Salon.com > Swing state polls

Tuesday morning update: Obama still over 90 percent in Nate Silver survey

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 12:28:00 +0000

President Obama slipped in the Tuesday morning update from Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight blog.

But relax, Obama voters: The president only dipped, in Silver's estimation, from a 92.2 percent favorite to win re-election to a 91.6 percent favorite.

Silver also dialed back his Electoral College prediction by one. His analysis now calls for Obama to win 314.6 electoral votes to Mitt Romney's to 223.4.

Silver's popular vote prediction stayed the same for Obama, at 50.9, but edged up by one-tenth of a percent for Romney, who ticked up to 48.3.

What do the numbers mean? By making Obama a 91.6 favorite, he's suggesting that if the election were held at this moment with this set of polls, Obama would win just over 91 times out of 100, and Romney would be elected in just under nine of those scenarios. Silver has sway because he predicted the 2008 election nearly perfectly.

Silver noted that in the 12 new national polls Monday, "Obama led by an average of 1.6 percentage points. Perhaps more important is the trend in the surveys. On average, Obama gained 1.5 percentage points from the prior edition of the same polls, improving his standing in nine of the surveys while losing ground in just one."

Monday evening update: Nate Silver pushes Obama’s chances above 90 percent

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 02:49:00 +0000

UPDATED: A 10:05 p.m. Silver update has pushed Obama's chances of re-election to 92.2 percent, with 315.3 electoral votes.

Nate Silver has gone all-in with President Obama.

In a Monday evening update to his fivethirtyeight blog on the New York Times, the polling guru and human Xanax for Obama voters increased the likelihood of the president's re-election to 91.4 percent.

That's the high-water mark for Obama in Silver's rigorous model, which weighs a wide variety of state and national polls and weighs them based on statistical validity and historical accuracy, among other factors.

It's also a big jump from earlier today. In Silver's early Monday morning update, Obama had an 86 percent chance of defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Obama's previous high was 87 percent, just prior to his sleepy performance in the first presidential debate last month.

Here's what the results mean: Silver's predicting that if the election -- based on the current polls -- were run 100 times, Obama would win just over 91 times. Romney would likely win just in just over 8 of those elections.

Monday update: Nate Silver improves Obama’s odds again

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:38:00 +0000

President Obama's supporters can feel 1 percent better this morning.

Influential numbers-cruncher Nate Silver pushed Obama's chances of being re-elected up to 86.3 percent this morning on his New York Times blog fivethirtyeight. That's up from 85.1 percent on Sunday.

It's also the best number Obama has scored in Silver's model -- which weighs state and national polls in a complex formula that also takes into account accuracy and historical performance -- since he climbed to 87 percent prior to his sleepy performance in the first debate in Denver.

Sunday swing-state polls: Good news for Obama

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:40:00 +0000

Here are Sunday morning's breaking new poll numbers:

The final national NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: Obama 48, Romney 47.

Des Moines Register's final Iowa poll: Obama 47, Romney 42.

Columbus Dispatch's final Ohio poll: Obama 50, Romney 48.

PPP's final Minnesota poll: Obama 53, Romney 45.

Clinging to a lead

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:31:00 +0000

“Bafflement” might be a good way of describing the collective reaction of Democrats at 1 p.m. yesterday, when Gallup unveiled fresh daily tracking poll numbers that put Mitt Romney 7 points ahead of President Obama. But “panic” might have been applicable in some quarters too.

A day earlier, Gallup had shown the GOP nominee’s edge jumping to 6 points, which had been scary enough, but Democrats had been able to tell themselves it was a fluke – statistical noise that would quickly be corrected. But now his lead was expanding further. And this wasn’t some easy-to-dismiss Rasmussen poll either; it was Gallup, the gold standard name in political polling. No other survey was showing anything near a 7-point national lead for Romney, but it seemed to raise the possibility that something bad for Obama was stirring in the electorate.

Then came the reassurance.

Mitt over Barack in latest polls

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:43:00 +0000

Today's Gallup Daily poll shows that 50 percent of likely voters will select Gov. Romney on Nov. 6, compared to 46 percent favoring President Obama. Rasmussen Reports’ daily Presidential Tracking Poll indicates that 49 percent of voters nationwide support Romney while 47 percent prefer the president, and the Real Clear Politics National Average has Romney up by 0.3 points.

This follows Monday’s USA Today/ Gallup Swing State Survey that showed Romney up by 4 percentage points among likely voters in 12 battleground states, largely because women in those states are now split nearly evenly between the candidates.

Obama still leading in most swing state polls

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:42:00 +0000

Mitt Romney has made some gains in the polls following his debate win, but he appears to still be trailing overall. Here are some of the latest numbers:

In Michigan: Obama leads 46-44 percent according to Gravis.
In Ohio: Obama leads 51-45 percent according to an NBC/WSJ/Marist poll; Obama leads 47-46 according to Pulse Opinion Research, Obama leads 48-47 according to Rasmussen.
In Virginia: Romney leads 48-47 percent, according to NBC/WSJ/Marist; Obama leads 51-46 percent, according to CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac; Obama and Romney are tied at 48 percent, according to Pulse Opinion Research.
In Colorado: Romney leads 48 -47 percent, according to a CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac poll.
In Wisconsin: Obama leads 50-47 percent, according to CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac; Obama leads 50-46 percent, according to Pulse Opinion Research.
In Florida: Obama leads 47-46 percent, according to NBC/WSJ/Marist.
In Pennsylvania: Obama leads 47-45 percent, according to Pulse Opinion Research

Do Democrats have a hack gap?

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:05:00 +0000

Is the normally smart and sober Kevin Drum trolling us?

In a blog post headlined "The Hack Gap Rears Its Ugly Head Yet Again," Drum posits that Obama's poor debate performance hurt him politically, mainly because media liberals criticized it harshly. Democrats are at a political disadvantage, he argues, because "conservatives outscore us considerably in the number of bloggers/pundits/columnists/talking heads who are willing to cheerfully say whatever it takes to advance the party line, no matter how ridiculous it is." Drum adds as evidence: "Can you even imagine Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh tearing their hair out over a weak debate performance? I can't." The post was retweeted by smart people on Twitter, provoking an interesting debate.

Drum blames feverish liberals, particularly on MSNBC, for driving the mainstream media to focus on Obama's bad showing. Had liberals not freaked out, Drum posits, "news reporters would then have simply reported the debate normally: Romney said X, Obama said Y, and both sides thought their guy did great." The public would have concluded it was just another debate. We'd have moved on.

Nate Silver: The polls aren’t wrong

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:15:00 +0000

We are drowning in polls and predictions. Whether it's politics, sports, economics or even the weather, there's more information and data than ever. But how much of it is white noise? How many of these predictions have rigor and mathematics behind them, and how many mask uncertainty or ideology behind the seeming exactitude of numbers?

In 2008, Nate Silver built a near-perfect model for analyzing the polls at his web site Fivethirtyeight.com. Silver called Obama over McCain in March -- and ultimately nailed 49 of 50 states, got every Senate race right and predicted the popular vote within a percentage point. That's the kind of predictive power we all dream of when we fill out NCAA tournament brackets or a lottery ticket. The New York Times added his blog to its site soon after the election. The numbers geek started a bidding war.