The Week in Numbers

So it's been a week since the first debate and the unemployment numbers.  As I ventured in the previous post, the Romney surge in the polls tracks in time with the post-debate consensus, though te poli sci folks don't all agree that's entirely the reason--Romney's numbers started to move up even before that, and the surge seems to be coming from disenchanted GOPers, but more than that as well.  The better than expected unemployment number does not seem to have translated into a counter-wave, so it may take the next debate to change the trajectory in a clear way. 

But apparently President Obama has not held his national lead, though all the polls are within one or two points and several are tied.  Gallup's latest tracking has Romney up 2 points with likely voters, but Obama up by one among registered voters.  So for Obama partisans--and anybody not interested in seeing this country fall apart under rampant injustice etc.--it remains tense. But Romney has not followed up his debate with flawlessness on the campaign trail--he and Ryan continue to provide copious ammunition.  With the second debate on Tuesday, who knows where we will be a week from now. 

Though the state polls were more dour on Friday, it is possible to find a few that are moving back towards Obama.  The Dish plots a trend line in Obama's favor in Virginia.  The latest Florida numbers are worrisome--although I never counted on Florida because of the mischief the GOPers have successfully sowed into the voting process there.  It's worse than Ohio.  The latest polls in Ohio suggest a much tighter race, but I notice that the pros are generally skeptical that Romney is going to be able to pull that one off.  Still, Nate Silver is as unbearish on an Obama victory as he has been in months, noting the fragile state leads.  He pegs Obama's chances all the way down to 61%.

Which leads to the overall electoral college evaluations at this point.  At Daily Kos, Singiser   notes that strictly working with poll numbers the race has become uncertain, though still fundamentally favoring President Obama:

"Taken at their current face value, that would put Obama at 281 electoral votes, and Romney at 257 electoral votes. However, it is not difficult to see how a very small further shift in the electorate could both elevate Romney to the presidency, or consign him to the ash heap. With just a shift of two percentage points in his direction, Romney would gain both Nevada and Ohio, that would push him to 281 electoral votes, and with it, the White House. However, if there is a shift of just 2 points in the president's direction, he gets back a raft of states (Colorado, Florida and Virginia). That would put him at 332 electoral votes, making him a decisive winner for a second term."

But what if you take other factors into consideration?  My old boss (sort of) Paul Solman interviewed economist David Rothchild for PBS--he tracks polling but also economic trends and the predictions market, which has a pretty good track record.  He sees Obama as a heavy favorite, and notes the rationale:

"What I would say is that a state like Ohio has maintained its Obama friendliness but as it gets closer and closer to Election Day, it becomes more and more likely that it will actually vote for Obama come Election Day. So it's not a shifting of opinion as much as it's saying, "Romney is running out of time to shift that opinion." And as that happens, you see very few states cross each other, in essence, and so that ranking holds...

So take that order, start adding up electoral votes until you hit 270. You're going to find a pivot state: a state that if Obama holds he wins and that if Romney can reach he wins, and that state has been Ohio for virtually the entire election cycle. It means that if Romney can get all the states up to that point, he can win this election. But that includes Florida and Virginia on top of Ohio and those are three big hurdles and that means on the flip [side] that all Obama has had to do is hold one of those states. Just one of those main three states, and that's what's been giving him that edge this entire time."

Of course these aren't all the factors--there's the ground game, voter suppression, the weather, etc.  All kinds of things that figure into a close election, if it is that close.  So come election night, if  Obama wins Virginia and North Carolina, it will start to look like a landslide.  But even if he loses both of those and Florida, it will probably still come down to Ohio and secondarily to Iowa.  But even in what now looks like a blowout in 2008, the returns from those eastern states were a long time coming, and it was pretty close to the end (when the Pacific states came in) that the results from Florida and Ohio were known.  Great.  And there's still three weeks + to go even before we get to that long night.

But I also noted that Rothschild stressed economic trend factors, and that the predictions market was on top of the data.  And it was reported that consumer confidence jumped unexpectedly higher. What that means may not be known until the election returns.

 It would be great to see another big move towards Obama to ease the tension these last weeks.  It's possible. Already since the vp debate, it's becoming more accepted that Biden won it. (An Ipso poll out Friday said so.)  Dems and pundits are finding more and more in the debate that works for Obama, if carried on.  No polls yet reflect any influence from the debate--it would be unusual if there were any (but let's fact it--this has been an unusual year.)  One thing is certain:  Biden has injected more energy going into this weekend.