Wednesday Swing State Polls Analysis: OH, FL, VA, WI, NC

By Ashish Pabari On October 31, 2012 · 13 Comments

Some very bad poll numbers for Romney today as the country continues to deal with the aftermath of the storm. My updates have gotten a little spotty since I’m one of the New Yorkers without power, so I’ll be updating when I can.

Here are the numbers, followed by my analysis.

* OHIO: Obama 50%, Romney 45% — No change since 1 week ago (CBS/NYT)
* OHIO: Obama 48%, Romney 46% — Romney +3% since 5 weeks ago (Univ. of Cincinnati)
* FLORIDA: Obama 48%, Romney 47% — Romney +8% since 5 weeks ago (CBS/NYT)
* FLORIDA: Romney 50%, Obama 47% — Romney +2% since 1 week ago (Gravis)
* VIRGINIA: Obama 49%, Romney 47% — Romney +3% since 3 weeks ago (CBS/NYT)
* VIRGINIA: Romney 49%, Obama 44% — Romney +13% since 1 month ago (Roanoke)
* WISCONSIN: Obama 51%, Romney 43% — Obama +7% since 2 weeks ago (Marquette)
* NORTH CAROLINA: Obama 49%, Romney 49% — No change since 1 week ago (Public Policy)

We’re at that point in the election now where trends don’t matter as much as who is winning, and the bottomline is, Obama continues to be ahead in most of the key swing states. With leads in Ohio and Wisconsin, the election is largely over. Florida and Virginia continue to look like toss-ups. This isn’t a good map for Romney, he has to be polling a lead in at least Ohio or Wisconsin by this point, and he isn’t. Making slight gains, but still losing by say, 5% in Ohio, is pointless. Time has essentially run out, as the storm is blocking out political coverage. The only political story that is getting through is the Obama-Chris Christie lovefest and that is likely to help Obama and hurt Romney (check out my earlier article about the politics of the Obama-Christie lovefest if you haven’t already).

Time’s running out. Either the polls are all wrong, or Romney is headed for a loss on Tuesday.

13 Responses to Wednesday Swing State Polls Analysis: OH, FL, VA, WI, NC

Steve says:

October 31, 2012 at 6:49 PM

Ashish, first, hope all is well with you out there. I was wondering if you knew and could say a little about what is going on with Pennsylvania and Minnesota as suddenly being in play. According to Silver, they both are 4-6% in favor of Obama. Is there any truth to them actually being swing again?

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- Ashish Pabari says:
  
  October 31, 2012 at 6:55 PM
  
  With less than a week before the election, a 4-6% lead in a state translates to a virtually 100% chance of victory. Running a few TV ads doesn’t just wipe out a 6% lead.
  
  My feeling is the Romney campaign is facing the hard reality of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Nevada likely slipping away, and are trying hail marys in states where they can get a lopsided ad advantage and hope for a last second miracle. That, and they want the media to report them as being on offense so that they ignore the realities of what the actual electoral math says.
  
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xjuggernaughtx says:

October 31, 2012 at 6:52 PM

The Romney campaign would make a great Spinal Tap-esque movie. The guy just can’t win. He’s would put his foot in his mouth after the primary debates. His staff would. He’s VP was caught taking fake pictures. Now the weather is jacking up his campaign. There is comedy gold in that material.

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rob says:

October 31, 2012 at 11:37 PM

And now Romney is staging fake relief efforts in my state, Ohio. He is also running incredibly dishonest commercials here. Not superpac dishonesty but actual “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve of this message” add dishonesty. I really can’t think of a candidate doing this; just outright lying. I’m kind of shocked. I expect it from Rove, but not from the GOP candidate.

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- willia451 says:
  
  November 1, 2012 at 4:58 AM
  
  Its the desperation settling in and going the only place it has left to go. Its not like he gets a “do over” after Nov 6th.
  
  Politics is about winning at all costs. Everybody understands that. If you are down, at some point you just start telling the people what they want to hear; regardless.
  
  And Mitt Romney is in a particularly unique situation to get away with doing that from his own party. Mitt is not the man the base really wanted. But the Republican leadership said he was the most “electable”. And the Republican Base hates President Obama so much, they went along.
  
  Now that it looks like he is going to lose, the pressure on his campaign is enormous. So yeah. I would not put anything (and I do mean anything) past the Republicans at this point.
  
  The Republican leadership went against their own base and told them to nominate this man. And if he goes down………well, let’s just say its going to be bad. Very bad.
  
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- Ken says:
  
  November 1, 2012 at 9:59 AM
  
  Rob, what do you mean by “fake relief efforts”? Are you saying that the campaign rally turned supply collection drive did not occur? Do you mean what was collected was thrown in a dumpster instead of being sent to victims? If you think it was disingenuous to collect donations at a campaign rally, would have been better to hold the rally and totally ignore what happened?
  
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  - LoessStat says:
    
    November 1, 2012 at 10:32 AM
    
    You can’t be that gullible. Yes the donations were real, no one is disputing that. But to re-brand a campaign rally from “Vicotry Rally” as a “Relief Effort” that just so happens to be Ohio or Florida is hysterical. I am so glad he was able to comfort the victims of the hurricane there. What a guy. We all know what is going here, better to just admit it.
    
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  - Sean says:
    
    November 1, 2012 at 11:10 AM
    
    They also were collecting canned goods, which the Red Cross specifically says not to donate (although it is a nice gesture). Additionally, because the campaign was unsure of the amount of canned goods they may have received beforehand, they went to WalMart and purchased $5,000 worth of canned/boxed goods to make it look like they were getting more stuff.
    
    I classify that as false relief efforts. If they were serious, they should have collected money.
    
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  - xjuggernaughtx says:
    
    November 1, 2012 at 11:17 AM
    
    You wanna know about fake relief efforts? Here you go: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/5000-shopping-run-walmart-turned-romneys-campaign-stop-relief-event/58529/
    
    Nothing more fake than saying you are suspending campaigning because of the storm, only to turn around and have a rally under the guise of relief in a state far away from the disaster, but one that just happens to be an important battle ground state that he had a scheduled rally in anyway. In the same building. At the same time.
    
    Then you go and buy food to give to the people as they come in the door so that they can give it back to you and you can say it was a relief effort. All for the Red Cross, which doesn’t take physical donations.
    
    There is no way that this can be examined that isn’t sleazy. It’s much like Paul Ryan’s photo Op gone awry. It’s cynical and insulting to the public that they believe in this day and age of instant media that people won’t figure this stuff out.
    
    Look, I’m all for Romney using his star power to help out, but holding relief efforts in Ohio and Florida in the same times and places as his scheduled political rallies is slimy. If you are going to keep holding political rallies, that’s fine. Just don’t pretend that they are some altruistic thing. It would be very easy to change your narrative from election to charity fund raising, but that hasn’t happened has it?
    
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coby says:

November 1, 2012 at 1:00 AM

of course if Obama does win, he likely won’t serve much of a 2nd term,a s again more and more keeps coming out on Bengazi and now we find out the state departement was warned more then a month before the attack that soemthing would happen, and before you say this race is over just look at RCP last two elctions 5 days before the elections and it’s poll of polls 2004 had bush winning by about 3 points, and he won by that #, last election 5 days before the election Obama over McCain by 6 result Obama wins by 6 and this election 5 days before has it at a dead heat, and again does anyone really believe Obama is going to win North Carolina, and also what isn’t being reported by Ashish, is that the early voting advantage that Obama had in 2008 is not happening this cycle, in Florida alone 70 % less advantage then what they had in 2008

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- Chester says:
  
  November 1, 2012 at 3:52 PM
  
  Uh, by that logic, Obama still wins.
  
  RCP has it 290-248 in favor of Obama.
  
  They have a tie in their National polling which favors Obama, because that doesn’t factor in how the EC works.
  
  I fail to see your point, but I’m assuming you don’t have one.
  
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  - Ken says:
    
    November 2, 2012 at 9:05 AM
    
    The point Coby is making about early voting is that in 2008 Obama had a very large advantage. He ended up winning by 6%. The early voting advantage is not nearly as large in 2012. If Republicans can get the same election day turnout in 2012 as 2008, they should be able to overcome Obama’s early vote lead. Obviously, we will see on Tuesday if that happens.
    
    @xjuggernaught, if the story is true that rally attendees were given items to donate to make it look good, that is a certainly more political than anything else. Yes, this was in a battleground state, but let’s not pretend that just because things are the worst in NY and NJ, that no other state was hit. Google Sandy damage in Ohio and you will find videos of the Cuyahoga river flooding.
    
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    - xjuggernaughtx says:
      
      November 2, 2012 at 7:19 PM
      
      Yes, I did that after I posted that message and the damage in Ohio was much worse than I had assumed. I’ve certainly modified my opinion on that part of the event.
      
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