Dashboard Update...Romney Sings the Blues (September 17, 2012)

The full effect of Obama’s post-convention bounce flowed through all the Dashboard measures  -- I’m sure Obama would love to declare tomorrow Election Day rather than wait another 50 days.  But, as they say, you don’t win on paper and we still have plenty of innings left in this game.

Swing States.   I’ve cut the list down to 10 swings states, as I see no possible way Obama can lose either Pennsylvania or Michigan; he has about a 10-point lead in each.  That gives Obama 237 solid electoral votes, needing only 34 more to win, which appears well within reach as of now.

I’m not the only one winnowing down the swing state list.  According to politico.com, the campaigns themselves agree that there are nine swing states….the same list as mine except they exclude Missouri.  I’m not too sure why...while Missouri has been Romney Red all year, his margin there now is only +3 points, within the 4.5 MOE of that particular Rasmussen poll from last week.  Of course, swing states aren’t just the states we focus on in polls, they are where the campaigns decide to spend candidate time and ad money. 

Obama is leading in eight of the ten swing states, with new post-convention polling showing the bounce carrying him to bigger leads in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Colorado, with his gap in Missouri shrinking and the one in North Carolina remaining within the MOE.  The other four swing states have not done post-conventions polls; all four had Obama in the lead even before the convention so it is likely that these leads have also increased and thus the overall swing state gap is even wider than the 1.6-points shown here.

17-Sep	Electoral	Polling	Since	1-Aug
10 states	Votes	Obama	Romney	Obama +/-
New Hampshire	4	45.0	40.0	5.0
Ohio	18	48.5	44.3	4.2
Colorado	9	48.0	45.0	3.0
Nevada	6	50.0	47.0	3.0
Virginia	13	49.0	46.0	3.0
Iowa	6	47.0	45.0	2.0
Florida	29	48.0	46.0	2.0
Wisconsin	10	48.0	47.3	0.7
North Carolina	15	47.0	49.5	-2.5
Missouri	10	45.0	48.0	-3.0
	120			1.6

Thus Obama maintains a very healthy lead in the electoral college projections, indeed, the strongest to date.

271 to win	Solid	Swing	Total
Obama	237	95	332
Romney	181	25	206

The Obameter.  The Obameter has soared to +12.6 on the strength of a very strong stock market rise due to the Fed’s announcement of a sustained QE3.   This action, coupled with the European Central Banks bond program, may provide the economic stability for hiring to begin in earnest.  Romney’s popularity dropped a few points as well.  I debated awarding Obama a 5-point “event” bounce due to Romney’s widely panned response to the events in Libya but decided against it, in part due to the scale of the events themselves and the uncertainty of how they may affect Obama.

OBAMETER	Baseline
	1-Jan	2-Sep	9-Sep	16-Sep
Unemployment Rate	8.7	8.3	8.1	8.1
Consumer Confidence	65.0	60.6	60.6	60.6
Price of Gas (average for week)	3.32	3.84	3.90	3.90
Dow-Jones (average for week)	12,076	13,085	13,155	13,406
Romney Favorability (average)	38.0	43.6	48.0	44.5
"Events"	0	0	10	10
Unemployment Rate	8.7	4	6	6
Consumer Confidence	65	-4	-4	-4
Price of Gas (average for week)	3.32	-5	-6	-6
Dow-Jones (average for week)	12,076	10	11	13
Romney Favorability (average)	38	-6	-10	-7
"Events"	0	0	10	10
OBAMETER	0.0	-1.1	6.6	12.6
Obama versus Romney	1.1	0.3	3.3	3.4

The Charisma Factor.   As I suspected, Romney’s one-week “charisma” lead was short-lived.  His modest “humanizing” bump was overwhelmed by the Democratic Convention display for Obama, and Obama’s favorability ratings soared as Romney’s receded in four new post-Convention polls.

	Fav	Unfav	Net
Obama	51.5	43.5	8.0
Romney	44.5	44.3	-0.3
Net			8.3

Latest National Polling.  The national polling continued to demonstrate the Obama convention bounce.  Numerous new polls show a 3-5 point Obama lead (all but Rasmussen which now has Romney ahead by a point).  On average the lead is now 3.4 points, with three separate polls indicating Obama has achieved the 50% threshold.  Virtually all of these polls were among “likely voters” rather than “registered voters”…the tighter spec usually favors Republicans by 2 points.

One thing of note is that this week’s polls showed only about 5% “undecided,” a marked reduction from the consistent 8-10% range of May to mid-August.  Some of the undecideds appear to have made up their minds as the campaigns have heated up.

	Nat'l Polls
Obama	49.0%
Romney	45.6%
Diff	3.4%

Popular Vote Projection.  My projection of Obama’s national popular vote has increased to over 51%, a four-point lead over Romney.

	Vote	%
Obama	66,519,967	51.2%
Romney	61,467,366	47.3%
Other	1,988,683	1.5%

As always, comments welcome!