the "tipping point" state, that is, the state that gives Mitt Romney his decisive 270th electoral vote.

Certainly, it is not impossible that the GOP have been right all along about the likely voter models.  So let's say that Romney is 4 points better across the board than what I am projecting, for sake of argument.  If this is the case, he would stand to pick up Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire.  It would also make Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin among the closest states in contention.  But it still makes no sense to go there.  Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire would give Romney the necessary electoral votes to win - he wouldn't need those other states.  Pennsylvania would just be gravy.  And let's face it - the game is about winning - getting over 300 electoral votes doesn't make you any more President than getting exactly 270.  You would never risk losing the election simply to run up additional electoral votes you don't need.

The only way it makes sense to go to Pennsylvania is if you believe that it is possible that you might LOSE Ohio and WIN Pennsylvania (or lose Florida, Virginia or one of the other states that is crucial to Romney on the map as it is now constructed.)

John McCain pushed hard in Pennsylvania when he realized that he was going to have to run the table on all the swing states in order to win.  It obviously didn't work in his case - he got trounced in PA, along with those other swing states that he diverted resources from.

I suspect that Romney sees that the map as it is presently constructed doesn't work for him - and hope to catch Obama flat-footed in Pennsylvania by pulling an upset there while Obama is focusing on trying to lock down Ohio.

In short - it is ridiculous to think Romney thinks he has Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Virginia all locked up and that he can focus on getting "insurance".  It is far more probable that he is looking for an alternate path to victory that doesn't require all 4 of those states, 2 of which he is presently behind in, Ohio, crucially, by a meaningful margin.  And that makes a Romney victory a long shot.

Of course, George W. Bush famously did go for those gravy electoral votes in 2000, campaigning in California on the basis of some tightening polls the weekend before that election.  He didn't win California - he didn't even come close - and very nearly lost the election as a result of it.

Sometimes when you have been running a campaign for years (as is required these days), you don't make the best judgements.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

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.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

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 2012 Map: Still Advantage Obama Despite Gallup Poll Results, Celebrating Milestones

Days Until the Election: 17
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.1% (Obama up 2.1% since last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 286, Romney 252 (Obama down 8 since last week)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 61%, Romney 39% (unchanged since last week)

The fundamental situation in the Presidential race didn't change in the past week and that's bad news for Mitt Romney, as, in my estimation, he is still behind in the electoral college.  Romney picked up a very narrow lead in Virginia and New Hampshire in my projection and lost Colorado, netting him 8 electoral votes, but lost ground in the popular vote polling.

First, a few notes on the popular vote.  The Gallup poll has been the subject of a lot of press of late, with it showing a 7% lead for Mitt Romney on Thursday, a 6% lead for him on Friday and a 6% lead again today.  Gallup is among the most established and respected polling firms in the country, so it would be foolish to ignore their results, but they do cause me to scratch my head in light of the other polling results that we are seeing from established tracking polls.  The Investor's Business Daily poll (which many have pointed out over the past 8 years was the closest to projecting the outcome in 2004, although it was mid-pack in accuracy in 2008) shows Obama up by 2%.  Rasmussen, which has long been accused of being a right-leaning polling firm, shows Romney up by 1%.  The Reteurs/Ipsos tracking poll shows Obama up by 3%, Rand has Obama up by 3% as well and Romney is up 2% in the UPI poll.

In short, of the 6 tracking polls covering the race, 5 of them have the range somewhere between Obama +3% and Romney +2% and Gallup has Romney at +6%. 

Additionally, several non-tracking national polls came out in the past week that validated the range of the other 5 tracking polls - a Battleground poll this week showed Obama +1%, an ABC News/WP poll showed Obama +3% and a Hartford Courant poll showed Obama +3%.

Clearly, one of two things is going on:
(1) The Gallup Sample is dramatically different from the other polls in terms of their assumption around likely voters
(2) Gallup had a few days which were just a statistical anomaly that will even itself out over the course of the next week

In the case of #1, we would have to determine which likely voter model we believe in order to determine if Gallup is right or if the rest of the polling universe is right.

In the case of #2, the effect of weighting and averaging the polls that I use in my statistical model would largely take care of the outlier.

So is the Gallup poll dramatically different in sample selection?  It does not appear so from its internals.  One of the things that is observable is that the Gallup poll appears to be a lot less stable than other national polls which leads me to believe that they normalize their data a lot more.

Bear in mind, the Gallup poll has a margin of error at a 95% confidence interval of +/-3%, meaning that 6% is actually within the margin of error (if you add 3% to Obama's total and subtract 3% from Romney's, which is the correct way to measure these margins, you get an even race.)

As far as my projection goes, I see no reason to discount the results from the Gallup poll in my measures but also no reason to give it more weight than any other national poll.

At the state level, I think it is safe with scarcely more than 2 weeks and 1 debate to go to narrow the field to states that truly have a real chance of switching.  Let me do the rundown of all the competitive states:
All the solid/strong states - assume these are gone.  Indiana, South Dakota and Missouri are out of reach for the Democrats - Obama won't even try for them.  Ditto that New Mexico, Washington and Connecticut for the Republicans.  So, let's start by striking the left and right hand columns from consideration.

Of the states within 10 points, here is my rundown of the real prospects:
Montana - nobody is spending any money here or campaigning here and Obama lost it last time.  I consider it out of reach for him.
North Carolina - the Obama campaign is cutting back on media buys here and isn't making campaign stops.  I think the crown jewel of his 2008 victory and the site of the 2012 DNC is gone for the Dems.
Arizona - a state that was utterly uncompetitive in 2008 given John McCain's home field advantage keeps flirting with being competitive.  But Obama isn't campaigning or spending much there.  I think this one will stay in GOP hands.

Florida - still hotly contested by both parties with tons of ad spending and candidates criss-crossing the state.  This one is still up for grabs.
Virginia - both campaigns are fighting hard here and it is extremely close.  Still up for grabs.
New Hampshire - given it only has 4 electoral votes, I'm shocked at how much both campaigns are investing here.  Definitely still competitive.
Colorado - among the closest in the nation and still very much up-for-grabs.  A large Mormon population helps Romney but a large Hispanic population helps Obama.
Wisconsin - I will leave this on the competitive list since the state still appears very close in the polls.  It doesn't seem that the Romney camp is fighting too hard for this one though.
Ohio - definitely the lynchpin of the campaign and one fought heavily over by both sides.  Obama has a small but clear edge here, but this is still competitive.
Nevada - similar demographics to Colorado create a similar campaign dynamic.  Also, the hard-hit economy makes it a prime Romney target.  Still competitive.
Iowa - still up for grabs and attracting campaign dollars and visits.

Pennsylvania - the prospect of winning here for the first time since 1988 is quite a sexy idea for the GOP, but they aren't investing heavily here and I think this one stays Democratic unless Obama collapses in the next couple of weeks.
Michigan - this one once appeared competitive but keeps slipping away for the GOP.  It will stay Democratic.
Oregon - Romney is investing nothing here.  It stays in Obama's column.
Minnesota - same as Oregon, Minnesota is competitive in theory only.  It will stay Democratic.

So we are left with a battlefield of 8 states: Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio, Nevada and Iowa.

Obama starts with a base of 237 Electoral Votes, Romney 206.
The true battlegrounds have the following electoral votes (in rank order):
Florida - 29
Ohio - 18
Virginia - 13
Wisconsin - 10
Colorado - 9
Nevada - 6
Iowa - 6
New Hampshire - 4

Let's look at the path's to victory for each candidate:
For Obama:
(1) Win Big
The easiest path is win the two biggest prizes.  If he takes Florida and Ohio, it's over.  He gets 284 electoral votes.

(2) Win Easiest
The states where he holds the strongest leads are Wisconsin, Ohio, Nevada and Iowa.  They have a collective 40 electoral votes, which would give the President 277 electoral votes.  So, he could even afford to lose either Iowa or Nevada and still have 271 electoral votes.  Wisconsin, Ohio +1 seems like Obama's easiest path

For Romney:
(1) 3 Biggies Plus 1
Florida, Ohio and Virginia would get Romney to 266.  Win any other state and he is at 270.  New Hampshire would seem like the easiest state to claim in this electoral map.  Maybe that's why he is investing there.

(2) Win the Closest
If you go down the rank order, to get to 270, he needs Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado and Wisconsin to put him over the top at 271 electoral votes.

So what strategy are the campaigns investing in?

Both candidates have been criss-crossing Florida and Virginia, states that Romney will need in both strategies and ones that Obama needs in strategy #1.

We'll see where they spend time as the campaign closes.

Site Milestones
My last post was my 500th on this blog.  September was the most-read month ever for this site and October is only 100 viewers away from surpassing September, something it seems almost sure to do today.

I'm hardly Nate Silver in terms of fame in projecting elections, but I would note that we were almost as good as Nate in 2008 (this site predicted 48 out of 50 states correctly, Nate picked 49 of them right.  We called the popular vote exactly correctly as well.)  But it's nice to know that thousands of people every month are reading and enjoying what I do.

Thanks for reading and for telling your friends about us.

The Big 2012 Elecotral Map - A Stable Picture of a Changed Race, Should Obama Abandon North Carolina and Florida?, Veep Candidates Clash, The Battle for Congress

Days Until the Election: 23
Projected Popular Vote Total: Romney +1.0% (down 0.2% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 294, Romney, 244 (Obama up 13 from last week)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 61%, Romney 39% (Romney up 1% since last week)

As the aftermath of the first Presidential debate settles down in the polls, we see the "new normal" for the race beginning to stabilize.  Romney actually lost a little ground this week, with his national polling falling back fractionally and Virginia flipping back to Obama.  But the basic picture is still the same - a pick 'em race nationally with a slight structurally electoral advantage to Obama.

Romney needs to add a minimum of 26 electoral votes from here to win the Presidency.  If he picks up the 3 closest states (New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia), it leaves him just short at 267.  This means that Romney still needs one of the larger states - either Ohio, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, or to pick up those 3 plus Iowa.

The betting odds continue to tighten a little but still show an Obama advantage, largely, I believe, because of this structural electoral advantage that we have been discussing for some time.

Should Obama Bail on North Carolina and Florida?
The Democratic National Convention was held in Charlotte and North Carolina holds a special place on the map for Barack Obama as a state he'd like to have.  Florida obviously holds special significance for Democrats as the site of the epic recounts 12 years ago.

But, as a matter of strategy, if I were advising President Obama, I would urge him to abandon his campaign in North Carolina and Florida in the waning days of the campaign.

Sure, winning one of those two states would seal the deal for a second term.  But they seem to be slipping out of reach and he doesn't need them.

Certainly, I would contest Colorado, which is basically just one media market and still seems very winnable.  Other than that, I'd focus on holding the states with leads.  As I described above, Romney, if he takes Florida and North Carolina, still needs New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia, Colorado and 1 other state.  Firewall Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania and you win the Presidency.  Make Romney feel heat by rallying Hispanic voters in Colorado and Nevada.  Make the fight take place on your turf and focus resources.

Likewise, if I were advising Romney, I'd be telling him to pour everything into Ohio and Wisconsin.  Those are two big states that appear "gettable".  Michigan looks like too far a reach.  I think Pennsylvania is a long shot.  Nail Ohio and Wisconsin and your paths to the Presidency are many.  Miss them both and it is an almost impossible map.

VP Candidate Debate to an Essential Draw
The VP debate is typically the least significant of the four national debates in terms of moving the polls and that certainly appears to be the case this year - in part because almost everyone is voting based on the top of the ticket and in part because, in my opinion, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan essentially fought to a draw.

Biden was very good on substance - he was quick on his feet, aggressive in countering Ryan's attacks and came across likable, as he virtually always does.  He has received some criticism for smirking and laughing during Ryan's responses, but I don't think in context that those responses will hurt him.

Ryan appeared capable, cool and collected.  He was also aggressive on the attack and showed credibility and understanding on foreign policy. 

In short, I don't expect that the VP debate will do much to change the race.

Tune in next week for the second Presidential debate, where it is essential for Obama's chances that he significantly outperform his first debate performance.  Look for Romney to be aggressive to maintain / support his positive momentum.

The State of the Congressional Races
It's been a while since I've looked at the state of the races.  It appears more likely than not that the Democrats will retain control of the Senate at this point and that Republicans will retain the House.  Here are the latest numbers:

In the Senate, there are 30 Democratic and 37 Republican seats that are not up for election.  Of the balance, here are where things stand:

Safe or Likely Independent Seats - 2
(both likely to caucus with Democrats)
Vermont, Maine

Safe or Likely Democratic Seats - 12
California, Maryland, New York, Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Michigan, New Jersey, Washington, West Virginia, New Mexico

Safe or Likely Republican Seats - 6
Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska

Close Races - Projected 10 Democrats, 3 Republicans
Florida - Nelson (D) +7.6%
Ohio - Brown (D) +5.6%
Missouri - McCaskill (D) +5.2%
Pennsylvania - Case (D) +5.0%
Connecticut - Murphy (D) +4.2%
Wisconsin - Baldwin (D) +3.0%
Indiana - Donnoley (D) +2.0%
Massachusetts - Warren (D) +1.8%
Arizona - Carmona (D) +1.5%
Virginia - Kaine (D) +1.0%
North Dakota - Berg (R) +0.1%
Montana - Rehberg (R) +0.5%
Nevada - Heller (R) +3.0%

Projected: 52 Democrats, 46 Republicans, 2 Independents
(effective control 54-46 Democratic)

So, Democrats have the lead, but also have more close races to defend that they are currently leading.  Republican control of the Senate is not impossible, but looks to have become increasingly unlikely as the races have played out.

On Intrade, the odds of Republicans winning at least 50 Senate seats is currently pegged at 34%, and keep in mind that 50 seats only gives them the majority if they also win the Vice-Presidency, otherwise they would need 51 to get control.

In the House,
Current generic polling has the Democrats at +1.3%.

Based on this, projecting based on the newly redistricted House (which structurally favors the GOP) would give us:
Republicans 220 Seats, Democrats 215 Seats

I don't generally do seat-by-seat analysis of the House, but other sites do, so here is there perspective:
realclearpolitics.com (splitting the toss-ups evenly): GOP 239, DEM 196
electionprojection.com: GOP 240, DEM 195

Republicans have a 90% chance of retaining the House, based on the latest Intrade odds.

Obviously, the seat-by-seat analysis yields a broader spread than the generic polling data would indicate.  This may well be the case because of the candidates in the close races.  But I'm inclined to believe the truth is somewhere in between.  Either way, the GOP appears well-poised to retain the House.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

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. 

If you like this site, tell your friends.

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.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

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.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

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.

If you like this site, tell your friends.