Today we will break down races in the key battleground states. The good news for President Obama is that he still holds a slim lead in the national polls despite gaffes and unpopular decisions. Those include his endorsement of gay marriage, saying the middle class is “just fine,” the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare and his latest push to raise taxes on families making over $250,000.
Romney has had his share of missteps as well, and camp Obama is pummeling him in vicious TV ads in numerous swing states. His admission that Obamacare is a tax didn’t help either. Yet he is within the margin of error nationally. Now let’s get to the numbers.
The race for the White House is tightening…or is it? As of today the average of the major national polls (as compiled by RealClearPolitics.com) has President Obama leading Mitt Romney by a mere 1.6%, well within the margin of error. It is rare for a sitting president to have less than a margin of error lead on his challenger just four months before the election. This has to be troubling for the Obama campaign.
However, this macro level picture is not very revealing as to the true current state of the race. Remember that the general election is really 50 individual elections and that is where Mr. Romney is running into trouble. If you want to follow the polls in the individual states, go to 270towin.com. They have lots of good analysis. Here’s a direct link to the state polling page: http://www.270towin.com/2012-polls/.
You may remember that in my June 20 Blog we identified the states that Romney absolutely has to win in order to be elected, OH and FL and one of either WI or VA. Current state polls have Romney trailing in OH by anywhere from 4-9 points. Obama has increased his lead in OH since June 20. This is not good news for camp Romney.
The VA numbers are all over the place. In the latest poll, Obama is up by more than the margin of error. But in the previous poll, Romney was ahead by more than the margin of error. At this point, the polls still show VA leaning toward Obama. Romney has a lot of work to do there.
WI, a traditionally blue state, is in-play this year thanks to its Republican governor Scott Walker, who recently won in a recall vote. WI is currently in the margin of error but is drifting toward Obama in recent polls.
The news out of FL mirrors OH. In the last three major FL polls Obama leads by the margin of error. This is not good news for Romney but not a cause for panic either. Spencer Wright (my cohort in this effort) and I feel that FL voters will go for Romney in the end.
There are obviously some other state-by-state scenarios where the outcome of the presidential race could be decided. Sometimes abnormalities happen. But if things go normally, we believe the race will be decided in the four states discussed above.
Historically, the general election fervor does not really start until the party conventions are over. But this year looks to be different. Recent polls from Gallup indicate that enthusiasm of swing-state voters matches that of voters nationally, and eight in 10 swing state voters have already seen campaign ads. The good news is, Romney supporters in those states were more enthusiastic than Obama voters.
Polls are transient things, snapshots in time. They change frequently in close state races. The current set of polls certainly favors the president but is in no way insurmountable. However…if the polls are roughly where they are today on October 1, Mitt Romney will be in deep, deep trouble.
As always, I welcome your comments and/or suggestions.
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