Do We Believe the State or National Polls? (Final Popular Vote Projection)

Here is how the past few election cycles voted based on exit polls in terms of political ideology:

Year	Democrat %	Republican %	Independent %	Notes
2000	39	35	27	Gore Wins by 0.1% Popular Vote
2002	38	40	22	Republicans pick up a few House seats
2004	37	37	26	Bush by 3%
2006	38	36	26	Democrats make big gains in the House
2008	39	32	29	Obama by over 7%
2010	35	35	29	Republicans make big gains in the House
Average	37.6666667	35.83333333	26.5	Democrats by 1.88%

The difficult thing to measure is what is going to be the breakdown in political ideology in the 2012 Election. The numbers are crunched at the end of this post.

No matter how you crunch the national numbers, the state poll numbers continue to look challenging for Romney. Despite moving to the lead or tied in the national poll averages (My poll averages go back a month so Obama has a slight lead but the trend is to Romney), Obama still has a big lead in the Electoral College. Romney has to win Florida, Virginia, and Ohio and those state polls are a statistical tie – and Ohio still seems to favor Obama. In fact, other than North Carolina (Romney 4 points), Florida (Romney 1 point), and Virginia (0.3 points) Romney is down in all swing states including – Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And if Romney loses Virginia and or Ohio, he is going to have to win some combination of CO, NV, NH, MI, WI, and IA to win the election. Right now the electoral count is 290 to 248. Good news for Romney is that polls are tightening in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, but Obama still has a 4 to 5 point lead. This may give Romney more options to get to 270 but time is running out as the Romney camp tries to expand their electoral map chances. My internal polling methods have Romney ahead in Florida by 1.3% and Obama ahead in Ohio by 1.2%. If Romney does not win Ohio, his path to the Presidency is going to be hard. I project the final Electoral College count at this time to be 277 to 261 in favor of Obama (More on that tomorrow).

There is still reason for hope. Republicans have become more excited about Romney as the conservative choice for President and polls indicate they are more energized than Democrats because they do not want another 4 years of Obama (look at Gallup Poll demographics and which groups of people are definitely going to vote http://www.gallup.com/poll/154559/US-Presidential-Election-Center.aspx - this says a lot about who is excited about the election). The generic congressional ballot between Democrats and Republicans is even and that is good news for Republicans because they historically trail in this poll. Also, for the first time in the campaign Romney’s favorability ratings are higher than Obama’s. In other good news, polls indicate that Republicans are leading Democrats in early voting, this is an area Democrats usually dominate. Even biased polls show Romney ahead by double digits among Independent voters, a group of voters Obama won by over 7% in 2008. And it would be negligent to point out that millions of Americans are suffering in the aftermath of Sandy, yet the President is campaigning. Finally, my models of state polls indicate that Obama will win the election by 2.9% nationally. However, national polls have the race tied (Obama up by 0.4%). This is a 2.5% divergence between state and national polls! The divergence is even greater in battleground states (nearly 5%). Which polls are right? If the national polls are right, Romney has a chance. If the state polls are right then Obama will win. It is all about turnout and maybe Romney can pull off a few state upsets. My guess is that state polls are wrong because they are widely oversampling Democrat turnout. Is the data listed in the national polls below correct? The average of the last polls by 17 firms has Obama ahead by 0.1% points (47 – 47). However, many of these polls still seem to be oversampling Democrats when compared to historical trends outlined above. My best guess at an ideological breakdown in 2012 election is 38-D/34-R/29-I (the polls listed below have an average breakdown of 38-D/33-R/27-I). If my guess is right, when this election is modeled using these numbers we get the following:

Obama – 47% / Romney 49% (Romney by 1.7%)

Also, using the below data in the polls when broken down by party, gender, and race (not all polls give this data) then my models show the following (I am expecting 53% / 47% margin for women and a 76.5% / 23.5% margin for white versus non-white voters in 2012).

By Party: Obama 48% / Romney 48% (0.3% advantage for Obama)

By Gender: Obama 48% / Romney 47% (0.4% advantage for Obama)

By Ethnicity: Obama 47% / Romney 46% (0.4% average for Obama)

There you have it. I have modeled the polls 5 ways and Obama comes out on top in 4. If I average all 5 methods then we are in a dead heat: Obama 47%, Romney 47% (actual spread favors Romney by.1%). If Democrats only have a 3% advantage on Election Day, well Romney can win the popular vote hands down. If voter turnout favors Republicans as both Gallup and Rasmussen polls suggest then Romney will win the popular vote easily. But the Electoral College is another story (state Polls favor Obama and do not mesh with national polls) – but if voter turnout favors Republicans Romney should win the Electoral College. My final projection for the popular vote is 48.9% to 48.8% (In favor of Romney) with 2.3% voting for another candidate.

All Numbers are in %
Poll	D	R	I	O		RR	MA		Date
IPOS/Reuters	46	38	19	46		46		D 8		4-Nov
Gallup	38	33	29	46		51		D 5		Daily
Rasmussen	37	35	34	49		49		D 2		Daily
NBC	32	26	40	48		47		D 6		4-Nov
FOX	42	37	18	46		46		D 5		31-Oct
PEW	37	34	29	50		47		D 3		4-Nov
National Journal	37	29	29	50		45		D 8		31-Oct
NPR	37	31	31	47		48		D 6		30-Oct
CNN	40	32	28	47		48		D 8		25-Oct
CBS	36	31	33	48		47		D 5		30-Oct
TIPP	40	32	28	45		44		D 8		Daily
Battleground	43	41	15	49		49		D 2		4-Nov
Survey USA	36	33	31	45		48		D 3		22-Oct
AP/GfK	31	25	27	45		47		D 6		25-Oct
WA Times	37	35	28	45		44		D 2		4-Nov
YouGov	45	36	20	48		48		D 9		1-Nov
ABC	35	31	33	48		48		D 4		Daily
PPP	35	29	29	48		49		D 6		22-Oct
UCONN	44	38	18	48		45		D 6		19-Oct
Poll Average	38.32	32.947	27	47		47		5.37		0.105
2012 Model	38	34	28	1		1		1.03
Poll Scale				47		49		-1.8
Poll	DO	RO	IO	DR	RR	IR	MO	FO	MR	FR	WO	NOW	WR	NWR	M	F	W	NW
IPOS/Reuters	87	4	42	8	92	54
Gallup	91	6	43	6	92	43	42	48	52	45	38	78	56	17	48	52	76	24
Rasmussen	90	6	47	8	92	50
NBC	90	7	40	9	92	50	43	51	53	43	36	80	56	17	48	52	74	26
FOX	89	2	39	5	95	46	42	50	51	42	37	78	56	14	47	53	77	23
PEW	94	7	42	5	91	46	42	53	50	40	39	81	54	17	46	54	74	26
National Journal	91	5	43	6	92	49	42	53	52	44	39	81	55	19	46	54	73	27
NPR	94	6	40	6	94	52	45	49	50	46	37	80	58	17	46	54	74	26
CNN	93	4	41	6	96	49	47	53	50	44	41	73	56	22	47	53	74	26
CBS	93	6	39	5	91	51	44	52	51	44	39	83	56	14	46	54	79	21
TIPP	87	7	38	7	85	44	46	50	45	40	39	83	51	8	47	53	78	22
Battleground	90	5	44	7	92	43	44	53	52	45	40	84	55	14			77	23
Survey USA	91	6	33	6	90	52	40	49	51	45	38	78	57	17	47	53	78	22
AP/GfK	93	7	43	7	93	57	47	50	51	48	37	71	58	21	50	50	65	28
WA Times	93	8	42	7	92	49	49	47	47	50	42	80	58	17	47	53	74	26
YouGov															48	52	73	27
ABC	91	3	46	8	97	46	43	52	51	44	40	77	55	22	47	53	76	24
PPP	88	5	40	9	94	55	40	49	54	45	39	78	58	18	46	54	72	28
UCONN	88	6	37	9	90	38	41	55	53	38	36	83	56	14	48	52	74	26
Averages	90.72	5.5556	41	7	92	49	44	50.9	51	43.94	39	79.3	56	17	47	53	75	25
2008 Averages	39	32	29				20	27	24	23.287	29.1	18.6	42	3.94	46	54	76	24
2008 Averages	93	7	51	7	93	49	50	57	50	43	45	86	55	14	46	54	76	24
2010 Averages	35	35	29												47	53	78	22
2012 Model	38	34	28	38	34	28
															47	53	76	24
	34.474	1.88889	11	2.6	31	14									1	1	1	0.9
2012 Model Results	47.86		48	0			48		47	0.395	47		46	0.4
	O	RR
Poll Ave	47.26	47.158
Poll Scaled	46.87	48.665
Poll Affiliation	47.86	47.569
Poll Gender	47.5	47.107
Poll Ethnicity	46.62	46.217
Average	47.22	47.343
Key
All Numbers are in %
D - Democrat
R - Republican
I - Independent
O - Obama
RR - Romney
MA - Margin
DO = Democrats for Obama
RO - Republicans for Obama
IO - Independents for Obama
DR - Democrats for Romney
RR - Republicans for Romney
IR - Independents for Romney
MO - Males for Obama
FO - Females for Obama
MR - Males for Romney
FR - Females for Romney
WO - Whites for Obama
NWO - Non Whites for Obama
WR - Whites for Romney
NWR - Non Whites for Romney
F - Female
M - Male
W - Whites
NW - Non Whites