Monday’s Washington Post-ABC News poll came out with Obama again with a 2 point national lead but with a weird outlier in the "Swing States".
important dynamic in the presidential contest showing closer parity nationally than in key battleground states, where President Obama has had clear leads.
Three Washington Post polls over the past two weeks — in Florida, Ohio and Virginia – all showed Obama with an edge over Mitt Romney. Recent state polls from other public pollsters in Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Wisconsin mainly show the same thing: advantage Obama.
Pulling out respondents in these eight states — all of which Obama won in 2008 — from the new national poll, shows Obama at 52 percent and Romney at 41 among likely voters.
They explain it as a statistical variance:
Out of 929 registered voters in the new poll, 161 live in one of these eight states, with a margin of sampling error of eight points. The likely voter sample in these states is about nine points, making the 11-point gap an apparent edge. That margin is significant at the 80 percent confidence level, not a standard, conservative 95 percent threshold, which we take as added evidence of the state-of-play in state polling, and the crucial link between those and the national numbers (49 percent for Obama, 47 percent for Romney).
Having to waste a morning because of an afternoon court hearing this afternoon (important but what an inefficient waste of time) that involved a traffic incident where another driver (they 100% at fault), where my paid for '12-year old car was totaled, I decided to delve into Huffington Post Pollster data looking at each state's polling data against their voter registration databases in an effort to get a better picture of where the race is really at. Paul Ryan this is not boring or will turn off viewers, it is how you figure things out, be it business, grading papers, or doing politics, it is the math!
If the battleground states margin is right (52-41%), Romney's campaign has a death notice on November 6t, but if not, he is still in big trouble because it appears he is running a national popularity campaign (and still losing) while Obama is running a US Presidential race, through a state by state campaign. What it appears is Romney is merely increasing his margins in friendly states which keeps the national polling close but he is headed to checkmate.
A) Obama appears to have locked in fifteen states where he has majorities ranging from 54% to 65% averaging 56.54%. This represents 41,800,000 registered voters or 37.54% of the electorate, and 186 electoral votes.
B) Obama has a significant lead at 51% in four states, (MN, MI, NM, PA) representing 10,900,000 registered voters, 9.06% of the electorate. 51 electoral votes
Combined this represents 46.06 of the entire registered electorate and 237 electoral votes or 87.77% to 270.
C) Romney appears have locked up 20 states with leads averaging 58.4% representing 27.28% of the registered voters or 158 electoral votes
D) Romney also has a significant lead in two more states (AZ and MO) averaging 49% to Obama's 44%, representing 3.9% of the vote, 21 electoral votes
This totals 31.17% of the registered electorate and 179 electoral votes or 66.29% to 270.
E) There are nine battleground states (plus one CD, NE-2) representing the remaining 23.75% of the registered vote. Obama leads in eight of nine states 48.58%-44.42% and is tied in NC (47-47%) and the CD NE-2 (44-44%). 95 electoral votes favoring Obama with 16 in a virtual tie.
Therefore simple statistical math, Obama leads in 23/50 states but in 69.81% of the registered electorate and 332 electoral vote lead. 122.9% of 270
The 69.81% of the registered voter electorate favors Obama over Romney by percentages greater than 4% but the national polls have much closer? Why.
Well could it be that the 20 Romney lock states carry that much weight? Well even if Romney carried 58.58% in the 30,366,000 million Red State voters that comes out to 17,770,000 to 12,574,000 (5.2M) against the 26,447,000 to 20,319,000 (6.46M) in Obama's lock states. or a difference of 1.26M to Obama.
Add in the Obama leaning states; 2,602,000 to 2,092,000 (Obama plus 510,000) to Romney's leaning, 2,393,000 to 2,127,000 (Romney plus 266,00) or advantage to Obama 244,000 votes.
And finally the battleground states representing 11,094,000 to Obama to 10,146,000 or a difference of 948,000 to Obama. All told 2,452,000 projected in Obama's favor or on 111,312,000 registered voters Obama would hold a 2.16% win nationally.
Naturally this does not take into account the turnout which is a dynamic of many variables and will come into place in battleground or toss up states. But a national horse race of 2-3% where 40% of the nation is concentrated to opposing Obama at levels reaching 58% skews the electoral college race.
In many ways the Republicans might want to rethink their affection to the electoral college because this race is pretty much an electoral landslide. That is the math and why Mr. Ryan it is not boring, it merely tells you what is going on.