Let me start with Colorado voter return news: Tuesday 6PM voter turnout returns in CO
Permanent Mail In Ballot Returns:
Democrats 18.42% .................91430/496270
Republicans 18.18% .................105017/577489
Unaffiliated 13.02% .................54453/418187
All 3rd Party 19.76% .................3054/15353* (includes Early vote totals)
253954/1507299 16.84%
Early Vote at Polling Centers
Democrats 5.22%.....................15597/463876
Republicans 5.35%.....................17914/334967
Unaffiliated 3.14%......................14589/463876
48100/1262719 3.8% on active voters not PMV voters
Inactive Early Vote at Polling Centers*
Democrats ................. 603/278815
Republican ................. 615/244627
Unaffiliated ................. 602/411429
*CO inactive voter by definition are eligible registered voters who have not voted in a period of time, now defined since 2009, a recent administrative change by the Republican Secretary of State (Gessler). Inactive voters cannot vote permanent mail in ballot even if they originally registered or previously voted and requested such status. To change the status and re-request PMV status they must contact the Secretary of State or County Clerk and update their registration or go to the polls with a valid ID and then vote, which by definition will change their status to active. 80,000 PMV registrations were affected by this administrative change effecting 37% of Democrats (29,600), 22% Republicans (17600) and 39% Unaffiliated (32,200). It is unknown since April how many of these inactive voters updated their registrations.
If there was an enthusiasm gap it would be showing up here with the first week of PMV voting and Early voting taking place the first two days this week.
Democrats are holding a tie + 0.24% advantage in turning out their partisan registrants in PMV category. On the other hand Republicans hold a tie + .13% in Early voting....enthusiasm is not a factor in either partisan area. Unaffiliated are also voting in norms in relation to partisan registrants.
Talking Get Out the Vote (GOTV) ground game effects and what is happening in CO. Ground games as they are often called by the press has a real effect that Nate Silver quantified in 2008, The Contact Gap: Proof of the Importance of the Ground Game?
One of the more interesting questions posed on this year's exit polls was whether the voter had been contacted by the Obama and McCain campaigns personally about getting out to vote. Unfortunately, the exit poll consortium did not ask this question in all states, but it did in a dozen or so competitive states; these figures are summarized below:
% of Voters Reporting Direct Contact from Campaigns
State Obama McCain Gap
NV 50% 29% 21%
CO 51% 34% 17%
IN 37% 22% 15%
VA 50% 38% 12%
PA 50% 39% 11%
IA 41% 30% 11%
FL 29% 20% 9%
NC 34% 26% 8%
MO 44% 37% 7%
OH 43% 36% 7%
WI 42% 39% 3%
WV 29% 31% -2%
The Obama campaign had a superior contact rate in 11 of the 12 battlegrounds; the only exception was West Virginia. Wisconsin was also relatively close, perhaps because Obama redirected its legion number of Illinois-based volunteers from Wisconsin to Indiana a couple of weeks in advance of the election.
The largest gaps, however, were in Indiana and out west in Colorado and Nevada, all places where Obama outperformed his polls on election day. (Unfortunately, the exit surveys did not poll this question in New Mexico, where I'd expect you'd find similar numbers). Conversely, in West Virginia -- the only state where McCain had a superior contact rate -- Obama underperformed his polls by several points on Tuesday.There is indeed a fairly strong relationship between contact rate and Obama's over performance or under performance in the polls.
Roughly speaking, each marginal 10-point advantage in contact rate translated into a marginal 3-point gain in the popular vote in that state. So the rule of thumb that a "good" ground game may be worth additional 2-3 points above and beyond what is reflected in the polls appears to hold; a great ground game may be worth somewhat more than that.[...]
Nationally, there was an 8-point gap in contact rate ... the Obama campaign reached 26 percent of voters with its GOTV efforts to McCain's 18 percent. This can be contrasted with 2004, when Kerry's campaign contacted 26 percent of voters to Bush's 24. Although Obama's field operation was good, Kerry's was pretty good too; the difference may be that while Bush's field operation was also good, John McCain's was not. It is also possible that Obama's field operation was more efficient than Kerry's, as the contact rate gap was larger in battleground than in non-battleground states.
So as people immerse themselves in the constant state of polls, what really should we be focused on in battleground states are the contact rates of voters by the respective GOTV teams. In 2008 in CO, 80% of the vote was turned before Tuesday November 2nd., and you can see that in 2008 the contact rate was 51%. So watch the progression of Mail In voter turnout as a sign of contact rate. Today visiting my volunteer staging location for GOTV activities there were only 60 voters who needed to be contacted in this round. The location had plenty of volunteers to canvass during the day, targeting voters who were PMV voters who had not answered the phone in two tries and also PMV voters over 65. I spent the two hours calling for more volunteers which I got 8 new volunteers.
A second indicator will be how much the Early Vote cuts into the active non PMV voter registrants before the weekend of Election Tuesday. Comparably speaking in 2010 when I started measuring turnout by party identification and voter method about 12% of all active voters cast their ballot through an EV method.
Finally a third tell will be how much the inactive voter universe suddenly turns up. Right now 1819 inactive voters evenly distributed amassing to a total of 0.6% of all inactive voters in that particular universe, there is nothing happening here yet. Either the campaigns were successful re-registering them of have not focused on contacting them.
Ultimately this all goes to bludgeoning the meme that there is a likely voter undercurrent that will undercut the Obama voter universe. As of now I think CO is on pace to vote 89% of all active voters, echoing the Obama Campaign HQ; TIME's The Latest View from One Prudential Plaza: Why the Obama Campaign Is (Still) So Confident About Beating Romney by Mark Halperin;
Here’s what senior campaign officials said Tuesday in each of these key areas:
THE COMPOSITION OF THE ELECTORATE:
Jim Messina told reporters on that conference call, “We think that people aren’t getting it always right about who and what this electorate’s going to be comprised of on Election Day. I think we continue to think it’s going to be a higher percentage of minorities and young people than some are forecasting.”
Added Messina:
“The Republicans are anticipating that minority turnout will drop off, but we already know that’s not the case, and that’s important as you look at some polls here. The electorate has been increasingly and consistently more diverse. Minority voting is going to reach an all-time high this year, projected as high as 28% of all voters in the ‘12 election. Most new registrants over the past three months are under 30, and nearly all—four in five—are youth, women, African American or Latino. You know, these are all groups that strongly support the President’s re-election. Voter registration has increased most among Latinos and African Americans…”
And a senior official told me this, “It seems like the Romney campaign is counting on a big drop off in minority voters and young voters to make their theory of the case work but there’s no indication in the historical data or in the early vote data that that’s happening or bound to happen. It seems like it’s been refuted in the polls, right now.”
THE COMPOSITION OF THE EARLY VOTE
Said one senior official: “But the most important thing about early vote is one thing and one thing only: are you getting your sporadic voters to vote? Because if it’s just chasing people who are going to vote anyway than it’s just…a zero sum game. But all the data I see says we are getting our sporadics to vote at a higher rate than they are, which, especially for any Democratic candidate, is a bigger challenge because we have lower propensity voters. That’s exactly what we are doing and we feel great about that.”
Messina claims that in the battleground states, “two-thirds of those who have already voted are women, youth, African Americans or Latinos,” who are, of course, giving a large percentage of their support to the incumbent.
Contrary to the Romney campaign and at least some independent analysts, Obama campaign advisers do not believe they will be slaughtered among those voters who make up their minds late.
As one Obaman told me: “First of all, there aren’t that many undecideds. And let me say one things about the undecideds …. The undecideds— the structure of these undecideds are such that they very much reflect the electorate as a whole. They’re not like a divergent. And, while our standing isn’t as good with these undecideds as they are with people who are voting for us, our standing with these voters is at least as good or better than Romney’s.”
Chicago remains sufficiently funded and emboldened by its own polling to compete for the final two weeks in all nine of the battlegrounds: Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia in the South; New Hampshire in the North; Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Nevada and Colorado in the West. As they have in the past, Obama campaign officials say they expect to win a high percentage of those states and conceivably could sweep all nine.
When pressed, the Obama officials with whom I met said that five of the nine stand out: Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. In that quintet, Democrats believe the combination of their current leads in polling, early voting (where applicable), and ground game makes their chances of winning even greater there than in the other four. And given the Electoral College math, unless Romney picks off one or more of those five states, Obama would win a minimum of 281 electoral votes and re-election.
So let us look at those nine battlegrounds in two groups as defined by the Obama HQ
SOLID DEM STATES; CA (55), CT(7), DE (3), DC (3), HI (4),IL IL (20), ME-01 (1), MD (10), MA (11),NJ (14), NY (29), OR (7), RI (4), VT (3), WA (12) = 183
LIKELY DEM STATES: ME-AL (2), ME-02 (1), MI (16), MN (10), NM (5), PA (20) = 54
SUBTOTAL = 237
The following used Charlie Cook Political Report and Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight NYTimes Blog websites as data and information sources of each battleground state
THE OBAMA HQ STAND OUTS
Nevada (6 EC votes) Charlie Cook Leans Obama;Obama +3 to +7
Nate Silver; Polling ave 48.9-45.6 (Obama 3.3), Projected vote share ±3.9 Obama 50.6 Romney 48.2. NPR reports:
Early in-person voting began Saturday, and as of Wednesday morning, 13 percent of Nevadans had already voted. Of those, 48 percent of the votes cast, or just over 60,000, were by registered Democrats; 35.3 percent, or just over 44,000, were by registered Republicans; and 16.4 percent, 20,500, were by those with no or "other" party affiliation.
Paid Staff, Obama 322 to Romney/GOP 3! Obama Field Offices 68 vs. 11 Romney Field Offices. Field organization add +3 points to poll average project 51.8-52% WIN
EC 237 + 6 = 242
Ohio (18 EC votes) Charlie Cook, Toss Up, Even to Obama +7
Nate Silver; Polling ave. 48.1- 45.2, Obama +2.9 Projected vote share ±3.6 50.3 - 48.4 Obama +1.9. The Atlantic discusses the field offices,
"[T]he difference isn't just quantitative, it's qualitative. I visited Obama and Romney field offices in three swing states -- Ohio, Colorado and Virginia -- dropping in unannounced at random times to see what I could see. There were some consistent, and telling, differences. [...] These basic characteristics were repeated in all the offices I visited: The Obama offices were devoted almost entirely to the president's reelection; the Republican offices were devoted almost entirely to local candidates, with little presence for Romney. In a technical sense, the Romney campaign actually does not have a ground game at all. It has handed over that responsibility to the Republican National Committee, [...]The Romney campaign doesn't do the ground game," Rick Wiley, the RNC's political director, told me. "They have essentially ceded that responsibility to the RNC. They understand this is our role." The disadvantage of this is that the RNC is composed of its state Republican Parties, which vary dramatically in quality. Ohio GOP still bears the scars of a protracted leadership fight earlier in the year."
Paid Staff, Obama 449 to Romney/GOP 129, Obama Field Offices 131 vs Romney Field Offices 40: add +3 points to poll average project 51.1-52% WIN
242 + 18 = 260
Wisconsin (10 EC votes) Charlie Cook's rating Toss Up, Even to Obama +6.
Nate Silver Polling average 49.8-45.8, Obama +4.0; Projected vote share ±3.9, 51.3% to 48.0%; Obama +3.3.From the Atlantic
"The Obama campaign thinks, 'If we put 100 offices in this state, we're going to win,'" the RNC's Wiley said. "We take a smaller, smarter approach, just like we do for government. [...] The Obama campaign actually agrees: Real estate isn't the point. "Our focus is on having a very decentralized, organized operation as close to the precinct level as possible," Bird said. In addition to all those offices, the campaign operates out of dozens of "staging locations," many of them the living rooms of neighborhood leaders who have been working with their volunteer teams for a year or more, fanning out into the communities they know firsthand. "Community organizing is not a turnkey operation," Bird says. "You can't throw up some phone banks in late summer and call that organizing. These are teams that know their turfs..."
Obama leads in paid staffs 168 to Romney 62 in WI and Field Offices 68 to 24. Add 2% to projected vote share to 53% (top of Cook's range) WIN
260 + 10 = 270 minimum number needed for election
Iowa (6 EC votes) Charlie Cook's rating, Toss Up Romney +1 to Obama +7.
Nate Silver Polling average 49.0-46.2, Obama +2.8, Projected vote share ±4.2 50.4-48.6, Obama +1.8. From Talking Points Memo
Pollster Ann Selzer, who runs the respected Des Moines Register survey, said there are signs that Iowans who have already cast a ballot are leaning heavily toward Obama. “Two-to-one, people who say they have already voted are Barack Obama supporters,” Selzer told TPM. “The majority of people who plan to vote early are Barack Obama supporters. The majority of people who plan to vote on election day, Romney supporters. I think that’s what’s gets tricky — you have to have a huge margin on election day to offset the Democrats.” Early voting in Iowa began on Sept. 27, and already nearly 520,000 people requested early ballots, according to elections officials. Of those, some 347,000 had filled out and returned them as of Oct. 22.
New Hampshire
Obama paid staff 212 to Romney/GOP 35, Obama Field Offices 66 to Romney 13. Add 2 points to polling average, 52.5% Obama to 47% Romney. WIN
270 + 6 = 276
New Hampshire (4 EC votes), Charlie Cook's rating Toss Up, Even to Obama +5.
Nate Silver, Polling average, 48.8- 46.5, Obama +2.3, Projected vote share ±4.6 50.6- 48.6, Obama +2.0. From Yahoo, A Democrat in New Hampshire, Holds Out Hope for Obama's Ground Game
"What I do find encouraging is the Democrats' ground game. A few weekends ago, I took my son, Milo (almost 3), to go canvassing in our town. When we knocked on doors, we found most people we met were supporting Obama. Milo enjoyed ringing the doorbells and exploring people's gardens. It's not unlike trick or treating, really. As much as we found supporters, people were reluctant to volunteer or get involved in the campaign. I get it. I'm busy too. Here in New Hampshire, we don't like to bother our neighbors. "
New Hampshire paid Obama staff 110 to Romney/GOP 28, Field Offices Obama 22 to Romney's 9. Advantage to Obama add 1 point to projected total, 50% to 47%, WIN
276 + 4 = 280.
The Remaining Four Battleground States, Florida, Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina.
In Sun Tzu's Art of War, he discusses deception and how to use maneuvers to force your opponent to protect their home base by playing offense by using diversionary forces and taking away an opponents ability to be offensive on the main field of battle. Back in 2008 when I became a Field Volunteer Leader in Colorado this strategy was outlined to me by the then Western States Field Director during the primary/caucus period who later went on to be the State Field Director in Pennsylvania. Gabe Cohen explained that the national strategy then was to put Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada in play and they believed that Florida was the kill shot. This was an offensive move to change the electoral map and force the Republicans to defend otherwise taken for granted states that they believed were left vulnerable to aggressive ground game organizing. In Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina this went beyond their wildest dreams. Even though Colorado had voted in a Democratic Governor and Senator it was always considered a Red Presidential state having voted for a Democrat only in 1932, 1936, 1968 and 1992. Deep in the Colorado strategy was to attack two base counties on the Front Range, El Paso County and Douglas County and attempt to chip away enough percentage votes so that deeply Democratic voting counties of Denver and Boulder would be predominate. That is what we did, moving the normal percentage of 32% Democratic vote to 39.8%. Obama won 53%-46%. In 2010 Sen. Bennet won by 1.5% in a tough off election year where in El Paso County he got 37%.
Virginia (13 EC Votes) Charlie Cook's rating, Toss Up, Even to Obama +5.
Nate Silver Polling average 47.5-46.7, Obama +0.8, Projected vote share ±3.3 49.7- 49.5, Obama +0.2. Huffington Post Northern Virginia Ground Game
For years, the GOP was the master of the ground game. But if what I've been seeing in this part of Virginia is indicative, the Democrats have taken a page from the "Powell Doctrine" and are bringing overwhelming force to a ground game that may well swing the Commonwealth to Obama.
Paid Staff, Obama 386 to Romney/GOP 78, Obama Field Offices 47 to Romney's 29. Advantage to Obama plus 0.5 points on average; 0.7% very close.
TOSS UP
Colorado (9 EC votes) Charlie Cook's rating, Toss Up, Romney +1 to Obama +5.
Nate Silver, Polling average 47.6 46.6 Obama +1.0, Projected vote share ±4.0 49.6 49.4 Obama +0.2. The Atlantic Wire, What We Know About Obama and Romney's Ground Games
In Colorado, one top GOP consultant who has worked on presidential campaigns told me he mentally added 2 to 4 points to Obama's polls in the state based on superior organization.
Paid Staff Obama 313 to Romney/GOP 22, Obama Field Offices 61 to Romney's 14. Advantage Obama plus 1 point on projected, 50.4% to 48%
WIN
280 + 9 = 289
North Carolina (15 EC votes) Charlie Cook's rating, Lean R Romney +1 to +4.
Nate Silver, Polling average 48.8-46.5, Obama +2.3, Projected vote share ±4.6, 50.6-48.6, Obama +2.0 US News and World Report Obama Ground Game May Overcome Tight Poll Numbers
Messina: North Carolina where, he said, "in the first five days of early vote 50 percent more African-Americans voted than in 2008."
Paid Staff, Obama 313, Romney/GOP 80, Obama Field Offices 53 to Romney's 24. Advantage to Obama 0.5%, Projected TOSS UP
Florida (29 EC votes) Charlie Cook's rating, Toss Up Romney +2 to Obama +2.
Nate Silver Polling average, 47.0-47.6, Romney +0.6, Projected vote share ±3.5 48.8 50.5 Romney +1.7. US News Again
Messina told reporters on a post-debate conference call the campaign hosted this morning. "I think we continue to think it's going to be a higher percentage of minorities and young people than some are forecasting." He cited states like Florida, where, he said, there are 250,000 more African-Americans and Latino voters registered to vote than there were four years ago
Paid Staff, 446 Obama to Romney/GOP 91, 102 Obama Field Offices to Romney's 48. Add 1 point to projected vote, 49%-49% TOSS UP.
Finally let us talk about Likely Voter malarkey , based on a projected enthusiasm projected quotient. Likely voters are registered voters who are considered active. Active voters are those who are those who did not move and were registered and previous voters. Now the Obama team has a category called sporadic voters, those are voters who mostly vote in presidential elections, often vote in gubernatorial or senate elections but usually do not vote in primaries or local elections, but these voters vote at rates of above 85% in presidential elections.
The aim of GOTV efforts is to contact, encourage, inform and record identified voters identified in your universe. This makes the difference between 0.5 to 3.0+ percentage points. The biggest is inform since an example yesterday on the phone with a PMV voter was he thought he or his wife had misplaced their mail in ballots and thought about going to the polls. Can't do that. They must find those ballots or go to the Clerk's office and say they were lost and get new ones. He called me back and they located the ballots and because I told him once his vote was recorded he would be off the call list he was dropping off the ballot that night.
Another anecdote was the other night I called another PMV voter who had not received their ballots yet. Then they told me they had moved recently and had not updated their registration and were under some assumption that the mail would follow them. NO, the ballot was turned back and now they would be listed as inactive. They need to go to the Clerk's office before 10/30 and update their registration, but now they would have to vote in the polls unless they re requested a mail in ballot. They said they would.
Those are four votes, multiply that by the volunteers, the field offices, the staging locations, the targeted data bases and you get plus .5% to 3%.