Swing State Polls

Taegan Goddard has a number of new swing state polls, and while many are close, they all favor the president:  Latest Swing State Polls

I was especially struck by the Fox News poll:

Obama tops Romney by seven percentage points among likely voters in both Ohio (49-42 percent) and Virginia (50-43 percent). In Florida, the president holds a five-point edge (49-44 percent).

These are worth nothing because of a lot of Romney supporters have been actively denying, even without evidence, the validity of most polling.  I am not sure how, however, one can ignore a Fox News poll when it shows Obama with big leads in three key swing states.

Of course, whoever did the write-up for the Fox piece tried hard to find a silver lining in the numbers:

The good news for Romney is that among voters who are “extremely” interested in this year’s election, the races are much tighter. Obama is up by just two points with this group in Virginia (49-47 percent), Florida is tied (48-48 percent), and Romney is up by one point in Ohio (48-47 percent).

This strikes me as a bit of a dig, and even then the numbers aren’t exactly what a Romney supporter can turn to for great succor.

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. anjin-san says:

    I am not sure how, however, one can ignore a Fox News poll when it shows Obama with big leads in three key swing states.

    Have you met bithead, Jenos, & Jan?

  2. @anjin-san: You have a point, I’m afraid.

  3. PJ says:

    @Steven Taylor:

    This strikes me as a bit of a dig, and even then the numbers aren’t exactly what a Romney supporter can turn to for great succor.

    No, it’s the path to victory, voter suppression! The GOP just have to make sure that only the “extremely interested” are able to vote. 🙂

    Although, the margin of error in the subgroup “Extremely interested” is about 4 points in all the polls, so essentially worthless. In Florida both candidates could be leading by 8 points among the “Extremely interested”…
    They really should have pointed that out. Although they do point out that the margin of error for the complete sample is 3 points and that Obama’s lead is outside the MOE in two of the states.