More Tea Leaves.

From Third Base Politics.

Earlier we talked about how early voting data indicated some positive news for Romney here in Ohio. Early/absentee voting in Democratic counties were underperforming 2008 numbers. In red counties that number was significantly up.

Another report this afternoon means even more good news.

Actual reported early voting data requires that early voting will represent no more than 32% of total vote in Ohio, while virtually every poll was weighted for early voting to occupy ~35-40% of total votes cast.

Now recall Obama did well in Ohio-specific polls among early voters, but lost to Romney by a significant margin among election day voters.

So what happens when early voters take up a smaller portion of the electorate?

That's right, election day voters take on a higher importance.

And that means Romney's advantage increases.

3 to 8% is a good sign?

Better than nothing, I guess.

Reading the Tea Leaves.

Fog of war disclaimer.

From Third Base Politics - In Ohio, Republican absentee ballots are up, Democrat absentee ballots are down.

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report has a comprehensive list of absentee/early voting results by county that indicate very good news for Ohio Republicans.

You can read it for yourself by clicking here.

But here's the down and dirty.

Wasserman looked at absentee/early data by county from 2004 and 2008, and compared it to what has been officially reported by the Secretary of State.

The results?

In counties that voted Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08, total votes are down 4.1%. Total votes are down 40,395.

In counties that voted Bush in '04 and McCain in '08, total votes are up 14.4%. Total votes are up 81,696.

It's important to note that these aren't all votes for Obama or Romney.

But they are a strong indication of the likely turnout problems facing Democrats in their key blue counties. And more importantly, it shows the incredible bump in enthusiasm in key red counties.

What if Gallup is right?

I'm a "science" guy. I tend to accept polls as being the distilled magic of statistics. The battleground state polls have shown Obama leading throughout this campaign, so, all things being equal, I rate Obama the favorite.

On the other hand, the polls are screwy. On the third hand, there is typically a word for people who spend their time complaining about the polls - "losers."

On yet another hand, there is this perspective offered by Bob Krumm:

Meanwhile, in what should have sent up alarm bells across the land, Barack Obama’s campaign was diminished to arguing that it would win on the strength of its get-out-the-vote efforts with youth and minorities. Second to mentioning Harry Truman, this is the last refuge of the losing side. Almost never is depending on sporadic voters a recipe for success. Even in 2008, Obama’s leads with those demographics only padded the margin he had already won because of his eight point lead with independents. Falling precipitously from his earlier indy numbers, he and his acolytes should have known that calamity lay ahead.

Most pollsters took a beating in predicting the race. But that should have been expected too. The last two times that a Republican challenged a Democratic incumbent (1996 and 1980) the polls overestimated Democratic support by 5.1 and 7.2 points. And ‘96 was not even in bad economic times.

The biggest gap was not one of gender, but between the opinions of those who voted and those who did not. Those most likely to vote–whites, property owners, investor class, church-goers, married, and the elderly–despised where Obama had taken the country by margins of sometimes more than 20 points. Singles, minorities, and the youth still backed the President, but with diminished support and turnout from four years before.

The entire outcome hinged on who turned out to vote, and when only nine percent of the electorate wished to talk to pollsters, projecting who that was likely to be, became a fool’s errand. But statisticians are not above being fooled. A look at any one of those demographics–even the ones that still supported him–would have showed the President’s downward shift from four years before. But it was too easy to weight bad samples toward a guesstimate of a turnout model instead. Only Gallup got it right, and the result was nasty for Democrats. They went from a 12-point advantage in party identification among likely voters in 2008, to a one-point disadvantage in just four years.

That may be the model that is informing George Will and Michael Barone's predictions.

Romney up 1 in Michigan.

The poll was done by a Democrat polling firm.

A new poll in Michigan has Mitt Romney leading by 1 point in a state that’s considered leaning toward President Obama.

The poll, conducted by Democratic polling firm Baydoun-Foster for Fox 2 News Detroit, has Romney up 47-46 on Obama. The same polling firm pegged the race in Michigan a tie in a survey late October.

The poll is the first in Michigan since August to give Romney a lead, however, while Obama holds a 3.8 percent lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

Baydoun-Foster’s Michigan polling has leaned more toward Romney than other Michigan surveys by several points throughout the final months of the campaign, a review of RCP’s Michigan polling shows.

"Mr. Excitement" predicts a Romney blow-out.

George Will and Michael Barone, who both define the idea of "buttoned down," are now on the record as predicting that Romney gets more than 300 electoral college votes.

These are unexcitable, experienced gents, but I wonder if they are not realizing that if Romney doesn't pull it off, then that's the end of going with moderate conservatives?

Axelrod signals that Obama is behind in the early voting in Ohio.



From Moe Lane:

There are three things that Axelrod could have said in response here, right off the bat (that’s also important)

1.(If Axelrod knew that Obama was doing better in EV crossover than Romney was) “Those numbers from the Romney campaign are complete nonsense, Chris. We know for a fact that we’re hitting the early vote numbers we need for victory in Ohio…” 2.(If Axelrod knew that his ground game was going to beat Romney’s) “So what? We have beaten the Romney campaign when it comes to ground game, and both sides know it. Look at the numbers [and then reel off stats]…”

3.(If Axelrod knew that the EV vote was bad news for Obama, and that the ground game was bad news for Obama, and that Ohio was shaping up to be bad news for Obama) “Well I’ll tell you what, Chris, we’ll know in two days what the, what the, who is bluffing and who is not bluffing…”

Guess which one Axelrod picked? Yup, #3. And in the process, effectively created a free one-minute web ad for the Republicans where we can see a top Democratic spokesman tacitly concede the claims of the Republican party about Ohio early voting.

Acid indigestion in Chicago.

This was not part of Obama's plan.

Tribune poll says Pennsylvania is too close to call.

President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney entered the final days of the presidential race tied in a state that the campaigns only recently began contesting, a Tribune-Review poll shows.

The poll showed the race for Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes locked up at 47 percent in its final week. Romney was scheduled to campaign in the Philadelphia area on Sunday, and former President Bill Clinton planned to stump for Obama on Monday. The campaigns have begun to saturate the airwaves with millions of dollars in presidential advertising.

If Pennsylvania is in play, and it seems to be, then that implies that there really might be a wave lifting Romney throughout the country.

Poll puts Romney up 1 in Minnesota.

Via left-leaning Politico:

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are separated by just 1 point in Minnesota, effectively making the race there a toss-up, according to polling taken for the conservative American Future Fund.

Romney takes 46 percent of the vote to Obama's 45 percent in the poll, which was conducted by the GOP firm NMB Research and shared with POLITICO. The Republican presidential nominee is up 13 points among independents, ahead of Obama 49 percent to 36 percent.

They survey breaks with recent public data, which has shown Obama maintaining a single-digit edge over Romney, but gives Republicans reason to hope for an upset. Democrats aren't taking the state for granted at this point, with Obama countering pro-Romney ads (including AFF advertising) and deploying Bill Clinton to campaign there.

In a polling memo, pollster Glen Bolger attributes the closeness of the race to Minnesota's overwhelmingly white population.

"Minnesota is very much a battleground state due the low minority population of the state and President Obama’s problems with white voters. Romney has a good chance to pull off one of the biggest upsets of the election cycle in this state," Bolger writes.

The poll tested 500 likely voters on Oct. 30 and 31 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.

Obama drawing smaller crowds in 2012 than McCain did in 2008...

...according to NRO.

Anecdotal. Manipulable. If true, it's a good sign for Romney. But who knows?

Michael Barone goes all in...

...Mitt Romney wins next Tuesday, Romney 315, Obama 223.

Barone calls Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Idaho, Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida for Romney.

The determining question is whether 2012 looks more like 2008 or 2010? Thus, far the early voting is looking a lot more like 2010, which means Romney wins "handily."

Don't get cocky.

Deep, deep "inside baseball."

NRO's Josh Jordan has an explanation for why the race has tightened in Obama's direction.

Election 2012 - The Historical Perspective.

Jay Cost has an interesting article on how independents hold the key to political power.

The scent of panic is in the air.

Democratic Denver Mayor Hancock: Let's Face It, We're Losing Wisconsin Right Now.

GALLUP: Romney Up 52-45% Among Early Voters...

...according to Gallup.

Battleground Poll puts election at...

... Romney 52%, Obama 47%.

Fred Barnes pulls out this paragraph:

In sum, this data indicates this election remains very close on the surface, but the political environment and the composition of the likely electorate favor Governor Romney. These factors come into play with our “vote election model” – which takes into account variables like vote intensity, voters who say they are definite in their vote, and demographics like age and education. In that snapshot of today’s vote model, Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by five-points – 52% to 47%. While that gap can certainly be closed by the ground game of the Democrats, reports from the field would indicate that not to be the case, and Mitt Romney may well be heading to a decisive victory."

Reading the tea leaves...

...but don't get cocky!

Rasmussen predicts Romney electoral college victory at 279+

It's not a victory, but it is much nicer than this time last month when the media was telling us that the election was already over.

Heh, heh, heh.

Rasmussen: Romney up two in Ohio.

Here's the Rasmussen Report:

The race for Ohio’s Electoral College votes remains very close, but now Mitt Romney now has a two-point advantage.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Ohio Voters shows Romney with 50% support to President Obama’s 48%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate, while another one percent (1%) remains undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Ohio remains a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections. Based on the current projections, Romney would have to win Wisconsin if he loses Ohio in order to move into the White House.

The candidates have been locked in a very tight battle in Ohio since August. A week ago, Romney and Obama were tied in the Buckeye State with 48% support each. This is the first time Romney has taken even a modest lead in the race.

Nearly one-in-three Ohio voters (32%) have already cast their ballots. Obama leads 62% to 36% among these voters. Romney has a large lead among those who still plan to vote. The question of who wins Ohio may come down to whether enough Romney voters get to the polls on Election Day to overcome the president’s lead among early voters.

As the Professor says, "don't get cocky, kid"...

...but here's an explanation for why Obama is toast with graphs and math.

An excerpt:

Looked at in that context, it’s pretty clear that (1) both parties have been steadily losing share to independents since the partisan high-water marks of 2002 and 2004, and (2) by far the bigger factor in 2008 was low GOP turnout. And there’s precious little Obama’s campaign or ground operations can do to keep Republicans home; if anything, the harder he presses social wedge issues to fire up his own base, the more likely it is that he’s helping motivate the GOP base. So he has to squeeze out a really large surge in Democrats to offset that.

That’s asking a lot. If you average out the past 7 election cycles, you get an average party ID split of D+3 in presidential election years (D/R/I of 38/35/27) and D+2 in off-year elections (37/35/27). To believe that the D+7 electorate of 2008 is likely to be replayed in 2012, you have to believe some sort of fundamental shift has taken place…but the 2010 elections don’t support that thesis at all. Nor, in Wisconsin, does the 2012 recall election. Take a look at the charts for Ohio and Wisconsin

"The Obama Ground Game Myth."

Jonathan Tobin at Commentary explains:

Why pollsters would assume that a correct sample for the 2012 election would mirror the 2008 results when Obama rode a wave of disgust for the Bush administration and belief in his promise of hope and change is a mystery that demands an explanation that has yet to be forthcoming. Yet Democrats say the question is irrelevant since their ability to generate turnout is so expert and so superior to that of the Republicans they believe there is little doubt that once again the number of their voters will outnumber those of the GOP. To that end, journalists have been citing the fact that there are far more Obama campaign offices in states like Ohio than those working for Romney. But that is an argument that even some on the left understand is largely meaningless. Not only may the ground game advantage be a myth, the changes in partisan affiliation in the last four years render the optimistic poll numbers that are encouraging Democrats in the past week a self-deception that could lead to bitter disappointment on election day.

The field office gap has become as popular a talking point in recent days as the gender gap. Earlier in the week the Atlantic’s Molly Ball reported that not only are the Democrats’ offices more numerous, but that the GOP outlets are either sleepier or lack interest in Romney’s fate as opposed to those of local Republican candidates. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough was so impressed by this argument that he wrote in Politico that it showed that Romney was depending on emotion and intangibles while the Democrats were relying on practical organizational skills.

The problem with this simplistic argument is easily illustrated. There are far fewer GOP field offices, but that’s because as even Kevin Drum, a writer for the left-wing Mother Jones, wrote on Friday, Republicans are operating on a different paradigm:

There’s been a disconnect in the ground games of the major parties for some time. Democrats tend to rely on paid, professional operations, while Republicans rely more on volunteer efforts, largely from evangelical churches. This is something that actually works in the Republicans’ favor, since volunteer efforts from friends and neighbors tend to be more effective at switching votes than professional phone banks. (Also cheaper.)

The other reason why Republicans are not as obsessed with turnout is that their base tends to be more highly motivated and, as a rule, are already registered rather than having to be schlepped out to the polls with great difficulty. They are instead working on convincing independents to give Romney a second look, an effort that has borne fruits as polls show their candidate gaining ground among centrists.

That’s something that gets us to the heart of this conundrum about turnout. As Josh Jordan explains in National Review, both Gallup and Rasmussen agree that the partisan split between Republicans and Democrats has changed markedly since 2008. Whereas four years ago the Democrats had a seven-point advantage, this fall that has become a 1 or 2 point Republican edge.

Under those circumstances, it’s difficult to take seriously those polls like the Investors Business Daily/TIPP tracking poll that shows Obama up by one point, since its sample has seven percent more Democrats than Republicans. But even there, there is little to encourage the president’s supporters since his numbers have been declining in that poll over the past week. You have to believe along with Obama staffer Jim Messina that their ground game that will produce an electorate that is disproportionately Democratic with more minority and young voters than even in 2008 to think such a result is even possible.

This makes the operative question this week not so much whether which polls are accurate as it is how even with a field office advantage can the Democrats possibly manufacture the sort of partisan turnout advantage that could re-elect Obama? In a year when independents are flocking to Romney, there simply may not be enough Democrats, youth or minority voters to offset the fact the GOP base will turn out in numbers that will far eclipse their totals in 2008. Discussion about a ground game may be simply an attempt to distract us from the fact that the president’s campaign is betting everything on an organizational plan that can’t overcome the way the electorate has changed over the course of the Obama presidency.

The Tea Leaves Suggest that Obama's Wedge Strategy is Costing Obama.

Obama promises not to push gay-marriage during his second term.

Makes sense.

Alienating a large portion of your key demographic in return for a fraction of 1% of the population was never a good idea.