The Unreleased Exit Polls

Matt Drudge is reporting that exit polls point to a Mitt Romney win in Florida and North Carolina, Barack Obama win in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada with too-close-to-call results in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and Iowa.

These results would be consistent with my final projections.

Assuming Wisconsin also breaks for Obama (a not completely safe assumption) and the 4 listed as too-close-to-call where the only ones in play, Obama would have a base of 257 and would need to win either Virginia or Ohio or the other 2 in order to carry the election.  Romney would need the inverse (Virgina plus Ohio plus one of the two remaining.)

Again - be careful with the early exit poll results.

Intrade is essentially unchanged at 71%.

Ohio and Virginia Exit Polls Should Provide Some Encouragement for Mitt Romney

By a very narrow margin (1%) in Ohio and a larger margin in Virginia (8%) - exit poll respondents so far believe Mitt Romney would handle the economy better than Barack Obama.

Of course, the economy is not the only issue in the election, but you'd have to be deaf to not know it is the most important.

Favorable / unfavorable opinion of the Obama Administration was almost exactly split in the two states.

As expected, both states appear to be close.  Both states are must-wins for Mitt Romney, in my electoral map.

And We Are Off....

I promise not to talk about midnight votes in New Hampshire this evening, the sort of silly stuff that we generally talk about when we don't have much in the way of real results.

Let's review the things that we think we know so far:
(1) Turnout appears to be high - surprisingly, in many swing states, higher even than 2008.  Perhaps this should not be a surprise, as everyone knows the race is close, whereas 2008 was not so close.  But given all the talk about "enthusiasm gaps" for both candidates, this still is somewhat of a surprise.  Conventional wisdom would say that a high turnout is good for the Democrat, but, of course, as 2004 proved (when GOP turnout was way up but Democratic was not), WHO is turning out matters just as much.

(2) Intrade intelligence doesn't show much change from yesterday.  At this instant, Obama is trading around 70% and Romney around 30%, a slight increase for Obama versus last night, but the numbers have bounced all around this afternoon, so it is too early to call that much of an indicator.

(3) Early exit poll results look favorable to Obama in terms of demographics.  The youth vote and the minority vote are almost exactly tracking to 2008.  This would be extremely good news from President Obama.  Of course, the exit poll results are incomplete, since polls aren't closed yet and see my warning last night about reading too much into exit polls.

So, we will have to wait and see some votes being counted.  Kentucky is already counting in the Eastern Time Zone, where polls closed at 6 PM.  Obviously, Kentucky is expected to go strongly for Mitt Romney.

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.

The Big 2012 Map - No Change - Obama Still Predicted to Win, A Look at Early Voting and What It Tells Us About Systemic Poll Bias and Swing State Outcomes

First Election Day Polls Open In: 2 Days, 15 Hours

Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.1% (down 0.3% from yesterday)

Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 290, Romney 248 (unchanged from yesterday)

Current Betting Odds: Obama 67%, Romney 33% (unchanged from yesterday)

Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 56%, Romney 39%, within 0.5% - 5%

Please note that for the listing of national polls, those highlighted in green were released either today or yesterday and include polling up through 1-2 days ago.  The other polls are older, but less than a week old.  I have (at least temporarily) dropped the Battleground poll from my list as it is older than a week.  We will see how the other firms that shut down during Sandy do at getting back up and running - it appears Gallup will have a final poll publish on Monday but will likely not publish on Sunday.

We see no states swing on the map today as the theme of stability following the third debate continues.  The candidates are campaigning vigorously, focusing the majority of their time on all-important Ohio, although Romney has fanned out to the marginal swing-states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well (fortunately, they are close by) as well as Colorado this weekend.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan hits up Florida, Nevada and Minnesota.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden, in addition to a strong focus on Ohio will be in Florida and Colorado this weekend.

As the polling doesn't really show much of a different picture than yesterday, I thought I'd focus my efforts on taking a look at available early voting data to see how it might inform us as to how the actual election is going.

Early Voting Data Is a Mixed Bag, But Largely Supports Our Story

What had been a dull murmur in GOP circles about polling bias has grown to a full-blown scream.  The GOP faithful believe strongly that Mitt Romney is going to win, although from the looks of Intrade, few are placing bets on it (but then, gambling is a fairly un-GOP-like activity.)

Mitt Romney will win 315 electoral votes!  Or so proclaims conservative columnist Michael Barone.

A very long night on Tuesday for Democrats says the National Review.

Good bye, President Obama scoffs the American Spectator.

And so on.

Meanwhile, the left, has been quietly saying that the President looks to be in good shape.  

Of course all of this sparks an obvious view of bias on both sides.  If any of these people are able to objectively analyze data, then how can it be that almost all of the Republicans believe that the data clearly point to a decisive Romney victory and vice versa?  Well, I guess you see what you want to see when you are emotionally involved in a Presidential race.

I set up my methodology for analyzing the data long before the election.  If the polling were exactly reversed, I would be showing exactly the reverse numbers.  The objective data from the polls all point to a victory for President Barack Obama.

The only way that this isn't true is if the data aren't truly objective.  Hence the full-blown scream from the right.  You cannot look at the polling data on face and say "yep, it looks like Mitt Romney is going to win" with a straight face.  The only way to look at the data and believe that Romney will win is to believe that the pollster's conclusions are wrong.

Some have quietly questioned the general accuracy of polling because of the low response rate pollsters get these days.  But when there is a consistent trend across many polls, it is hard to argue that this alone would cause polls to be wrong.

This is why the debate over likely voter models is so crucial and why it has become such a loud GOP talking point.  I've spewed a lot of digital ink on this subject and my conclusion has been that there is no reason to believe that there is any inherent bias in the polling.

Non-partisan pollsters only stock-in-trade, their only incentive is to get things right.  If you consistently get your polls wrong, you are out of the business.  Polls have been wrong before, but almost never because the pollster wanted to get it wrong.  The polls were very accurate in 2008.  Ditto in 2004.  In 2000, George W. Bush got less popular vote than the polls implied late, but that was principally because the release of his DWI conviction appeared to cause a late slide in his numbers that pollsters weren't able to capture in their final polls because it happened too late.

So forget the notion of a vast conspiracy.  The only reasonable way to believe the polls are systemically biased is if they are ACCIDENTALLY biased, that is, the majority of pollsters make an honest mistake in the turnout dynamics of the election.  Now clearly all the pollsters are reading and analyzing the claims on the right - and most are sticking by their guns.

So other than hot air, the only thing that could deter me from believing in the power of poll aggregation is if actual facts on the ground contradict the assumptions in the polls.

The one very reliable source of data that we have on this subject is the release of early voting data from the swing states that provide the data and have party registration.  I'm not immune to new data - if the early voting suggest an electorate vastly different from what the polls have been modeled on, they we should adjust for the possibility that those models are flawed.

So, let's dig in on the key states:

Colrado

Early Voting in 2008: Democrats +1.8%

Early Voting in 2012 through 11/2: Democrats +0.1%

Democratic Margin of Victory in 2008: +8.9%

Republicans have gained 1.7% in early voting in Ohio in 2008.  The problem is that they have an 8.9% gap to close.  Now clearly, they will gain among Independents versus 2008 - Obama won independents by about 5% in 2008 according to exit polls and recent polls have had him trailing Romney with indies anywhere from 2% to 10%, depending on the individual poll and how it assigned party affiliation.  But even in the worst case, a 15 point swing among independents, this is only worth a 4.2% swing in the general election margin.

Adding the 4.2% swing in indies to the 1.7% swing in Democratic advantage, you get a net 5.9% swing for Romney, or a 3.0% margin of victory for Obama on election day, consistent with recent polling.  If you assume the lower end of the independent swing (a 7% swing to Romney among indies), you get only a net 3.6% pick-up in total for Romney, or a 5.3% Obama win.

Conclusion: early voting in Colorado gives me no reason to believe that the recent polls there are wrong and, in fact, supports the case for a low-to-mid single digit victory for the President, slightly higher than his current standing in our aggregation.

Iowa

Early Voting in 2008: Democrats +18.0%

Early Voting in 2012: Democrats +11.8%

Democratic Margin of Victory in 2012: +9.5%

Assuming similar logic to Ohio - on the high end, a 6.2% pick-up for Republicans in voting demos, combined with a 3.7%, you would get a Romney win by 0.4%.  Assuming the low-end of the independent swing, you woud get a total swing of 7.9% or a 1.6% Obama victory.

Conclusion: Early voting in Iowa would imply that Obama is probably sightly ahead, but less decisively so than in Ohio.  The early voting statistics would seem to imply a slightly closer race than the current aggregated polling does.

Nevada

Early Voting in 2008: Democrats +6.4%

Early Voting in 2012: Democrats +6.4%

Democratic Margin of Victory in 2012: +12.2%

Romney hasn't gained at all in early voting.  Assuming just the independent swing would give him a pick-up of between 1.3% and 2.8%, not enough to put him anywhere close to victory in the state.

Conclusion: Early voting in Nevada would imply a less close race than the polling.  Obama is comfortably ahead using these data points.  Bear in mind that Obama significantly outperformed polling in 2008 in Nevada as well.

North Carolina

Early Voting in 2008: Democrats +28.7%

Early Voting in 2012: Democrats +16.2%

Democratic Margin of Victory in 2012: +0.3%

This would represent a huge swing, 12.5% from party shifts and 1.4% to 3.0% in independent shift, leading to a double-digit victory for Romney.

Conclusion: Early voting would imply that Mitt Romney is further ahead in North Carolina than the poll aggregation would imply.

Florida

Early Voting in 2008: Democrats +8.3%

Early Voting in 2012 through 11/2: Democrats +2.2%

Democratic Margin of Victory in 2008: +2.8%

This would represent a 6.1% swing to Republicans from early votes plus a 1.1% to 2.6% swing swing among independents, implying a Romney margin of victory of 4.4% to 5.9%, somewhat greater than our current projected margin.

Conclusion: Early voting validates a Florida lead for Romney and may indicate a wider margin than the polling currently indicates.

Note: Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin do not have party registration systems and therefore do not release party identification information for early voters.  Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire do not have early voting (they only have absentee voting for valid, verifiable reasons.)

In total, in early voting, Romney appears to be outperforming the polls in Florida and North Carolina, very slightly outperforming in iowa and underperforming in Colorado and Nevada.

Of course, in all these cases, this is just a measure of the early voters and gives us no insight into how voters will show on election day.  In fact, in every case, Democratic turnout is on pace to exceed 2008 levels for early voting - it's just that Republican turnout is exceeding it by more.  This could represent heightened Republican enthusiasm or it could simply mean that early voting is growing more popular in general and Republicans are just later to the party in joining that trend.

There is some room for debate in a few states, but I see nothing in the early voting data to indicate a race dramatically different from the one that I have been projecting.

One clear thing that this exercises demonstrates is that for all the discussion about winning independents, getting turnout among your base is more critical to winning an election in a closely divided country.  Karl Rove knew this in 2004 when he successfully engineered very high GOP turnout amidst lackluster Democratic turnout for John Kerry.  Barack Obama's decisive victory in 2008 was built as much on unprecedented Democratic turnout as it was winning independents.

Both campaigns need to get their team to the polls, whether early or on election day.  And you should visit the polls too to make your voice heard.  But it still looks like Obama's election to lose.

Just a note on the publication schedule for the remainder of the election season (which isn't much):

I will be publishing a daily update on Sunday that will include the latest Presidential polling data an assessment of Obama's first term relative to the promises that he made.

I will then be publishing my final projections on Monday night, including my final popular vote projection, my final electoral vote projection and my final projection in the Senate and the House and a guide to watching Election 2012.

On Tuesday, I will be live-blogging, starting approximately when the polls close in the first states and will seek to keep you updated on how our projections are faring.

I hope you tune in and if you like this site, tell your friends.

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.

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