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Poll Analysis: The post-debate polls trickle in

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Obama Romney
100.0% probability of winning 0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 342 electoral votes Mean of 196 electoral votes

Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

A rather paltry 15 new polls covering 10 states have been released since my previous analysis. What makes this new batch of polls interesting is that most of them are post-first-debate polls. And looking at them, it’s clear that Romney will get either a boost or a bump from the polls. (My prediction was that Romney would get an acute advantage, but a long term disadvantage from the debates—it’s simply to early to test that prediction.)

Here are the polls, including some in seven or eight swing states:

start end sample % % %
st poll date date size MOE O R diff
CO U Denver 04-Oct 05-Oct 605 4.0 47 43 O+4
CO Gravis Marketing 03-Oct 04-Oct 1438 2.8 45.9 49.4 R+3.5
CO McLaughlin 30-Sep 02-Oct 300 5.7 46 50 R+4
CT Quinnipiac 28-Sep 02-Oct 1696 2.4 54 42 O+12
FL Rasmussen 04-Oct 04-Oct 500 4.5 47 49 R+2
FL WeAskAmerica 04-Oct 04-Oct 1200 3.0 46 49 R+3
HI Civil Beat 26-Sep 28-Sep 1684 2.4 62 30 O+32
MO Rasmussen 02-Oct 02-Oct 500 4.5 46 49 R+3
NV Gravis Marketing 03-Oct 03-Oct 1006 3.1 48.9 47.8 O+1.1
NM PPP 02-Oct 03-Oct 778 — 52 43 O+9
OH Rasmussen 04-Oct 04-Oct 500 4.5 50 49 O+1
OH WeAskAmerica 04-Oct 04-Oct 1200 3.0 46 47 R+1
VA Rasmussen 04-Oct 04-Oct 500 4.5 48 49 R+1
VA WeAskAmerica 04-Oct 04-Oct 1200 3.0 45 48 R+3
WI PPP 04-Oct 06-Oct 979 3.1 49 47 O+2

Before the debate, Obama had lend in 5 consecutive Colorado polls, but by margins of from 3% to 6%. Now Romney takes two of the three new polls and three of nine current polls (currently defined as polls taken in the past three weeks). Obama’s goes from winning 97% to 91% of the simulated elections.

In Florida, Romney leads Obama in two new post-debate polls, albeit by small margins. With fourteen current polls, and the fact that two polls aged out—one that barely went to Romney and one that was weak for Obama—there is almost no difference in the projected outcome of an election held now for Florida.

In Missouri, Romney leads Obama by +3%, his smallest lead of the current polls. That causes his chances to drop from 100% to 99.9% in the state.

Obama barely leads in the new Nevada poll. The +1% is his weakest showing of the current polls, except for one late September tie. His chances drop from 99.5% to 99.2% as a consequence.

No sign that New Mexico is flipping over to Romney. Obama’s +9% lead is right up there with three other polls that were from +9% to +11%.

Two new polls in Ohio split between the candidates, and by +1% each. The WeAskAmerica poll is the only current poll, of ten, in which Romney leads. Obama still wins 100% of the simulated elections.

Romney take two of two Virginia polls. Prior to these polls, Romney lost 13 polls in a row, dating back to early September. But with Obama leading in the eight other current polls, his chances have dropped from 100% down to 99%.

Wisconsin is still in Obama’s column after the debate gives Obama a rather weak lead over Romney by +2%. This is Obama’s weakest showing among the current polls, but he still takes 100% of the simulated elections.

Now, after 100,000 simulated elections informed only by state head-to-head polls, Obama wins 100,000 times and Romney wins 0 times. Obama receives (on average) 342 to Romney’s 196 electoral votes over the simulated elections. These are the identical numbers we had before. The results suggest that for an election held now, Obama would have a 100.0% probability of winning.

Of course, the very abrupt change in momentum that we may end up seeing in the aftermath of the first debate is not fully represented in this analysis. My three week polling window smooths the results over three weeks. (The window will shrink to two weeks very soon.)

We can assess the race with less smoothing by shrinking that window. In the following table, I’ve shrunk the window a number of times. The results clearly show that Romney has gained the initiative in the short run, even if he still is the probable loser in an election held now:

Window
O-prob
R-prob
O-EV
R-EV
21 Days
100%
0%
342
196

14 Days

99.2%
0.8%
316
222
7 Days
94.5%
5.5%
299
239
5 Days
77.5%
22.5%
285
253
3 Days
90.7%
9.3%
293
245

Current poll windows below five days tend to start reversing the trend. Fewer polls become included as “current polls”, which means more older polls then get averaged in (at least with the modest pace of polling right now).

Romney’s peak chances occur by assuming only the post-debate polls, when available, should be used—that is, any prior strengths or weaknesses observed through polling in the recently polled states is entirely discarded. Romney peaks out at a 22.5% chance of winning an election held now under that scenario.

The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 07 Oct 2011 to 07 Oct 2012, and including polls from the preceding 21 days (FAQ). Even with a small handful of post-debate polls, we see Obama’s momentum stopped, and the uncertainty in outcome increased (that is, there is more spread between upper and lower 95% limits) .

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:

Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Obama:

  • 347 electoral votes with a 15.91% probability
  • 348 electoral votes with a 14.61% probability
  • 332 electoral votes with a 9.74% probability
  • 333 electoral votes with a 8.91% probability
  • 341 electoral votes with a 3.03% probability
  • 340 electoral votes with a 2.98% probability
  • 356 electoral votes with a 2.80% probability
  • 346 electoral votes with a 2.68% probability
  • 355 electoral votes with a 2.26% probability
  • 358 electoral votes with a 2.10% probability

After 100,000 simulations:

  • Obama wins 100.0%, Romney wins 0.0%.
  • Average (SE) EC votes for Obama: 341.9 (10.7)
  • Average (SE) EC votes for Romney: 196.1 (10.7)
  • Median (95% CI) EC votes for Obama: 346 (319, 359)
  • Median (95% CI) EC votes for Romney: 192 (179, 219)

Each column of this table shows the electoral vote total aggregated by different criteria for the probability of winning a state (Safe=100%, Strong=90%+, Leans=60%+, Weak=50%+):

Threshold Safe + Strong + Leans + Weak
Safe Obama 247
Strong Obama 84 331
Leans Obama 16 16 347
Weak Obama 0 0 0 347
Weak Romney 1 1 1 191
Leans Romney 8 8 190
Strong Romney 103 182
Safe Romney 79

This table summarizes results by state. Click on the poll count to see the individual polls included for the state.

0 0 EC # Total % % Obama Romney
8 4 Votes polls Votes Obama Romney % wins % wins
AL 9 1* 404 39.6 60.4 0.2 99.8
AK 3 0* (0) (100)
AZ 11 4 2044 46.5 53.5 1.2 98.8
AR 6 1 2006 38.3 61.7 0.0 100.0
CA 55 3* 2219 60.6 39.4 100.0 0.0
CO 9 9 6984 51.1 48.9 91.3 8.7
CT 7 2 2389 56.5 43.5 100.0 0.0
DE 3 0 (100) (0)
DC 3 1* 94 88.3 11.7 100.0 0.0
FL 29 14 10925 51.3 48.7 97.6 2.4
GA 16 1 439 38.5 61.5 0.0 100.0
HI 4 1 1549 67.4 32.6 100.0 0.0
ID 4 0 (0) (100)
IL 20 2* 2277 58.8 41.2 100.0 0.0
IN 11 1 736 43.5 56.5 0.9 99.1
IA 6 7 4804 52.3 47.7 98.9 1.1
KS 6 2* 1143 39.4 60.6 0.0 100.0
KY 8 1* 557 42.4 57.6 0.6 99.4
LA 8 1* 504 46.4 53.6 12.6 87.4
ME 2 3 1993 58.2 41.8 100.0 0.0
ME1 1 1 412 63.3 36.7 100.0 0.0
ME2 1 1 364 53.8 46.2 85.3 14.7
MD 10 2 1471 61.5 38.5 100.0 0.0
MA 11 4 1831 63.5 36.5 100.0 0.0
MI 16 6 5713 55.1 44.9 100.0 0.0
MN 10 1 704 54.5 45.5 96.0 4.0
MS 6 1* 717 40.0 60.0 0.0 100.0
MO 10 5 4679 46.7 53.3 0.1 99.9
MT 3 1 581 45.1 54.9 5.0 95.0
NE 2 1 728 44.0 56.0 0.9 99.1
NE1 1 1* 389 45.5 54.5 9.7 90.3
NE2 1 1 352 50.0 50.0 49.8 50.2
NE3 1 1* 284 35.9 64.1 0.0 100.0
NV 6 8 5606 52.4 47.6 99.2 0.8
NH 4 6 3809 53.2 46.8 99.7 0.3
NJ 14 2 1159 58.7 41.3 100.0 0.0
NM 5 4 5302 55.0 45.0 100.0 0.0
NY 29 1* 1426 64.6 35.4 100.0 0.0
NC 15 7 4659 50.3 49.7 60.6 39.4
ND 3 1* 348 41.4 58.6 0.9 99.1
OH 18 11 11440 53.1 46.9 100.0 0.0
OK 7 1* 431 33.4 66.6 0.0 100.0
OR 7 1* 499 54.9 45.1 94.0 6.0
PA 20 8 6505 54.9 45.1 100.0 0.0
RI 4 1 451 63.4 36.6 100.0 0.0
SC 9 3* 4199 48.2 51.8 5.2 94.8
SD 3 1* 474 41.8 58.2 0.8 99.2
TN 11 1* 654 46.0 54.0 7.0 93.0
TX 38 1 1140 40.2 59.8 0.0 100.0
UT 6 1* 1149 27.7 72.3 0.0 100.0
VT 3 1* 415 71.3 28.7 100.0 0.0
VA 13 10 9329 51.8 48.2 99.2 0.8
WA 12 2 1059 57.9 42.1 100.0 0.0
WV 5 1* 361 42.1 57.9 1.6 98.4
WI 10 6 5160 53.7 46.3 100.0 0.0
WY 3 0 (0) (100)

* An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).

Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.

The most recent analysis in this match-up can be found from this page.

Comments

  2. 2

    Romney is spending a lot of money in Wisconsin. I think you will see it moved to “Toss-up” soon.
    RealClearPolitics shows the following-
    http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....e_map.html

    Romney still has an uphill battle and the number of state polls is still quite limited, surprisingly. I suspect your analysis next Sunday will be much, much closer, especially in the 7-day window. I appreciate that analysis BTW. Too bad there aren’t more current polls, especially in the swing states.
    Romney must win Ohio, Florida and Virginia.
    Those, along with NC, Mo. & Colorado ==President Romney.

    I suspect Romney is pushing so hard in Wisconsin because Colorado is still pretty squishy for him despite RealClear showing it a tie.

    The impressive thing is Romney’s vastly improved ground game. Way better than McCain’s. That has been kept pretty quiet, but he saw how effective it was for Obama. Obama’s 2008 ground game was impressive. Not as impressive in 2012. If Romney wins, I believe it will be because of the ground game as much as the ass-kicking he gave Obama in the debate.

    BTW, did Obama have a teleprompter on his belt or the top of his shoes?? Sure seemed like it as he was looking down most of the time.

  3. 3

    I think you will see it moved to “Toss-up” soon.

    You mean back to toss-up and then back to likely Obama, and back to toss-up. Where it will end up on election night nobody knows… But, what I really doubt you’ll see is WI moving to solid or even likely Romney.

  6. 6

    Zotz,

    “Heads up: Gravis is a fraud according to this…”

    Thanks for the heads-up. I’ve wondered about them myself—they popped up out of nowhere and have started doing a lot of polling. My impression is that their numbers tend to be favorable to Republicans.

    That said, the case made by “Karmic Spirit” seems to be made up of speculation in the absence of concrete answers.

    There is no actual evidence for fraud that I can see. However his/her/its post will likely trigger enough scrutiny to give us answers soon.

    If the firm is unable or unwilling to provide evidence of legitimately being in the polling business and actually doing the polls, they will end up going the way of Strategic Vision (who fools us good during the 2004 and 2006 cycles–especially here in Washington) and Research 2000.

  8. 8

    Thanks for doing the work with the shortened windows, Darryl.

    Since you altered SOP to make SC red, subsequent to Richard Pope’s suggestions, my suggestion would be to narrow the window to 10 days or less. With all the movement that’s occurred just since Wednesday, inclusion of post-convention bounce data seems somewhat irrelevant.

    Gravis didn’t seem very consistent with the other poll results. And if anyone should recognize a fraudulent pollster, it’s Kos.

  9. 9

    For what it’s worth …

    Spent the weekend doing GOTV in Denver. Strong organization there with a lot of motivated volunteers. The Denver ground game is key to carrying the state and from my biased perspective of it, it’s running like a steam roller.

  11. 11

    Darryl,

    Looks like someone had fun exploring the Charts function of their computer software. Did your Other Brother Darryl help you with them?

    If you read the article to which Jerry links, it says that people MUCH smarter than you find:

    5 models say Obama wins
    5 models say Romney wins
    3 models say it is a toss-up

    Maybe you should get Brother Larry involved in your little chart game next time. Perhaps you might get more realistic results.

  12. 12

    Bob @8,

    “Thanks for doing the work with the shortened windows, Darryl.”

    My pleasure!

    “Since you altered SOP to make SC red, subsequent to Richard Pope’s suggestions, my suggestion would be to narrow the window to 10 days or less.”

    I appreciate the suggestion. But I believe you are confusing two things. The suggestion of Richard’s was about creating a sliding “older poll window” for the case where there are no “current polls.”

    That is entirely unrelated to the “current poll window,” which is at three weeks right now. That window will get narrower (soon), but will shrink to 14 days first.

    I looked back at my analysis for Oct 7, 2008. I was using a 14 day window by that point, but I was also getting many more polls for more states. There were 17 POTUS polls for 11 states released on that day. (We had about 17 polls released over the past 5 days.)

    “With all the movement that’s occurred just since Wednesday, inclusion of post-convention bounce data seems somewhat irrelevant.”

    On the other hand, it is almost certain that the post debate trend will exhibit some transience. Either way, I don’t decide windows by events. Rather it is driven by the quantity of polls coming out in a day and proximity to election day.

    “Gravis didn’t seem very consistent with the other poll results. And if anyone should recognize a fraudulent pollster, it’s Kos.”

    It wasn’t Kos who did that post. It was someone from Democratic Underground, and the post was republished in a DailyKos dairy.

    The evidence used against both Strategic Vision and Research 2000 was, initially, statistical, followed by a refusal/inability to provide evidence to a national pollster organization or paying customers.

    There is no such evidence against Gravis Research AFAICT. Rather, it seem to be more in line with, “You’re new, and I cannot find strong evidence you are legitimate, therefore I think you are making shit up.” Not yet a strong case, I would suggest.

  13. 13

    The Republicans have invested a lot and tried to build a good “ground game” in Nevada.

    Romney’s Nevada campaign bolstered by Republican National Committee
    http://www.lvrj.com/news/romne.....74676.html

    So far it doesn’t seem to be working very well for them. I’m surprised by this one, I really thought the Republicans would be doing better than they are in Nevada.

  14. 14

    Wow, when the libtards need help thinking they run to Daily Kooks for their latest HA Kook-aid. Way to go Zotz@1! Never a doubt!

  15. 15

    I really thought the Republicans would be doing better than they are in Nevada.

    Me too. But if you look at the demographics, there is a large latino vote who roboticly votes DUMMOCRAPT even after Obummer told the world not to go to Las Vegas.

    “You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.” Then a year later, Obummer said this winning remark regarding gambling away college tuition: “You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

    Yet Obummer has made 12 trips to Las Vegas since that first remark. That’s why Puddy says they roboticly vote DUMMOCRAPT with a 12% unemployment rate in Las Vegas and Nevada at 12.1% all due to Obummer’s remarks!

  18. 18

    greg@16
    Actually the odds link you point to shows the Romney odds have dropped significantly in recent days because more money was coming in for Romney. These oddsmakers need to balance the books.
    Thanks for pointing that out.
    Do you know how this type of betting and odds setting even works greg? Apparently not.
    Some odds are now close to 2-1 after being around 4-1. Doesn’t sound like good news to me. And if the money keeps pouring in for Romney, it should be less than 2-1 by the end of the week.

  19. 19

    @17–
    Idiotic on the face. Shows Obama up in Texas 59-41% Grasping at straws. And 7-11 has such a scientific history!! Republicans don’t waste their $$ at 7-11. Remember, 7-11 takes FOOD STAMPS!

  21. 21

    @19, FYI the people on food stamps vote counts the same as Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson, and The Koch Brothers. Thank you for showing us all here what asshole right wingers conservative values are all about!

  22. 22

    More poll data. This one’s gonna hurt:

    Romney now leads among independents by 16 points, 51 percent to 35 percent. This is up from 4 points last week.

    http://www.politico.com/polls/.....-poll.html

    Damn, I almost forgot the article title:

    Poll: Dems less enthusiastic

    Supporting Barack Obama in 2012 is like putting on a used condom. There are still memories of the last time, but much less interest in a second round of Hopenchange.

  23. 23

    @ 21

    FYI the people on food stamps vote counts the same as Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson, and The Koch Brothers.

    Well, the votes count the same if they’re cast.

    The percentages among key Democratic constituencies who say they are extremely likely to vote should cause concern in Chicago: While 82 percent of whites (who break for Romney by a 15-point margin) say they’re “extremely likely” to vote, only 71 percent of African-Americans and 70 percent of Latinos do. And just 68 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds, another key Obama constituency, put themselves in the “extremely likely” to vote category.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s.....z28jN74rF9

  25. 25

    Reading these sentences (link @ 24), I have to wonder whether she’s referring to Romney, or to Obama:

    Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State under President Clinton, said on the call, “To someone not totally into foreign policy, it sounds pretty good, but it’s really full of platitudes.’’

    “For someone who has spent her own life in foreign policy,” she added, “there’s an awful lot of rhetoric but when you have to the specifics, you don’t get the sense he knows what tools to use and how to operate in an international setting and what the role of the United States is in the 21st century.’’

  26. 26

    Last debate seniors heard from Mitt Romney that their Social Security won’t be touched (and they heard it from Obama, too).

    Next up, Romney will tell them he’s working to make things better for their grandchildren.

    Chuck Todd: Republican Edge In Voter Enthusiasm Is ‘Huge Problem’ For Democrats

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....46586.html

    In terms of seniors, a strong group for Republican nominee Mitt Romney, 87 percent of voters are enthusiastic, up six points from 2008. Two key groups for Obama, young voters and Latinos, are showing less interest: 52 percent of 18-to-34 year olds are “extremely interested,” down 20 points from 2008, and 59 percent of Latinos, down 18 points.

    Obama’s gonna have to do better than Sandra Fluke and Big Bird.

  27. 27

    @20 “Every time I went in there’s some liberal saying something offensive about a minority group.”

    Fail. You obviously can’t relate to anybody but white Randroids, probably because you’re a greed, selfish racist.

  28. 28

    “Romney Says White House Botched Response”

    Oh, at first I thought he was talking about 9/11/01 when thousands of Americans died as Bush read a children’s book about goats.

  31. 31

    “George W. Bush is not running for election this year.”

    Um, Republicans are running this year. Romney is no better than Bush and would return us to the failed policies of the past. That’s your record. Failure. Own it and stop the childish whining.

  32. 32

    “the wayback machine”

    I can see why you wouldn’t want to take the trip, Bob, all Republicans have done is fuck things up.

    I’m sure we can count on Republicans to never mention Carter again. Fuck off, Bob.

  33. 33

    @ 32

    “I’m sure we can count on Republicans to never mention Carter again.”

    Doctor Steve, no one ever remembers second-best or second-worst.

    You’re absolutely correct, Obama will make the GOP forget all about Carter. He’s seared into our minds and hearts like John Kerry’s Xmas in Cambodia.

  34. 34

    greg@29–
    You are becoming more paralyzed intellectually by the hour. Gallup released two tracking poll results on October 8. The more recent results (reflecting post-debate interviews)
    are included in the RCP National Average. You are quoting results with pre-debate interviews.

  35. 35

    Hey greg–
    Ladbrokes has now dropped the odds to 2-1. And Intratrade has Obama down to 62% and dropping like a rock. Takes awhile to overcome the early money on Obama if you know anything at all about gambling houses. They are trying desperately to balance their books. Frankly, I find this pretty meaningless because so little has been bet, but since YOU brought it up, here you go greg.

  38. 38

    Serial–
    Let’s not get too overconfident.
    Remember, the Dummocrats have JOE BIDEN coming in off the bench to save the day!
    Joe is the ultimate Benchwarmer who likes to just blurt out whatever comes into his smallish noggin. No filter to seperate the course thoughts from something more appropriate.
    It all just kind of spews out.
    This clown has been a heartbeat from the Presidency!
    Ryan will confuse Joe with something he has little regard or knowledge of…the facts!

  39. 39

    Not overconfidence.

    Pushback. These guys have been spiking the football on the 20 for months. Talking about down-ballot overspill, etc.

    For the first time since a Hillary debate, The One’s had an opponent not worried about cries of racism. For the first time, The One has a record to defend.

    It shows.

    Usually debates are fluff. This time they mean something. What a concept.

  41. 41

    Check out the Battleground States. And many only include a couple post-debate polls!

    Florida 47.3 48.0 Romney +0.7
    Virginia 47.8 47.5 Obama +0.3
    Ohio 48.5 46.8 Obama +1.7
    North Carolina 46.2 49.2 Romney +3.0
    Iowa 48.6 45.4 Obama +3.2
    Colorado 47.2 47.7 Romney +0.5

    Can only imagine the agony these fools are feeling after bragging that the election was a lock for Obama. Telling Romney to give up. Lots of empty smack and now they are gettin’ smacked across the side of the head.

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