Battleground State Update: Still Advantage Obama
President Obama still has the advantage in the battleground states.
Last week we saw CBS/New York Times/Quinnipiac polls from Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that showed President Obama leading in all three states, today the same group is out with polls in three more battleground states that show slightly better news for Mitt Romney, but as with last week there’s one result that seems like it’s an outlier:
For all of the Democratic attacks painting Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch elitist who will help the rich at the expense of the middle class, he is maintaining the traditional — and sizable — Republican advantage among a politically vital constituency, white working-class voters in the states most likely to decide the presidential election.
And despite Republican efforts to use the weak economy to drive a wedge between President Obama and women on Election Day, the president is holding on to their crucial support in most battleground states.
Those findings, contained in the latest batch of Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News swing state polls, highlight the stubborn divisions of this year’s presidential race among two of the most important voting groups in the most hotly contested states.
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For all of the Democratic attacks painting Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch elitist who will help the rich at the expense of the middle class, he is maintaining the traditional — and sizable — Republican advantage among a politically vital constituency, white working-class voters in the states most likely to decide the presidential election.
And despite Republican efforts to use the weak economy to drive a wedge between President Obama and women on Election Day, the president is holding on to their crucial support in most battleground states.
Those findings, contained in the latest batch of Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News swing state polls, highlight the stubborn divisions of this year’s presidential race among two of the most important voting groups in the most hotly contested states.
But they also help explain the intense efforts of the two campaigns to alter the balance in both groups, which together will go a long way toward determining the outcome.
Mr. Obama’s goal is to keep Mr. Romney from running up huge margins among white working-class voters — defined as those without college degrees and with household incomes of $30,000 to $100,000 — who could give him the edge.
New results from surveys over the past week in Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin, combined with surveys last week in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, show that Mr. Romney so far appears to be holding his own with that group, but running no stronger than Senator John McCain did four years ago.
Similarly, Mr. Romney is trying to peel off as many female voters as possible from Mr. Obama’s electoral coalition, hoping to offset the president’s advantages among single and nonwhite women by appealing to married and white women with a message about economic security and pocketbook issues.
But while the poll suggests that Mr. Romney is making inroads among women in Colorado, where he is also showing strength against Mr. Obama by several other measures, support for Mr. Obama among women has otherwise held up in the battleground states. As a result, Mr. Obama has so far been able to stave off bigger losses in the most hotly contested states, in particular among independents, who are divided in Colorado and Wisconsin and supporting Mr. Romney in Virginia, and white men, who are supporting Mr. Romney by double digits over the president in all three states.
The CBS News write-up has the numbers:
Romney is ahead of the president in the swing state of Colorado, 50 percent to 45 percent. The poll shows a key part of Mr. Obama’s Colorado coalition from 2008 — college-educated white voters – in play this year.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, leads Romney in Virginia, 49 percent to 45 percent, thanks in part to strong support from women and black voters.
In a third important state, Wisconsin, Mr. Obama has a 6-point lead over Romney, 51 percent to 45.
The Colorado number is surprising to say the least. As I noted last week, that state, while somewhat of a swing state in recent elections, still seemed to be far more likely to stay in President Obama’s column than go for Romney this time around. Just yesterday, Public Policy Polling released a poll showing Obama ahead by six points and Rasmussen released a poll showing the race tied 47% to 47%. With the Quinnipiac and PPP polls basically canceling each other out, that puts the RealClearPolitics averageat +1.3% for Obama. However, that number reflects the big uptick for Romney in the Quinnipiac poll so it may not be entirely reliable. Before today, the average lead for Obama in Colorado was outside the margin of error. Moreover, prior to the Quinnipiac poll there hasn’t been a single poll of the state that showed Romney was a measurable lead of any kind. the closest he’s gotten is several polls that have had the race inside the MoE or tied Because of this, Jamelle Boulle is skeptical of the Colorado numbers:
This should make us suspicious. If the race in Colorado were truly a toss-up, then Romney should be ahead as much as he is behind. Moreover, it’s unusual for a candidate to gain ground in one state, but stagnate—or even lose—in other, similar states. If Obama is behind in Colorado, then he’s likely slipped among college-educated white voters, who are overrepresented in the state. If that’s true, then you should see similar slippage in Virginia and North Carolina, both states with heavy populations of college-educated whites. As it stands, neither is true (in fact, Obama has gained somewhat among Tar Heels).
This doesn’t show that the new poll is wrong, only that we should view it as one data point among many. And keeping that in mind, the polling in Colorado is still consistent with a slight Obama lead——yesterday, for example, Public Policy Polling showed him with 49 percent to Romney’s 43 percent.
I tend to agree with Boulle. The fact that there’s such a wide discrepancy between this new poll and every poll of the state since February should raise eyebrows and at least cause us to wait until future polls come out to see if Romney is really gaining ground there. Additionally there are some indications that Republicans may have been oversampled in this poll. While I’ve noted before the Party ID isn’t always the most important demographic to look for in a poll, that combined with the odd result suggest that this result is not an accurate reflection of the state of the race.
Turning to Virginia, the poll result finding the President up by four points isn’t out of line with what we’ve been seeing from the Old Dominion. While some recent polls have shown the state tightening from where it was a months or two ago, four points doesn’t seem to me to be egregiously out of line. The Real Clear Politics average here is +3.2% in Obama’s favor, which is well within any applicable margins of error. We’ve known for months now that Virginia was going to be hotly contested this year, and this poll is pretty much telling us the same thing. It’s worth noting, though, that based on the polls listed at RCP, Romney has not led in this state in months other than a highly questionable poll from We Ask America, a company who’s track record has yet to be determined.
That brings us to Wisconsin, where Obama leads by six points. It sometimes puzzles me why Wisconsin is considered to be a swing state by the pundits. Other than a Rasmussen poll in June, there hasn’t been a single poll showing Romney in the lead in the Badger State all years. The main reason people seem to think Romney might have a chance here, it seems, is because of the successes that Republicans had in statewide races in 2010, and the ability with which Scott Walker was able to beat back a recall effort. These points are well taken, but it’s worth remembering that Wisconsin is a state that hasn’t gone for a Republican since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide. Currently,the RCP average is at +6.0 in Obama’s favor. This suggests that, while the state may be more competitive than it has been in recent elections it still seems likely to stay in Democratic hands. More importantly, if it turns out that we get close to the election and find Romney leading or close in Wisconsin polls, then it’s something that ought to worry the Obama campaign because it probably would also mean that Romney is leading or close in states like Michigan and Ohio and that Obama campaign may be headed for a bad day on November 6th.
There doesn’t seem to be any broad conclusions to be drawn from these polls. We already know these states were battlegrounds, and they’re going to stay that way from now until Election Day. What one does notice, however, is that despite poll after poll where respondents say that they are dissatisfied with the state of the country, Mitt Romney has yet to make a breakthrough. The convention will be his big change to try to do that.
Romney has a couple of big problems:
1) People don’t like him or trust him.
2) His business experience is what many people think got us into this mess to begin with.
The polls are looking at likely voters now, causing the Colorado race to tighten up.
@Anderson:
Actually:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/co/colorado_romney_vs_obama-2023.html
The last 5 polls taken in CO, dating back to June, have all been Likely Voter polls.
So, yeah. Probably should have looked that up a bit before posting.
...Obama RomneyCO 45 .. 50
VA 49 .. 45
WI 51 .. 45
Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, an
Independent, or what?
.. Republican Democrat Independent Other DK/NA
CO 32 ....... 27 ..... 37 ........ 3 ... 1
VA 23 ....... 30 ..... 40 ........ 6 ... 2
WI 27 ....... 34 ..... 33 ........ 5 ... 1
Are you registered as a Republican, Democrat, some other party, or are you
not affiliated with any party?
.. Republican Democrat Other Independent/Unaffiliated/None DK/NA
CO 41 ....... 32 ..... - ... 26 .......................... 1
VA NA ....... NA ..... NA .. NA .......................... NA
WI NA ....... NA ..... NA .. NA .......................... NA
2008 was a high water mark for dems. It involved electing the first AA President on the heels of huge Bush fatigue, involving two wars and a financial collapse. One thing democrats are good at, though, is character assassination of their opponents and appealing to the anxieties of various constituencies — essentially a divide and conquer tactic. This is something they have continually done during Obama’s term in office — deriding others and passing the blame backwards. But, it’s difficult to defend the record of economic failures in this presidency.
This is what is different in 2012, from 2008. Obama was ‘hired’ to fix the economy. All he did, though, was make it worse. There is little hope. And, many of the changes that have occurred are met with distaste, disbelief and dissatisfaction by a growing number of people. The youth and minority excitement has ebbed, and been replaced by a tea party movement which turned the House over to conservatives, as well as many of the state houses, as a result of the midterm elections. They seem to be poised to insert themselves definitively in the GE, as well. Indies, liberal republicans, conservative dems, who voted for Obama before, are far less inclined to do so again — something called voter remorse. Almost 4000 AA pastors have joined together to rebuke Obama’s evolved support for gay marriage. Also, the negative Obama ads flooding the market, the scurrilous, personal attacks on Romney, I think will erode, rather than endear, voter support for Obama, in the end.
As for these battleground state polls — they are close, some being in the MOE. It’s not a bad place for a challenger to be — one who has yet to even be officially anointed at the party’s convention. After the big dem and GOP parties, the ‘real’ campaign will be rolled out in earnest. Then, come November, the people will decide whether or not they want 4 more year of Obama, or want to sample something new, offering a different hope and change direction.
@jan:
Worse. You keep using that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Maybe a trip to dictionary.com would help you out.
Where do you cut-and-paste this dreck from?
The economy is better, in every single way, than when Obama was inaugurated. Seriously. Nobody buys this line, that you are pushing.
@Cycloptichorn:
You are delusional…
How come none of the Republicans want to talk about Electoral College trending? That is, after all, what really counts…
@jan: Jan, I know exactly what a Romney presidency would get us:
1) cut taxes.
2) cut safety networks. No food stamps for you! (I guess you like to see hungry people, hmm?)
3) get rid of ACA and go back to the non-existent system we had before. I guess people with prior conditions are just supposed to die off. And unemployed people? Feh, what good are they–let them die. Maybe they can hold bake sales!
4) cut more taxes
5) get rid of Social Security by privatizing it. Get rid of Medicare and turn it into a voucher system. This means you’re probably going to stuck taking care of your parents for the rest of their days, but I’m sure you’re completely fine with that, right?
6) Get rid of the US Post Office. (Nevermind that it’s written into the Constitution.) Too bad that you’ll have to pay $50 or more to get a legal document shipped to you in Podunk, Montana, but that’s your own problem. You’re going to have to ship out everything by FedEx and UPS, but that’s ok, I’m sure all your customers are willing to pay the prices (and higher prices, because USPS won’t be around to do last mile delivery for FedEx and UPS)
7) increase spending on the military. We don’t have the money, but we’re going to spend more anyway. So what if the deficit increases, we’ll always pretend it hasn’t.
8) Attack Iran…oh, the Straits of Hormuz got mined and oil just shot up to $200/bbl. I guess we’ll just have to cut more taxes……
For those of you who assert things are better, the latest polling indicates that 64% think the country is going in the wrong direction. So, I guess that means you belong to the 31% who have their rose-colored glasses in front of your eyeballs.
@jan:
Have they legalized pot in California or do you have a medical authorization. I don’t know what you are smoking but I want some.
@jan: Nearly half the Republican party believes Barack Obama is Muslim.
Perception =/= Reality
@jan:
The GOP own a good part of the wrong direction, that’s all.
@jan: The country going in the wrong direction and the economy being better now than when Obama was inaugurated are not mutually exclusive. We were in a large recession in Jan 2009, and now we have positive GDP growth, facts that rule out the possibility that the economy is worse now than in Jan 2009.
You are claiming something that cannot be true, so you shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously. If your claims had some relation to reality then your reputation might improve.
I think that concept is a bit too complex for Jan to wrap her arms around…
@grumpy realist:
Unlike many of you at OTB, I find it an asset that Romney is a numbers guy in finances, because this country is very much in arrears as to balancing it’s finances — with no real relief in sight. Generally speaking I see Romney reconfiguring the government’s expenditures and reorganizing it’s bureaucracies.
1. Have lower marginal tax rates across the board.
2. Address fraud in government social/entitlement programs.
3. Give waivers to the states regarding the ACA, like Obama has done with union friends. And, then allow HC reform to be customized in the states, under their own creative powers, getting rid of 2733 pages of legal garbage few people have been able to read nor fully understand.
4. Eliminate an assortment of tax deductions and ‘loopholes.’ Lower corporate taxes so they would conform more with other countries corporate tax structure.
5. Reform medicare and social security as to become sustainable, so your kids won’t have to take care of you.
6. Cut back unnecessary business regulations, making it easier to be an entrepreneur, and open your own business.
7. Cut wasteful military spending, while sustaining the country’s military power.
These are generalities picked up in his speeches. He will have to articulate specifics after the convention.
@jan:
Specifically, which element of the economy is worse today than it was in January of 2009?
If you have any coherent response, bring it. Otherwise, I can’t look at your post as anything other than the shallowest of cheerleading.
@Cycloptichorn:
Ditto.
Come on, Jan, show us how the economy is worse today than it was in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Bush’s administration.
@jan: Wow, actual Mitt (R-Money) proposals.
This will make the deficit worse.
This is meaningless.
This will either do nothing, or is illegal. (Not allowed by ACA)
This will make the deficit worse.
Social Security has minor financial issues, but they are years from now. Romney has proposed ending Medicare, not reforming it.
These regulations are typically state or local, so this is meaningless.
Romeny has promised not to cut military spending, which will make the deficit worse.
@jan:
Hard to see how you got this from his speeches, as he has specifically vowed to INCREASE military spending.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/economy/romney-defense-spending/index.htm
I also find it to be extremely hard to believe that Romney is at all interested in ‘cutting loopholes’ in taxes. He made his fortune specifically by EXPLOITING loopholes. That’s how Bain worked. And it’s how he managed to hide most of his fortune from taxation. What makes you think he’s going to turn right around and get rid of that now? There’s zero reason to think he will.
@Cycloptichorn:
You don’t get a hundred million dollar IRA by following the rules.
@David M:
You are claiming something that cannot be true, so you shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously. If your claims had some relation to reality then your reputation might improve.
You can call everyone a liar who doesn’t see your POV or agree with you. But, it won’t change how a sizable swathe of people negatively measure Obama’s 4 year reign, and how their lives are worse off and not better because of it. I simply gave you a poll that said approximately two-thirds see the country going in the wrong direction. Now you can insult the poll, insult me, and say you are right. But, the poll numbers are what they are. It remains to be seen, though, as to how people are going to act on these reactions, in how they finally cast their vote.
@jan:
Everyone who is surprised that Jan can’t answer a simple question, raise your hand.
Okay, now everyone with your hand up, please don’t have children.
@jan: No one is disputing the wrong direction poll numbers. We are disputing your claim that the economy is worse now than in Jan 2009.
Will you now acknowledge you wrote was not true?
Jan,
You are right about the “right track/wrong track” polls. They are nearly as bad as they were at this point in 2008 at which point Obama was already leading McCain in the polls. Today, we have a race where Romney has not led in the National Polls outside the margin of error ever in polling that goes well back into 2011.
What does that tell you? It tells me that Romney has massive hurdles to overcome if he’s going to beat Obama, and I don’t think he can overcome them.
Cyclops, good catch, but a “likely voter” screen in June is a bit of a stretch.
Then again, maybe it is as much of a stretch in August too, so my point fails either way.
If Jan keeps this up, they will upgrade her cubicle in Boston.
@Doug Mataconis:
That’s what strikes me, too. Romney should have at least made this a seesaw race by this point. Aren’t we under 90 days now? What has Mr. Romney got that’s going to change the dynamic? Portman? Rubio? He better deliver one mother of a convention speech.
I think his tax return thing is helping to create a ceiling for him. His negatives are still rising and he’s 13 points behind Mr. Obama in likability as it is.
His best shot seems to be stealing the election by suppressing votes in PA and FL. Either that or he needs a stroke of luck – a really bad jobs report, a Euro collapse, a terrorist attack.
I just checked: 90 days out and the Romney camp is acting like they’re sitting on a lead and running out the clock. Weird. It has to be the candidate.
It *is* weird, Michael. Maybe they think Obama’s going to run out of money and they will change everyone’s minds by dominating the airwaves in October.
Obviously they have learned quite well from Republicans…
@michael reynolds:
I think it’s more the mindset of the entire party. I remember in 2000, when I lived in California and everybody I knew was busy debating whether to throw their votes to Nader or to Gore because the polls were at 60-40 or something, and out came the GOP in the last weekend somehow believing that they had a shot to win the state. A few random votes in Florida, and that stunt would have cost them the election.
The entire GOP plan is built on this sort of confidence, and with Romney, who suffers from not being an amiable dunce, they’re pretty much screwed.
@michael reynolds: Also, fyi, exactly 50 days until a number of states start voting.
The Cook Report is worth a look:
http://cookpolitical.com/
@An Interested Party: First you have to have character to have it assassinated.
Serious question here: does Jan get paid for this? Who would humiliate themselves hourly with these pathetic lies if they weren’t getting remuneration for it? It boggles the mind.
@michael reynolds:
Really should be running out the door now because I’ve got a lot of travelling today but your comment makes me wonder. When you consider how Romney’s presented himself for the past 18 months – always as the inevitable, strong front-runner who can best win the general election – it seems to me that Romney doesn’t dare go into fighter mode because there are too many reluctant supporters who’d be outraged. They’re with him now after supporting other candidates, hoping for other candidates who stayed out or staying out themselves and they’re only there because he’s going to win. Admitting now that this is going to take some effort risks fanning the embers of distrust and anger.
Also the campaign doesn’t seem very willing to keep their internal differences internal. Daniel Larison has a post about the strictly internal division over Romney’s foreign policy advisor: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-zoellick-panic/ This is not how a winning team handles problems: by anonymously complaining to the press.
Sorry for the incoherence but real life is more insistent right now than usual. Toodles.
@michael reynolds: “Romney should have at least made this a seesaw race by this point.”
If Obama wins, political scientists are going to be teaching this election as THE classic example of how every strategy has a downside and the longer you pursue that strategy, the greater that downside becomes. Romney’s a terrible candidate and how he got the nomination is a polisci class of its own, but even he should be doing better than he is given these economic conditions. But for 20 years or so, the GOP has responded to ongoing political, cultural and demographic changes in the country with the same approach – polarization and whipping up the base. It’s been fairly effective short term but the cumulative impact has been to alienate vast swaths of the population, essentially polarizing them against the Republican party.
Mike
The election is being run like the old joke. “I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you.”
Emotional investment is the other option. You believe fervently enough in an ideology (or, perhaps more appropriate, a mythology) and the ideology fails… well, um, no, see that’s just wrong. Reality. Is. Wrong. It must be…
This happened to communists. It can, in theory, happen to anyone who believes “hard.”
True believer or paid shill? You decide. I don’t think it matters.
I’m fairly certain that if Obama wins, the entire GOP will simply go onwards with the idea that the election was flat-out stolen.
@Doug Mataconis:
Yeah. Given the horribles, one would think that Gov. Romney would be at least 10 points ahead. He’s not and that should give Jan and Co. pause. Of course, it won’t.
Our generation’s version of the “little man on the wedding cake”:
Very difficult to overcome that kind of perception.
As for the idea that the GOP candidate should be comfortably ahead by now…
Only if you pretend the 2001-2009 period simply never happened. Voters may have short memories, but not enough of them are THAT short. So it’s entirely possible to be unimpressed with the job Obama & the Dems have been doing (leaving aside GOP obstruction, because your low-info voter doesn’t care about such things) and still think bringing back the GOP is a bad idea.
This isn’t just about Romney being a bad candidate. It’s about the GOP brand still being damaged by the Bush years. 2010 was a mid-term election. This one isn’t.
He looks more like the guy who didn’t have the balls to give you your layoff notice in person.
Look at the 1936 election, it was four years after the New Deal was introduced, but the economy was still sputtering and unemployment was in double digits, but compared to what this country had been through prior to 1932, there was no way folks were going to go back.
Similarly with Obama, while the wingnuts want to think he is a “failure” or has made the economy “worse”, most still believe that Bush was responsible for most of the ills.
So, Jan, while 60 some % see the country going the wrong way, the reality regarding Obama’ is more complex. “The poll, released by Gallup June 12, showed that 68 percent of Americans place either a great deal or moderate amount of economic blame on Bush, whereas 52 percent blame Obama.”
And thats why the “Obama has made the economy worse” screed empty and without traction.
@jan: @jan: @jan:
So, you’re a hate monger which makes anything you say invalid.