Alright, so this may will be my last diary on polls between now and election day, as I plan to shift my blogging efforts to more substantive policy arguments. I have previously written about the curious flood of state and national polls from conservative pollsters after the first debate. In the diary, I briefly speculate that these polls may be overstating Romney's state-level gains to capitalize on the media narrative that Romney won the debate by a landslide. I mentioned that the flood of polls may be changing the polling aggregates many people lean on for examining the state of the race. Using pollster.com (run in a partnership with the Huffington Post), a commonly used aggregation site, I explored the effects of these polls on the state-level numbers in a very simple (though monotonous and time consuming) way. The results are pretty positive for us. More below the fold.
Method
Okay, so in brief, I used pollster's state-level aggregates of battleground states and looked at the trajectory and top-line that pollster has when including all polls from that state. I then used their customizing feature to look at the trajectory and top-lines of the same states, but dropped the polls from Rasmussen, Gravis, ARG, Purple Strategies, WAA, Mason Dixon and the smaller Republican outfits. To keep things fair and to protect against viewing things through rose tinting, I dropped any PPP polls done on the behalf of left-leaning groups, Project New America polls, and any polls done by smaller Democratic affiliated firms. I left PPP's normal polls because they have a record that speaks to their accuracy and reliability. I also left in all Fox affiliated polls.
In addition to looking at the current state of play, I looked at the trajectory of the race before the first debate and after the first debate to critically examine the "Romney surge" narrative that only now seems to be receding (indeed, an article written yesterday, the first article on pollster's home page, is entitled "Romney Still Surging? Polls Say No"). So, what about that Romney surge? Well, as I will show you in a moment, as far as state-level polling in battleground states goes, in all but one case, the surge was entirely a myth. One final caveat: the partisan pollsters have been much more active in October than the non-partisan pollsters (for obvious reasons), so removing them leaves some of the top-line data points from relatively old surveys and lowers the N of data points, in some cases substantially. I think the states where the latest non-partisan data point is the oldest hits October 19th. The good thing about this, at least for team blue, is that the campaign developments since the 19th can only help Obama's numbers (think third debate and now God's Rapegate). The small N is more of a pause for concern on the validity of this in some states, but the chart should show the data points, so you can judge for yourself on a state-by-state basis if the N's are enough to satisfy you.
OHIO
The road to Pennsylvania Ave. runs again through Ohio this year, so it makes sense to start with the Buckeye state. Below, you can see pollster's current aggregation of the state's polling. As the polling shows, there's an Obama +2.8% lead, with pretty strong evidence that Romney did get a post-debate surge among Buckeyes. As you'll see, Ohio has been an exception in this regard.
However, when I drop the historically partisan pollsters from the aggregation, Ohio shows a much more comfortable 5.5% lead for the President, although the Romney debate surge remains observable and significant.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Of course, we should have suspected New Hampshire would be a pretty close state this year. I mean, after the 2008 primary, Romney decided to move there to all but insure he would get 2012 primary momentum by winning the state early. Consequently, Romney actually has somewhat of a campaign presence in the state, making him even more competitive than he otherwise would be. Pollster shows the state at Obama +1.7%.
Removing the partisan pollsters from New Hampshire puts Obama ahead by 3.3%. Also interesting about New Hampshire is that, unlike most of the battleground states, removing the partisan pollsters reveals a Romney surge after the first debate.
IOWA
In Iowa, pollster has Obama up 3.6%. Now, here's a good first example of where the "Romney surge" myth becomes evident. As you can see in the chart, the race began tightening in late September, before the first debate even occurred! My guess is that in this state, and the others like it that you will see, after a relatively long primary in which the conservative base remained pretty unhappy with Romney as a nominee, there was a month or so lag before the conservative base began to rally itself again around the nominee it had. In the run up to the first debate, the hype and the show down against the President they despise so completely had them tuning back in to the election en mass.
Remove the partisan pollsters and what do we have? Obama leading by 5.9% with no evidence at all of a Romney surge after the first debate.
COLORADO
Pollster has Obama leading by 1%, and the polls narrowed, but again in late September, and again unrelated to the first debate, and thereby not indicative of a "Romney surge" (the trajectory already had the race narrowing in the state before the debate occurred).
Without the partisan pollsters, Obama leads by 2.4% still no Romney first debate surge.
VIRGINIA
Pollster has Obama leading by 1.3% with no evidence of a Romney surge related to the first debate (reminder that I should have added earlier, the first debate was on October 3rd).
Without the partisan pollsters, Romney leads by only 0.4%, and still no evidence of Romney surge related to the first debate (only a narrowing that is natural in a presidential election).
FLORIDA
Now, here's the real kicker. If Romney loses Florida, that's curtains. Period. Pollster has it even (R +0.7%), again with no evidence of a first debate related surge for Romney.
Drop the partisan pollsters, and Obama leads the state by 2.3%, and of course, still no Romney surge. Important caveat to this though: while other conservative leaders in swing states have been working on using the levers of government to suppress the vote in Democratic quarters, none have been more active in more fronts and more defiant of federal laws than Florida governor Rick Scott. From restricting early voting to suppress "Souls to the Polls" efforts from African-American churches, to voter registration purges that target minorities, to banning voter registration groups, Scott has pulled out all the stops in this election. We shouldn't be surprised: the man was a criminal CEO who made millions defrauding Medicare and Medicaid before he used those millions to become Florida's most corrupt, disliked, and conservative governor. So while things look good, Florida will be a fight to the end, and I wouldn't count on it.
NORTH CAROLINA
Pollster has Romney up 2.3% with no evidence of a debate related Romney surge.
Without the partisans, the state is dead even, and there was a minor first debate bump for Romney. In other words, not only is Obama in striking distance, but he may see a third debate bump that offsets the remaining lead Romney built on October 3rd.
The bottom line
We are winning, and winning much bigger than we (or the MSM) seems to think. The partisan pollsters can influence the aggregations and thereby fuel a narrative already sought by MSM outlets. Romney never really got a "surge," and the reporting of it has been showcase of the sloppy, reckless, and lazy analysis that passes for journalism today. Romney has consolidated his base since late September and is at his ceiling, AND WE'RE STILL WINNING. Now let's GOTV and get ourselves a landslide to help the down ballot.
10:39 AM PT: UPDATE: It occurred to me that it might be helpful to take the analysis to the final step. If removing the conservative house effects does indeed more accurately reflect the state of play, the Electoral Vote will be Obama: 328 Romney: 210 based on the above analysis. The map is below.