October 8th Ratings Update –
Hello good DKE nation. Welcome to my latest and greatest election predictions.
Before we start tonight, a general housekeeping note. Last week I was approached with an idea to split this diary up into three different parts, because there was so much information involved and it was cumbersome to view and read. DavidNYC has decreed that only one diary can be up on the front page box of DKE from the same author at the same time. If you would like, I can split this diary apart into sections, but only one would be viewable in the box via the DK Elections tag.
If you would prefer I go that route from here in, please do indicate that in the comments. Alright, without further ado, let's jump in!
Presidential –
Well, let me be frank. Most of you here on Daily Kos Elections are not going to be happy with this ratings update in general. I start of course with the presidential ratings. Just two weeks ago, Barack Obama enjoyed a 5.67% lead in the aggregate polling, his biggest lead all cycle. Well, one really, really bad debate performance in Denver last Wednesday night changed all that. Obama’s aggregate lead has been slashed by more than half, and polls have moved in Mitt Romney’s direction virtually across the board. I’m not buying the republican slew of polls from last Friday at face value though, since polls conducted from Saturday onward (the period following the jobs report last Friday) generally reflect movement back toward Obama, including both daily trackers Gallup and Rasmussen.
At this point, the pollster.com regression is 48.3% Obama, 45.5% Romney, which is nearly identical to my aggregate of national and state polls. All the numbers are laid out below. To be honest, the map looks pretty similar to what it looked like prior to the conventions back in August, with a large group of toss up states that provided real hope for either side to win.
Electoral vote distribution:
Safe D – ME, VT, MA, RI, NY, DE, MD, DC, IL, CA, WA, HI – 158 EV
Likely D – CT, NJ, NM, OR – 33 EV
Lean D – PA, MI, MN – 46 EV
Toss Up/Tilt D – NH, VA, OH, WI, IA, NV – 59 EV
Tied – CO – 9 EV
Toss Up/Tilt R – NC, FL – 44 EV
Lean R – GA, IN, MO, MT, AZ – 47 EV
Likely R – SC, TN, MS, LA, ND, SD – 40 EV
Safe R – WV, KY, AL, AR, TX, OK, KS, NE, WY, ID, UT, AK – 100 EV
Total Obama EV - 294
Total Romney EV – 235
Ties - 9
The Map:
[IMG]http://i763.photobucket.com/...[/IMG]
Popular Vote Projection:
National – Obama 50.67%, Romney 47.87%
DC – Obama 90-9
Hawaii – Obama 66-33
Vermont – Obama 64-34
Massachusetts – Obama 61-37
New York – Obama 60-38
Rhode Island – Obama 60-39
Illinois – Obama 59-39
California – Obama 59-39
Maryland – Obama 59-39
Delaware – Obama 59-39
Washington – Obama 57-41
Maine – Obama 57-42
New Jersey – Obama 56-43
Connecticut – Obama 55-44
Oregon – Obama 55-44
New Mexico – Obama 54-44
Michigan – Obama 54-45
Minnesota – Obama 53-45
Pennsylvania – Obama 53-45
New Hampshire – Obama 51-47
Nevada – Obama 51-47
Ohio – Obama 51-48
Wisconsin – Obama 51-48
Virginia – Obama 50-48
Iowa – Obama 50-49
Colorado – Tie 49-49
Florida – Romney 50-49
North Carolina – Romney 50-48
Missouri – Romney 52-46
Arizona – Romney 53-46
Montana – Romney 53-45
Georgia – Romney 54-45
Indiana – Romney 54-45
South Carolina – Romney 44-55
Louisiana – Romney 56-43
Tennessee – Romney 56-43
Mississippi – Romney 56-42
South Dakota – Romney 56-42
North Dakota – Romney 56-42
Alaska – Romney 58-41
Nebraska – Romney 58-40
Kansas – Romney 58-40
Texas – Romney 59-40
Kentucky – Romney 59-40
West Virginia – Romney 60-39
Arkansas – Romney 61-38
Alabama – Romney 62-37
Wyoming – Romney 64-35
Idaho – Romney 64-35
Utah – Romney 66-33
Oklahoma – Romney 67-32
Senate –
The Senate picture, unlike that of the Presidency or the House (take my word for it for now), hasn’t really gotten caught up in the recent movement toward the Republicans. It could be that we just haven’t seen as many polls in Senate races since last Wednesday evening, but regardless, there is one big limiting factor that is hampering the republicans. Their problem is that their candidates in many races across the country are just weak. Todd Akin you probably all know about by now, but Connie Mack in Florida, Josh Mandel in Ohio, and Rick Berg in North Dakota are all mediocre candidates at best. With just plain, generic republicans, the GOP would have a great chance at winning all four of those races, and now it is unlikely that they will win any of them outside of maybe North Dakota, where we haven’t seen any polling in almost a month.
In the end, I still have the Senate exactly the same as last week in terms of total seats, with 54 democrats and 46 republicans. Some of the individual races have moved. Massachusetts is now into the Lean D column as Elizabeth Warren has opened a consistent 5% or so lead on Scott Brown. Wisconsin is back into the toss up range as Tommy Thompson has closed the gap on Tammy Baldwin, but not enough to take the lead. That Wisconsin race is probably the one toss up on the board right now that clearly leans one direction except maybe for North Dakota, where Heidi Heitkamp has led Rick Berg in all polling but no polls have come out in weeks. All the others are pretty much a dead tie in one way or another. Montana is extremely tight. Indiana is a close fight with a huge amount of undecided voters. Connecticut for whatever reason has been a razor close race as Linda McMahon has run strongly against Chris Murphy. Arizona has become a really tight contest in recent weeks as Jeff Flake struggles to stay in front of Richard Carmona. And in Nevada, Dean Heller continues to lead Shelley Berkley in the polls, but as we all know, Nevada polls are generally very biased toward republicans.
I cannot in good conscious call any one of those 5 races. Since I must use tilted rankings, I have CT and IN going blue, MT, AZ, and NV going red. But I can’t express enough just how tight those 5 races are right now.
The one prevailing theme that I continue to see in all these contests is this. If you’re a current member of the House of Representatives, you’re probably getting dragged down by its unpopularity and are underperforming as a result. This is true for Chris Murphy, Connie Mack, Rick Berg, Denny Rehberg, Todd Akin, Shelley Berkley, and Jeff Flake. The only folks that seem to be bucking that trend are Joe Donnelly and Tammy Baldwin, and you can certainly argue that their opponents either have baggage (in the case of Richard Mourdock) or have run a poor campaign (Tommy Thompson).
Seat Breakdown –
Democrats – 30 seats not up for re-election
Safe D – VT, RI, NY, DE, MD, WV, MN, CA, WA, HI – 10 seats
Likely D – ME, NJ, PA, FL, MI, NM – 6 seats
Lean D – MA, VA, OH, MO – 4 seats
Toss Up/Tilt D – CT, IN, WI, ND – 4 seats
Toss Up/Tilt R – MT, NV, AZ – 3 seats
Lean R –
Likely R – NE
Safe R – TN, MS, TX, WY, UT
Republicans – 37 seats not up for re-election
Democratic Pickups – ME, MA, IN
Republican Pickups – NE, MT
New Senate Partisan Breakdown – 54 democrats, 46 republicans
Swing – Democrats +1
The Map:
[IMG]http://i763.photobucket.com/...[/IMG]
House –
Mitt Romney’s recent surge has had a large impact on the battle for the House of Representatives. Whereas 2 weeks ago it appeared that the Democrats were right on the doorstep of taking back the House majority, now the race is turning far in the Republican direction. Two weeks back, I had the democrats leading the national House ballot by 3% and taking 20 seats from the GOP. Those numbers have shrunk to a 1% advantage and a 12 seat gain.
There were a ton of race changes this week, and I can’t really speak for each one because a lot of them were national, generic ballot-based moves. However, one disquieting trend I’m starting to see is that there seems to be a lot more GOP internal polls coming out now then there was a month ago or even two weeks ago. There seems to be genuine confidence on the republican side now that they will in fact hold the House majority, and for now at least, I agree.
8 districts went from blue to red this week, 1 bucked the trend and went from red to blue. FL-2 was that district, and it went blue following a poll that showed the race tied at 43, an ominous score for republican Steve Southerland. On the republican side, the GOP gained control of UT-4, MA-6, and NV-3 based on polling, and took over NY-27, OH-6, CA-10, MI-11, and WI-8 based on national polling numbers. You’ll notice that a number of republican districts dropped out of the competitive zone this week, which shrunk the number of battleground districts to 94, and dropped the average PVI of the battleground from R+1.79 to R+1.34.
Current pollster.com regression – 45.4% democratic, 44.4% republican
Projected 2-party vote share – 50.55% democratic, 49.45% republican
Battleground PVI – R+1.34 (the PVI of all 102 competitive districts on the equal area map)
Battleground 2-party vote share – 49.21% democratic, 50.79% republican
New House Partisan Breakdown – 230 republicans, 205 democrats
Swing – Democrats +12
The Equal Area Map:
[IMG]http://i763.photobucket.com/...[/IMG]