Posted on 10/24/2012 3:37:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
New from Rasmussen, its the second poll in as many days showing Romney up two points in NH. Of the last eight polls taken in the state, he leads in four, is tied in two more, trails by a single point in another, and the last is an outlier. (Rasmussens last poll of NH, taken eight days ago, had Obama up by a point.) Why should you care about that? Simple: If Ohio doesnt pan out for Mitt, his lone remaining path to the presidency may well be hitting an exacta with New Hampshire and Wisconsin. If he wins Florida, Virginia, and Colorado, all of which are big but necessary ifs, thatll put him at 257 in RCPs electoral vote model. He can then get to 270 either with Ohio (18) or with NH + WI (14). Im thinking those two states are a bit likelier to turn red than, say, Iowa or Nevada, not only because of the current RCP poll averages but because of the GOP tickets regional ties to them. (Romney not only governed the state next door, he has a vacation home in New Hampshire.) Besides, Iowa and Nevada each have only six EVs, so the most they can do for him without winning Wisconsin, New Hampshire, or Ohio is clinch a dreaded 269-269 tie. But then, the odds of Mitt winning IA and NV (or PA or MI) while losing the other three seem astronomical. So Ohio remains Plan A, but Wisconsin and New Hampshire are Plan B. Hes on track, narrowly, in the latter state, but there hasnt been a new poll of Wisconsin since Sunday. Maybe tomorrow? Until then, this intriguing tidbit will have to do:
Peter Hamby✔ @PeterHambyCNN
Hearing Priorities USA is going back into Wisconsin after previously cancelling most of their buys there...
24 Oct 12 Reply Retweet Favorite
Priorities USA is, of course, Obamas Super PAC. Team O is talking verrrry tough to Mark Halperin (I was struck by the expression of near certainty that their candidate would be re-elected), but Josh Kraushaar makes a nice point about the battleground states. One thing they have in common is that theyre not in Os demographic sweet spot:
The one hole in that argument is their own acknowledgment of where theyre running strongest the five-state firewall of OH, IA, NH, NV and WI. With the notable exception of NV, these are heavily-white states and skew older. These arent the states where their base coalition; its where theyre running competitively enough with white voters (particularly working-class women). And implicity, they acknowledge theyre not ahead (theyre tied, presumably) in the states with the highest youth/minority vote combo: VA, NC and CO.
So if the GOTV operation is firing on all cylinders in a state like VA but the race is even, one would imagine hes struggling with white voters. And in order to win those firewall states, he has to overperform his natl average with those same white voters.
Via John McCormack of the Standard, the early voting totals among Os base in Virginia are apparently lagging:
Dave Wasserman@Redistrict
VIRGINIA EARLY VOTE: Up 18.8% in the 86 localities McCain won in '08, but up ONLY 4.4% in the 48 Obama won: sbe.virginia.gov/sbe_csv/STATS/
24 Oct 12 Reply Retweet Favorite
Dave Wasserman@Redistrict
Huge drop-offs in Richmond, Arlington & C'ville indicative of understandable (yet troubling for Ds) decline in Af-Am, yuppie & college vote
24 Oct 12 Reply Retweet Favorite
Per RCPs EV projections, if Obama holds on in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, and Nevada, hes at 249 and needs to find 21 votes between Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Colorado. Virginia has the second-most EVs in that list behind Ohio, so if he loses them both, hell have to win all three of the others to clinch. Not impossible, but if the bigger battleground states are tilting away from him, itd be some trick if he figured out a way to reverse that momentum in the smaller ones and pile up enough of them to eke over the finish line.
Update: Just as Im writing this, Time is out with a new poll of Ohio showing Obama up by five. However:
NumbersMuncher@NumbersMuncher
CNN/Time Ohio poll has Obama up 5, 49-44. Sample is D+9. It was D+5 in 08, D+1 in 2010... wow.
24 Oct 12 Reply Retweet Favorite
NH must have figured which candidate is on which side of the state motto “Live free or die”.
Good news.
271 with NH and WI. OH it a red herring LSM talking point to try and suppress voter turnout in states who vote later.
FWIW, living in NH gets you at least three phone polls/day.
And I’m not kidding.
In our house we vote according to our own judgement, and we really don’t care what the rest of the world thinks.
That being the case, we simply hang up the phone when those calls come in. We no doubt have lots of company, as the whole scene gets old real fast. Judge the poll results with those thoughts as your baseline.
Romney is by common consent at least tied in Ohio but Republican intensity and Romney's near two to one advantage among independents should carry Ohio. But if Ohio fails,
Wisconsin is a very plausible win for Romney. One week ago on 18 October Rasmussen had Obama +2 but was a 4.5 MOE, however, Obama had achieved 50%. Nevertheless, Scott Walker beat the recall by about 7% and I think we will see the same positive forces at work in Wisconsin for Romney and it will mirror Ohio intensity and independent strength for Romney.
Pennsylvania remains a possibility. Pollsters anchored in Pennsylvania are much more favorable to Romney but all the national pollsters including Rasmussen have Obama about the same +5. It is unlikely that Romney will take Pennsylvania without Ohio but it is conceivable that the saturation bombing by Obama in Ohio might freeze the electorate in his favor while Pennsylvania is free to move with Romney momentum felt elsewhere across the nation where the negative ads have not been so intense.
An oddsmaker looking at this picture would have to say as he counts seven states that Obama must sweep that the odds collectively mount against him. For example, the pollsters have Obama up by RCP average 2.7% with Rasmussen having Obama +2% in Nevada. That means that Nevada is easily within Romney's reach and it would take very little to tip this state. When mixed and with other states, such as Wisconsin, the cumulative odds look good for Romney.
We have considered Republican intensity and independent proclivity but we have not talked about momentum. If Romney retains any part of the momentum he has enjoyed since the first debate he could easily take Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The Democrats are talking up an Obama resurgence after the third debate but I think most of that is air while the movement towards Romney is "secular" and any reaction to the third debate favoring Obama will be a limited short-term bounce. There are chartists and there are fundamentalists among traders and investors. If we stop being chartists for a moment and look at the fundamentals, I think there is a momentum shift which economists would call "secular" in Romney's favor because the economy practically mandates a change in government. The whole nation, like the whole stock market, is shifting away from a losing proposition. It is a paradigm shift changing the whole dynamic of the race against which Obama's performance in the last debate, even viewed in its best light, is insufficient to counter.
Our FR man in Ohio was told by the Republican Party chairman that Mitt will win by at least 5% if not 10%.
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