Election 2012: Ohio President: Obama 49%, Romney 49%

With four days to go, President Obama and Mitt Romney are tied in the critical battleground state of Ohio.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Ohio Voters finds Obama and Romney each with 49% support. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, while one percent (1%) is undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Ohio remains one of eight Toss-Up states in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections. Obama won the Buckeye State in 2008 by a 52% to 47% margin.

At the beginning of the week, Romney held a slight 50% to 48% advantage. It was the first time Romney has taken even a modest lead in the race of Ohio's 18 Electoral College votes since late May, but the two candidates have been within two percentage points of one another since then.

Forty percent (40%) of Ohio voters say they have already cast their ballots, and among these voters, the president has a comfortable 56% to 41% lead.

Both candidates earn better than 90% support from voters in their respective parties. The president is ahead 50% to 41% among voters not affiliated with either major political party.

RE :” Dems say they have been working on the OH ground game for 4 years.”

Al Sharpton gave me a big unintentional laugh today I hope you enjoy.
When I got to the gym MSNBC was on and so I turned FNC on another TV to check them both switching sound back and forth. Then Sharpton does his daily seg on ‘voter suppression’.

According to the Dem channel/rev Al FL gov Rick Scott is refusing to extend early voting hours in FL and so some Dem counties have lines 3 to 5 hours long at early vote polls looking like those gas lines in NJ and NY.
Better/worse yet they are closing them on time leaving those outside who waited on long lines out of luck. Owch, that must hurt.

So Rev Al brings on fellow black Marxist Melissa Harris Perry to help him complain about how Democracy is being hurt as many of these Dems will just give up and not vote.

So I had an evil thought. If these Dems are lining up to vote for O because he says he will raise taxes on ‘the rich’ to give them even MORE handouts then maybe waiting in line a few hours should be a very cheap price they should have to pay. I mean what if they had to get job? That would take even more time of theirs.

I mean is citizenship and democracy and duty just taxing others to give YOU handouts?

All polls have been off with regards to the amount of early votes being cast. People are obviously lying to pollsters by saying they have voted when they haven't.

There is probably some of that, but I think you are missing the more simple conclusion. If the poll says 40% have voted, but the hard data says 26% have voted, then the poll is skewed toward those who have voted. I mean, that is simple logic. Next logical step is, what does that sample of those who say they have voted look like from a partisan perspective? Does it match the overall partisan makeup, or is it skewed itself. Well, lo and behold, the partisan makeup - consistently - across these polls of people who say they have already voted in OH are voting like 60-35 toward Obama. Highly partisan sub-sample which shows the obvious over-sampling of Dems in a purely mathematical fashion.

Forty percent (40%) of Ohio voters say they have already cast their ballots, and among these voters, the president has a comfortable 56% to 41% lead. Both candidates earn better than 90% support from voters in their respective parties. The president is ahead 50% to 41% among voters not affiliated with either major political party. Crap.

Believe me when I say that this poll actually spells doom for Obama. Forty percent of OH voters did not say they have already cast their ballots. Forty percent of the OH voters in this poll's sample say they voted. This is actually good news. Why? Because we can apply this poll sample to actual numbers. The actual numbers say that only 29% of OH voters have actually cast their ballots. So, right away you see a structural flaw. The poll's sample of those who have already cast their ballots is skewed incorrectly by including too many who have already voted. That would be okay if that sub-sample looked pretty close to the total sample in preference. But, alas, it does not. That skewed sub-sample is highly Democratic leaning at the rate of 56-41%. This means Romney is set to take the lion's share of the election day vote. So, you give Obama 56% and Romney 41% of the early and absentee vote (which looks like it will come in around 1.7MM) and you get 952K votes for Obama and 697K votes for Romney. If you split the difference between the total vote in 2008 and 2004 to project the total vote in Ohio for 2012, you come up with about 5.650MM (5.625MM in 2004, 5.680MM in 2008). Subtract the 1.7MM from the 5.650MM and determine your election day votes cast and you get 3.950MM. If Romney captures 53% and Obama 44% of that (which is what this poll says he will), then Romney takes 2.094MM votes on election day, and Obama takes 1.738MM. Final tally: Romney 2.790MM and Obama 2.690MM. About a 100K vote differential - or about what Bush beat Kerry by in 2004. But, actually, the story is MUCH better than that. We know a little more about the early and absentee votes in Ohio than just total numbers. Some of the Freepers on this thread have shown many times how the actual early vote party affiliation is much more GOP than it was in 2008 and Obama is well under-performing his early vote count (as measured by party affiliation - we don't know actual votes obviously). Some have suggested that it is on the order of about a 200K net swing when compared to 2008. This means that Romney could carry it by closer to 200K or more votes, or about 4%, which is what LS has been predicting if I remember correctly. This further amplifies the bias inherent in the poll. And, it shows that on election day, the votes are not going to be there for Obama. If you look at Cuyahoga County, which alone gave the election to Obama in 2008, by producing a net differential for Obama of well over 200K votes, you see that it is underperforming in early voting by a significant percent. He is not going to get a 200-250K vote margin out of Cuyahoga in 2012. This OH thing is overblown. The state polls are off - even Rasmussen. Romney is going to take OH and will probably get PA and >300 EVs.

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