Nate Silver has posted about the new poll numbers from the NY Times / CBS poll and the New Q poll in Virginia.
His analysis is below.
His Bottom line is :
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that none of the polls out on Wednesday night ought to have changed your impression of the presidential race much. The New York Times/CBS News poll showed a fairly good top-line number for Mr. Romney. But The Times/CBS News has generally shown more favorable results for Mr. Romney (and less favorable ones for Mr. Obama) than the polling average.
In his writing, Mr. Silver pointed out that much of the movement is statistical noise and sample variance. In any given poll, one has to decide how to weight the poll. In the summer, polls are less meaningful than in the Fall. The national numbers mean less than the state numbers. The top line numbers are likely to go back and forth .
I believe that we will have a better idea of what the national topline numbers are if we wait until after the conventions. George W Bush was below John Kerry at this point in 2004. This will be a closer national race in 2008 simply because a bad economy hurts the incumbent. Mitt Romney is a very bad candidate. President Obama is not attempting to lead in national polls in any event. He is focused on the swing states.
The Bain attacks are working. Republican strategists have acknowledged this. If they were not working, Willard would not have appeared on 5 different shows, Republicans would not be so erratic in their attacks, ... These attacks are not attempting to improve President Obama's numbers. They are intended to neuter Willard, to make it impossible for him to try to showcase his vulture capital business experience as evidence that he knows how to create jobs in America. Having neutered him, he is left with only his experience as governor of Massachusetts to support his candidacy. However, he was 47th in job creation in Massachusetts. So, he has no support for the theory that he knows how to create jobs now in America from his resume. He becomes not just the other guy, but the weird rich guy with a dancing horse, bank accounts in Switzerland, who loves to fire people, and who is not responsible as CEO, chairman of the board, and sole shareholder for his companies' activities.
So, this is what has happened :
President Obama
Mitt Romney
President Obama
-Mitt Romney- the other guy
President Obama
Rmoney
Thus, independent voters are not given permission to vote for the opponent of President Obama, by and large. And if President Obama wins as much of the Democratic vote as Willard does the Republican vote and President Obama wins the Independent vote, then that is it for winning the national popular vote. The chances that President Obama wins the popular national vote and loses the electoral college are almost negligible (see 538 website).
Moreover, as we recall, the President has numerous pathways to 270. Willard has a complicated path to 270. David Plouffe, in his excellent book, The Audacity to Win, says (speaking of the campaign against McCain) that the opponent was like a goalie who had to stop every shot on goal. The opponent might stop most of them, but if one of the shots goes in the goal, the game is over. This same analogy applies here. If President Obama wins Virginia, the game is over. If President Obama wins Florida, the game is over. If President Obama, wins Ohio, the game is over. There is no realistic path for Mitt Romney to win the electoral college without winning all of those states - historically speaking. And these are not the only states that he must win. The chances that he will win every state and stop every shot - well, they are not good.
President Obama's chances of getting 270 Electoral College votes and winning the election are 67.9 % (better than 2 of 3 times, the model gives this outcome).
Again, the national numbers will go up and down over summer, especially given the economy. After the conventions, the topline national poll numbers will be more important. Even then, there will be fluctuations based upon sample variance, weighting, ... Thus, even then, we should look at trends, compare apples to apples.
In Virginia, with the Q poll, what happened ?
Willard is winning Republicans 91 to 5. Pretty good.
However, President Obama is winning Democratic voters 92 to 4. even better.
President Obama is winning Independents by 9.
Therefore, unless suddenly there are more Republicans than Democratic voters and Independent voters put together, then President Obama is ahead in Virginia.
Hence, this was just a screwy sample.
President Obama is going to win Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, Iowa, and New Hampshire. Florida is a toss up as is North Carolina.
There is less than 1 month until the Republican convention. However, people will be focused on the Olympics. So, it is a good time to point out Willard's problems with the MOlympics and the favorable contracts.
Mainly, we should keep the focus in this campaign on the pain at Bain.
8:56 AM PT: MSNBC Crawler says that President Obama is winning 70% of the Latino Vote. If, on election day, that happens, this will not even be close in the electoral college.
10:32 AM PT: hat tip and link to Joan
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