ELECTIONATE OCTOBER 20, 2012
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Yesterday's national polls continued to suggest a tight race in which the president holds a slight edge.
1) Obama is faring better in the national polls than he was last week. Yes, Gallup is a clear exception, but five of the seven polls released yesterday showed Obama with a slight edge. With the race this close, the battleground state math is more important, but neither candidate is likely to overcome a modest defeat in the national popular vote, so it's worth watching to see whether one candidate builds a clearer 2 or 3 point edge by Election Day.
2) A wave of polls in Florida showed Romney leading by an average of two points, roughly in-line with the polls conducted after the first debate, which showed Romney leading by 1.7 points.
Based on twitter conversations, I get the sense that partisans are more confident in their own slight leads. Republicans feeling great about Florida and optimistic in Ohio would be wise to consider that Obama’s doing about as well in Ohio as Romney is in Florida, and Democrats feeling great about Ohio but optimistic about Florida would be wise to consider the opposite.
3) PPP’s poll in New Hampshire adds another data point to the case for a much tighter race in the Granite State. Romney by an extremely slim margin in an average of poll conducted after the first presidential debate, despite the state’s Democratic-lean and a large Obama advantage in pre-debate polls. Chuck Todd tweeted that the Romney campaign is now back on the air in Boston, another sign that the state might be more competitive than conventional wisdom suggests. We’ll see.
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4) And PPP didn’t just provide good news to Romney in a state where previous indicators pointed toward a tight race, PPP also showed Romney ahead in Iowa—a state where the other pollsters show Obama performing better than most other battleground states. Like New Hampshire, Iowa is relatively under-polled so it’s more difficult to distinguish outliers from movement. So far, PPP is the only poll pointing toward a Romney advantage in Iowa.
5) Fox News shows Obama up by 3 points in Ohio. With Romney struggling in the Buckeye State, one wonders whether Ryan’s trip to Philadelphia or rumblings about Michigan are an indicator of Romney’s Ohio problem or a sign that they’re looking to go on the offense.
5 comments
Lets hope Obama knocks at least two doozies out of the park in the next debate to keep this recovery trend alive. Maybe he can find a way to be both courteous/respectful and put Mitt in his place; it's sad that he's either seen as soft when he lets Mitt eat up all that time or belligerent when he gets in Mitt's face. Why has everyone accepted that Mitt is an overbearing loud mouth and not taken him to task for his debate behavior? I know the Republicans respect that kind of thing from their guy, and everyone else just sort of expects it or is nonplussed, but he's getting too much of a walk on an otherwise somewhat deleterious personality flaw. It's not a top reason to vote against Mitt, but definitely cause for worry if he wins in November.
- GSpinks
October 20, 2012 at 12:00pm
Really interesting endorsement for Obama from the Salt Lake City paper, attacking Mitt for being, well, "Too Many Mitts," http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55019844-82/romney-obama-state-president.html.csp The Denver Post endorsed Obama too, mentioning as I have on other threads the environment costs of drilling anywhere and everywhere. Somehow the environment has gotten lost on the shuffle. But people who live close to nature are very aware of the evil inherent in Mitt's drill baby drill sentiments.
- Sophia
October 20, 2012 at 12:26pm
Anyway, I hate to see Florida going down the tubes. I would have thought the strong arguments against R&R's appalling ideas about Medicare/Medicaid, etc, might have made an impression?
- Sophia
October 20, 2012 at 12:28pm
"it's sad that he's either seen as soft when he lets Mitt eat up all that time or belligerent when he gets in Mitt's face. Why has everyone accepted that Mitt is an overbearing loud mouth and not taken him to task for his debate behavior?" Er, G, are you being serious with the questions? I think I wrote on this after the first debate, when everyone was having a run-to-the-hills moment. It has been ever thus. Obama has to worry about coming across as an Angry Black Man and an uppity nigger, especially going against someone who looks like Hollywood's version of Commander in Chief. Romney's bluster is precisely the type of behvaiour that wins praise among a large segment of the male population - I see them around me all the time - as "commanding". The other day someone at work complained that my emails were too harsh. The person doing the complaining has had two (legit) harassment and abuse claims outstanding. Sort of self-victimised perception and projection, magnified to the Nth degree in respect of a Black man who ought to be losing, because he is so incompetent and unAmerican, but who actually shows not only signs of life, but might vanquish the Great White Hope+MiniMe after having destroyed a National Hero+TheBabe. Seriously, everything I have seen since 2008 is that a large chunk of the Right's criticism of Obama can only be explained by his race, and nothing else.
- icarus-r
October 20, 2012 at 1:14pm
Interesting article on Benghazi: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/10/town-hall-debate?fsrc=scn/ob And this is why Romney is toast in the third debate. Russia, China, Iran, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Poland, the Olympics, Syria ... no way out. Romney will talk about "no daylight between Israel and the United States": the only question is whether Obama will have he balls to say, "decision to go to war, Governor, is not made in Jerusalem but in Washington."
- icarus-r
October 20, 2012 at 1:23pm