Oct. 19: After Romney Gains, Should Obama Concede Florida?
fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/oct-19-after-romney-gains-should-obama-concede-florida/
nytimes The New York Times
FiveThirtyEight: Oct. 19: After Romney Gains, Should Obama Concede FloridaOct. 19: After Romney Gains, Should Obama Concede Florida?
By NATE SILVER
The national tracking polls on Friday showed some improvement for President Obama. He made gains in the surveys published by Rasmussen Reports, Investors’ Business Daily, Gallup and Public Policy Polling, while losing ground only in the online survey published by the RAND Corporation.
Both the favorable trend toward Mr. Obama in the Gallup poll and the unfavorable one for him in the RAND poll might be regarded examples of reversion to the mean, since both polls had been outliers relative to the consensus.
Still, it was among the better days of national polling for Mr. Obama since the Denver debate. On average between the six daily tracking polls and two other national surveys that were published on Friday, Mr. Obama held a nominal lead over Mitt Romney of 0.5 percentage points. The median poll, which reduces the weight given to potential outliers, had Mr. Obama up by 1.4 percentage points instead.
These figures are quite consistent with the FiveThirtyEight “now-cast”, which calculates the current standing in the national popular vote based on all national and state polls. That method estimates that Mr. Obama would win the national popular vote by 0.8 percentage points in an election held today.
It was Mr. Romney, however, who made an overall gain in the FiveThirtyEight forecast on Friday. His chances of winning the Electoral College ticked up to 32.1 percent, from 29.6 percent on Thursday.
A small part of the reason is because of the sharp decline in the stock market on Friday, a component of the FiveThirtyEight economic index. The economic index receives fairly little overall weight in the forecast at this late point in the election, but a sharp move in one of its components can still move the numbers some.
A small part of the reason is because of the sharp decline in the stock market on Friday, a component of the FiveThirtyEight economic index. The economic index receives fairly little overall weight in the forecast at this late point in the election, but a sharp move in one of its components can still move the numbers some.
The more important factor, however, is that Mr. Romney had a fairly strong day in state-by-state surveys.
Mr. Romney led in 7 of the 12 polls from battleground states that we added to our database on Friday.
Furthermore, he made clear gains relative to the previous edition of the same survey in several of the polls, which in most cases pre-dated the Denver debate, improving his standing by 4.4 percentage points on average in polls that provided for a comparison.
Especially on days with a heavy volume of state polling, they tend to predominate in the FiveThirtyEight forecast.
Thus, just as in Thursday’s forecast, when Mr. Obama’s standing improved because of strong state polls despite middling national polls, the opposite was true for Mr. Romney on Friday.
If you look at the table above, however, you may notice a more specific theme in the state polls. We added four Florida polls to the database on Friday, and Mr. Romney led in all of them, by margins ranging from 1 to 5 percentage points.
The FiveThirtyEight forecast does not yet account for a fifth Florida poll, from SuvreyUSA, which gave Mr. Obama a 1-point lead there but which was published overnight after we ran the forecast.
Still, Florida has been polled so densely that the overall trend has become clear: Mr. Romney has made larger-than-average gains in the state since the Denver debate, and has now become a definitive favorite there.
According to the FiveThirtyEight “now-cast” on Friday, Mr. Romney would be a 78 percent favorite to win Florida in an election held today. Projecting forward to Nov. 6 introduces a bit more uncertainty, but he’s now a 69 percent favorite to carry the state on Election Day, according to the model.
Mr. Romney’s gains in Florida call into question how vigorously the campaigns should be contesting it over the final two weeks of the campaign. Mr. Romney might consider relaxing his efforts there, while Mr. Obama’s campaign might consider de-emphasizing the state.
Based on the FiveThirtyEight tipping point index, Florida is now only the 9th most important state in the Electoral College math. There is only about a 2 percent chance that the decisive Electoral College vote will be cast in that state on Nov. 6.
This represents a significant decline: Florida had ranked as high as second on the tipping-point list at earlier stages of the race.
Why is the forecast model so willing to dismiss Florida? It reflects a combination of Mr. Obama’s recent weakness in the polls there — and his comparative strength elsewhere.
Mr. Obama remains the overall favorite in the FiveThirtyEight forecast because he leads by at least 1.8 percentage points in states sufficient for him to carry 277 electoral votes. The closest of these are Wisconsin, Ohio, Nevada and Iowa.
Mr. Obama could afford to lose either Nevada or Iowa from his column, which would still leave him with 271 electoral votes — just enough for him to win.
He could not afford to lose both Iowa and Nevada without adding some other states to replace them. Nor could he afford to lose Wisconsin or Ohio. It’s still too soon — and there is still too much intrinsic uncertainty in the polling — to reduce the election down to these four states only.
Mr. Obama’s next-best state is New Hampshire, where the forecast shows him with a tiny although much diminished advantage. Because New Hampshire has only 4 electoral votes, however, it only comes into play under relatively specific conditions. Were Mr. Obama to lose Wisconsin, for instance, while winning Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada, also winning New Hampshire would suffice to give him 271 electoral votes. (In some other plausible scenarios, winning New Hampshire would only suffice to give Mr. Obama a 269-269 tie, which would probably go for Mr. Romney in the House of Representatives.)
Two other states, Colorado and Virginia, were virtually tied in the FiveThirtyEight forecast as of Friday. These provide Mr. Obama with some additional flexibility, since Colorado contains 9 electoral votes and Virginia 13. If he carried both states, for example, along with Iowa and Nevada, Mr. Obama could afford to lose Ohio, Wisconsin and New Hampshire and would still win the Electoral College.
There are no guarantees, obviously, in any of these states. But between the states in which Mr. Obama appears to hold a lead now (Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada) — themselves sufficient to provide him with a winning electoral map — and the three others (New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia) that are roughly tied but could serve as backup plans for him, his electoral strategy remains reasonably robust.
