Obama Leads In Three Crucial Swing States
Three new state polls show that Mitt Romney's path to victory continues to narrow.
NBC News and The Wall Street Journal are out with a new round of polls showing President Obama leading in what are likely to be the most important swing states in November:
After two political conventions and heading into the post-Labor Day sprint, President Barack Obama leads Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the key battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Virginia, according to new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls of each of these three states.
In both Florida and Virginia, Obama is ahead of Romney by five points among likely voters (including those leaning toward a particular candidate), 49 percent to 44 percent.
In Ohio, the president’s lead is seven points, 50 percent to 43 percent.
These states – all of which Obama carried in 2008 but which George W. Bush won in 2004 – represent three of the most crucial battlegrounds in the 2012 presidential election. And according to NBC’s electoral map, Romney likely needs to capture at least two of these states, if not all three, to secure the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency.
By comparison, Obama can reach 270 by winning just one or two of these battlegrounds – on top of the other states already considered to be in his column.
(Obama also has an additional path to victory without any of these three states if he wins the toss-up contests of Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.)
What’s particularly striking about these polls, Miringoff observes, is how most voters in these battleground states have already made up their minds, with just 5 to 6 percent saying they’re undecided, and with more than 80 percent signaling that they strongly support their candidate.
“Those who are thinking of voting have pretty much picked sides,” he says.
Most strikingly, the internal numbers in all three polls are very positive for the President even on the issue that has long been believed to be Mitt Romney’s strong suit, the economy:
In Florida and Virginia, Obama and Romney are essentially tied among likely voters on the question of which candidate would do a better job handling the economy, although Obama has a four-point advantage on this question in Ohio.
But when it comes to handling foreign policy, the incumbent Democratic president enjoys a double-digit lead over his Republican challenger.
Also in the polls, Obama’s job-approval ratings – 50 percent in Ohio and 49 percent in Florida and Virginia – exactly match his ballot position against Romney in these states.
And in each of these three battlegrounds, a majority of likely voters say the country is on the wrong track, while more than 40 percent believe that it’s headed in the right direction.
It’s perhaps helpful to the President that the right track/wrong track numbers are slightly better in these three states than they are in the nation as a whole. Additionally, all of these polls were conducted prior to the flare ups in the Middle East and what some have characterized as Mitt Romney’s bungled response to the events of Tuesday night. Given that the general nature of polls is to see at least some kind of “rally around the flag” effect benefiting the sitting President when there’s an international crisis, I think we can expect to see at least some kind of bump in the President’s job approval ratings, especially on foreign policy, for at least a short period time.
Looking at each of the states, it’s fairly clear that the President is in a far better position right now than Mitt Romney is.
Of all three of the results, the one that should perhaps concern the Romney campaign the most is Florida. Of all three states, Florida is generally seen as the most conservative, and it’s long been seen as one of the 2008 Obama states that the Republicans were most likely to flip this year. Instead, we’ve seen President Obama leading in far more of the polls that have come out of the Sunshine State since the General Election campaign started in April than Governor Romney. As of today, the RCP Average gives President Obama a +1.3 advantage, a number that includes not only the NBC/Marist poll, but also a new poll by Rasmussen that has the President leading by a single point. As the chart indicates, though, the President has opened up a gap over Romney, and seems to have gotten something of a convention bounce in the state where Romney held his convention:
Moving to Virginia, we again find a state where, except for two exceptions that may well be outliers, we have not seen a poll where Mitt Romney is leading for months. Because the state has been so close for months, the fact that the NBC/Marist poll has the President leading by five points is potentially significant, although it’s full impact on the poll averages is offset by another poll from a firm called Gravis Marketing that shows Romney up by five points. As a result the RCP Average for Virginia gives a slim +0.4 advantage to the President, and the chart shows the race deadlocked:
This is likely what we’re going to see from Virginia for the next several Presidential election cycles. The state does have a Republican core, as the election results in 2009, 2010, and 2011 revealed, but the influx of new residents in recent decades, combined with the overwhelming numbers that come out of Northern Virginia and the Tidewater region in Presidential election years mean that the Old Dominion is unlikely to be the solidly Republican state it was from 1968 through 2004. This year’s outcome is going to be close, but I cannot discount the fact that it was overwhelming numbers from Northern Virginia and Richmond that propelled the President to victory four years ago. I think we’ll find the same support this time around, much to Mitt Romney’s chagrin.
Finally, we come to Ohio, where NBC/Marist gives Obama his largest lead since a Quinnipiac poll from June that had the President leading by nine points. Once again, it should be noted that there’s also a new Rasmussen poll out for the state that shows the President’s lead as only a single point. Obviously, the two polls are using different likely voter models and, while Rasmussen’s poll may oversample Republicans and thus show the President with a smaller lead, Allahpundit notes that the D/R/I for the Marist poll is actually more pro-Democratic than the actual turnout was in 2008. That scenario seems rather unlikely, to be honest, so what we’re likely looking at here is a scenario where the President is actually ahead by a two or three points rather than being outside the margin. In any event, though the RCP Average in the state gives the President a +4.2 advantage in the state right now, and the chart shows that things clearly seem to be moving in the President’s direction:
With respect to Ohio, it’s worth noting that the state has been relatively close, inside of a five point margin, in every election going back to 2000. The largest margin during that period was the 4.6% that separated the President and John McCain four years ago. This isn’t four years ago, though. Turnout in November is not likely to be as high as it was in 2008, and the economy remains a drag on the President. I’d expect Ohio to be as close as it was in 2004 when the dust settles.
These states are still close, and they’re going to be heavily fought over for the next 53 days, but it strikes me that there are several red flags for Romney here. For one thing, outside of what appear to be outliers, he has not been shown to be leading any of these states for months now. That may not have been a big deal in June or July, but it becomes an entirely different situation when you’re in mid-September some two weeks from the first Presidential Debate. At some point, momentum starts to set in, and people start to make up their minds. Already, it seems quite clear that the number of undecided and persuadable voters in this states and elsewhere is lower than its been in the past. Absent some kind of major game changer, which seems unlikely, the odds of getting a voter to change their mind from one candidate to another are fairly slim. More importantly, we’re getting to the point where, in order to win, Romney would have to win the overwhelming majority of the undecided voters. While it’s generally true that undecided voters tend to break in favor of the challenger, they don’t necessarily break in the numbers that Romney would need.
The other thing that these polls reinforce is the fact that Mitt Romney’s path to victory is incredibly narrow, while the President has many paths to 270 in the Electoral College. As noted above, Romney would need to win at least two of these three states in order to win the election. That’s true, but it’s an argument that depends on what would otherwise be a pretty good Electoral Map for Romney. It would require, for example, that he also win North Carolina, where he still hasn’t been able to pull ahead of the President in a state where everyone expects him to win. Take North Carolina’s 15 Electoral Votes out of Romney’s column, and wouldn’t win even if he wins all three of these states. Take Nevada out of Romney’s column, and he would need to win all three of these states in order to win. The President, on the other hand, could afford to lose two of out of these three and still win the election and, there’s a perfectly plausible scenario under which Obama could lose all three of these states and still win the Electoral College 271-266. The cards are still all in the President’s hands, and Mitt Romney is running out of time.
American Research Group poll for OH shows the race as a dead heat.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/13/colorado-ohio-divided-between-presidential-candidates/
This is simply not true. Look at the current RCP average. +3.5
Until a few days ago, Mitt was just a nice guy who we knew was not quite up to the job. Now we know he’s an unpresidential ass. That will continue to shake out.
@Jay:
The only reason the RCP average is at 3.5 is because of a Survey USA/Civitas poll that purports to show Romney up by 10 in the state, which is inconsistent with everything else we’ve seen.
SurveyUSA’s polls were complete crap during the GOP nomination fight; their final polls were often off by as much as ten points from the final result. So, I’d take that 10 point lead with a grain of salt. Especially since the crosstabs [PDF} show Romney getting 30% of the black vote, which is quite simply absurd.
Take this poll out of the mix, and N.C. is much, much closer.
@Jay:
Also, ARG is a crap poll, which is why RealClearPolitics doesn’t even include them in their average.
With Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio in the eastern time zone, this election could be over by 9pm. I predict I’ll get a good nights sleep knowing that President Obama has been reelected.
With the election over by 9pm eastern time, CO, WI and NV will probably fall in line too.
Glad to see Rasmussen is finally updating it’s state-by-state content. I’m a little surprised they haven’t released any updated info on Colorado or the lesser swing states.
Either way, I look forward to Romney supporter’s explanations about how Rasmussen’s model is flawed…
@Jay: Romney’s own internal polling in OH shows he is down in the high single digits. That is entirely consistent with the NBC/WSJ journal poll.
Anyway, Romney is close to finish……the only thing he has left if the unpredictability factor. You can’t be down 5 in FL at this stage of the game and expect to win.
Doug, even if you take the Survey USA poll out of the equation, the numbers still hold up in large part because of the skewed PPP polls which is the only poll taken in the last 4 months that shows Obama with a lead besides….tada…..Marist.
The NBC/Marist polls have been outrageous too. You do realize that one earlier poll had Obama up by 17 points over Romney. A previous Marist poll also had Obama up by 12%. A previous Marist poll had Obama up by 8 over Romney in FL.
They are consistently off from the RCP average. Obama probably has a slight lead in VA and OH right now and is probably tied in FL. These numbers from Marist however, should be taken with a huge grain of salt considering their previous numbers.
@Doug Mataconis: “The only reason the RCP average is at 3.5 is because of a Survey USA/Civitas poll that purports to show Romney up by 10 in the state, which is inconsistent with everything else we’ve seen. ”
Thanks for being loyal to the facts over partisanship, Doug.
@Jay:
Want to comment on the word of Holy Rasmussen which suggests significant movement in Obama’s direction in FL (where they previously had Romney with a three point lead) and ahead for the first time in OH?
The FL shift seems particularly notable because, up until this point, Rasmussen had listed Romney with a slight lead (45 to Obama’s 43) — although they had listed it as too close to call. A five point jump is a pretty big move, especially in a poll that is said to best represent the makeup of people who actually vote.
@mattb:
So? All of this thus far represents a convention bounce, not a trend.
Look at the charts posted here. You can see the trends prior to the convention bounce which is already starting to fade.
Oh and look at that! Rasmussen poll out today shows Romney +6 over Obama in North Carolina.
I guess people will start going back to talking about how much Rasmussen sucks now.
What some have characterized? Why the weird passive voice — do you think they were bungled or not? Some might say you were afraid to take a stand.
Romney is desperate. Flailing. Now he is saying the Libya thing wouldn’t have happened if he was President. Is anyone buying what these grifters are selling?
I’m wondering if Obama will do as well as he did in 2008. I would have thought that impossible a month ago, but now I’m not so sure….
Looks like the United States of Canada will beat Jesusland this time.
@Rafer Janders:
The thing that really drove it home for me was an exchange I saw on tv this morning. It was roughly this:
Reporter: do you regret criticizing the President?
Romney: since the President has disavowed the memo, I was right.
Reporter: but you said the President sympathized with the attackers.
Romney: since the President has disavowed the memo, I was right.
That’s just dishonorable. That goes beyond political spin. It says the man has no decency.
@john personna: What a bunch of bullshit! He made a factual criticism of the President’s tendency to apologize. If it wasn’t for the leftist media this would not be an issue. The Media = phony polls + manufactured gaffes.
@J-Dub: Did you also sleep well November 2000? Especially if an early Obama win comes out of Ohio or Florida, I’d wait a day or two to see if it stands the way those states’ elections are run.
@Ian:
He did exactly the same thing in London. He lacked situational awareness. When asked, as a visitor, how the Olympics looked, it was a no-brainer to say “great.” When the US or its citizens are attacked, it’s a no-brainer to stand up and act Presidential, in support.
Reagan and Bush 41 knew to do that:
(You can criticize later, but to send out nighttime emails in snipe mode? That is literally madness.)
@C. Clavin:
And he’s right! Because if Mitt Romney had been president, Muammar Quaddafi would still have been in power in Libya, so he wouldn’t have sent Chris Stevens there as ambassador, so Stevens wouldn’t have been killed….
@Ian:
Damn straight! He made a factual criticism of a completely made up tendency! What’s it come to in this country if you can’t tell an honest lie?
(And of course there was no actual apology anywhere.)
@john personna:
You know, I literally cannot imagine Romney doing the same thing as Reagan and G.H.W. Bush did there. He just doesn’t have it in him to think of his country before himself.
@Rafer Janders:
I think he’s kind of bound his ambitions to this whacked out idea of a “no apologies” America. So rather than being for himself alone, insufferable Mitt and insufferable America are bound in his mind.
@Ian:
Could you cite some concrete examples of Obama apologizing?
@john personna:
As I read someone note yesterday (unfortunately can’t quite recall where), Romney acts like a coward’s idea of what a brave man is like. He imagines bravery is all attack, all the time, all bluster, never backing down, never apologizing, but since he’s a coward at heart it’s all play-acting.
Sullivan:
I think it’s a bad idea to “poll pick” myself. I tend to include them all on the assumption that the biased ones will cancel each other out.
@Ian:
The fact that you consider it a “fact” that the President has a “tendency to apologize” says a lot about your (dis)connection with reality and your ability to objectively judge facts.
I’d suggest starting with honest and objective conservatives like Daniel Larison (who is *not* a Obama supporter) for harsh lessons about the supposed “Apology tour” (not that you will of course).
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/
@Ian:
BTW, here’s Larison on Romney:
@stonetools: Don’t be a moron? How is it that you are being fooled again by the media. Don’t you know that Politics 101 is to discourage your opponent from voting.
In 2008, people like you stayed home because they were told by the liberal media that John McCain couldn’t win. And you thought why vote if McCain can’t win? The truth is he probably could have won. But your doubt became a reality when you didn’t vote. In 2010, Gallup reported that Americans self-identify as 31% Democrat, 29% Republicans, and 38% Independent. You need to remember that ratio when you examine the raw data from these polls. In nearly every poll I’ve seen in the last 6 years, Democrats were oversampled by 7-11 points. If Democrats are oversampled, guess who is going to be leading in the poll? This is how liberals in the media use phony polls to change public opinion and suppress voter turnout.
Do you actually believe that Romney could lose to a President who failed to deliver more than 10% of what he promised? A President who forced our military to serve with openly flamboyant gays? A President who forced the Catholic Charities to pay for contraception and abortion services? A President who forced a Health Care Mandate Tax ($695/ind, $2250/family) on the American people? A President who racked up 5 trillion in national debt in a Crony Capitalism giveaway? This President has gone against the will of the people more than any politician before him. Think about it – and go out and vote this SOB out!
@Jay:
Umm… no. Generally speaking, few people have been expecting Obama to take North Carolina this cycle. And, to that point, Romney’s numbers have held pretty steady there in Rasmussen polls.
If Rassmussen has Obama ahead in the polls, it’s going to be a landslide.
Personally, I knew when we were in trouble when the 4th Infantry Division changed its tag from The Famous Fighting Fourth to The Famous Fabulous Fourth….
@Rafer Janders:
Aha, here it is:
“[Romney’s] bluster is a coward’s idea of how a brave man acts: Never hesitate, never apologize. When you’re wrong, say it again, only louder,” – Mark Kleiman.
@lankyloo:
Point well taken. 53 counties IIRC in Florida all running under different standards and widespread ineptitude in various elections supervisor office could easily be worth a couple of points in the final count. Ex., one of our supervisors managed to lose 18,000 votes in a house race a couple of years ago.
@Ian:
Well, since this President hasn’t done any of those things, yes I do believe Romney will lose to him.
Charlie Cook’s analysis of the race has shfited:
Cook’s take on the race
@Ian:
Again, a belief that only works if you have no connection to reality. Politi-fact has done a good job of keeping up with over 500! Obama campaign promises. Guess what, his success rate is well over 10% (well over 20% in fact) on both the full list and the “top 25” (i.e. key) promises.
Here are the stats for the reality challenged:
Promise Kept 190 (37%)
Compromise 72 (14%)
Promise Broken 83 (16%)
Stalled 49 (10%)
In the Works 112 (22%)
Not yet rated 2 (0%)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/
Of course, if you have an actual… you know… source for your numbers, feel free to post it
@Ian:
It’s the insurance companies that are providing the contraceptive coverage and they are not allowed to pass the costs along to the religiously affiliated institutions.
When do I pay this new tax if I have health insurance?
ian:
That number is wrong, because the correct date for Obama taking over the debt is not 1/20/09 (link).
Also, tell us how you feel about the fact that 75% of the debt Obama inherited was created under three presidents: Reagan, Bush and Bush.
Last time Mitt led in OH (according to RCP average): never. Last time a Republican won the White House without winning OH: never. (The last time a Democrat did it was 1960. This record of OH picking winners is longer than any other state.)
If Romney were President in 1999…..(wavy screen)….”When asked about the mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade today, which killed 3 Chinese nationals, President Romney said, “We don’t apologize to the Chinese for killing their slanty eyed reporters. What were they doing there to begin with? Its not my fault the bombs were blown off course.”
If this were 1988……President Romney today came out in defense of the USS Vincennes mistaken shooting down of an Iranian civilian jet with the loss of all 189 on board.
Said President Romney, “Well, they shouldn’t have ducked. I am not going to apologize for their actions of getting in the path of our missile.”
President Romney, today, in an address to the gathering of the relatives of the Wounded Knee tribes, massacred in 1890, “Hey, they all looked alike to the U.S. Calvary with their long hair..its hard to tell who is a girl and who are the men when they were all hooting and hollering, I can tell you that.”
And, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Civil Rights Act, President Romney again repeated his earlier remarks that he would never “apologize” for slavery since he never owned any slaves.
This nutjob is almost as whacked out as some of his defenders on this thread.
To paraphrase John Lennon, “Being a superpower means having to say your sorry almost every day.”