Recently, Nate Silver ran the numbers on state polling in Presidential election years and found this interesting statistic:
that every single time a candidate has been ahead in the aggregate of polls by 1.8% or higher in a state, 10 - 21 days prior to the election, the candidate has carried that state. Every single time (well,there was one exception, in 1992, when Clinton apparently led in Texas by 3.5 percentage points, if you can believe that!).
In particular, I’ve looked at all states in our database in which there were at least three distinct polling firms that conducted surveys in the window between 10 days and three weeks before the election. Like Real Clear Politics, I used only the most recent poll (the one closest to the 10-day cutoff) if the polling firm surveyed the state multiple times during this period. I used the version of the poll among likely voters if it was available, defaulting to registered voter numbers otherwise.
So where do the swing states stand now on Nate's site, vis-a-vis that magic 1.8% cut-off point?
WI +4.0 Obama
NV +3.1 Obama
IA +2.9 Obama
OH +2.7 Obama
NH +2.4 Obama
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CO +1.2 Obama
VA +1.0 Obama
FL -0.9 Romney
NC -2.2 Romney
So if Nate's theory holds true for this election, Obama should win WI, NV, IA, OH and NH, far more than he needs to reach that magical number of 270 electoral votes.
Conversely, Romney leads Obama by more than 1.8% in only one swing state: North Carolina.
Now, I know that this comes with all the usual caveats: that there's always a first time for everything, and that voter suppression might play a bigger part in the outcome this year than in previous elections, and that we can't afford to get complacent about our GOTV efforts.
I get all that, but I do find these statistics comforting when the MSM goes off on their usual rants about how Romney is running away with this election.