The final #s aren’t in yet but it’s already clear that Rasmussen’s final poll #s missed in favor of Mitt Romney in every single swing state.
They also missed in favor of Romney when it comes to the national numbers (which are also not finalized yet.)
This is not a fluke. Rasmussen missed just as badly in favor of Republicans in 2008 and 2010.
Who got it right? Nate Silver. Silver predicted the correct winner in all 50 states (his analysis was the main basis for my own prediction – although I gave Florida to Obama earlier than he did based on the trend.)
This is also not a fluke, Silver nailed 2008 as well.
I predict President Obama will win re-election on Tuesday with at least 303 electoral votes (270 are needed to win the White House.)
According to Nate Silver at 538; Obama has at least 65% odds in states that add up to 303 electoral votes (Colorado at 65% & Virginia at 66% are the two weakest links.)
Obama would make it to 332 electoral votes with a victory in Florida which appears to be very close. Silver calls it a “toss-up” and has Obama’s odds of victory at 45%.
To get to 347, he would also have to win North Carolina which is a longer shot. Silver has Obama’s odds in NC at 20%.
In the end I think Obama will pull out Florida but probably fall just a little bit short in North Carolina for a total of 332 electoral votes (vs. 206 for Mitt Romney.)
The Popular Vote
Calling the national popular vote is a bit more difficult (and less important as it doesn’t technically mean anything.) National polling seems to indicate the race is closer than the state polling. Silver has Obama with a 2.1% lead nationally.
I think the likely voter models have been skewed a bit too much in favor of the Republicans and that in the end Obama will win nationally by a bit more than the polls suggest.
But my popular vote optimism is tempered somewhat by Hurricane Sandy’s possible impact on Election Day voting in the northeast. These are states where Obama is expected to rack up huge victories so lower than normal turn-out could lower his overall popular vote totals (while not really effecting his electoral prospects because he’s still a lock to win these states.)
The unemployment rate stayed below 8% at 7.9%. This is now two months in a row below 8% after months of the Republicans campaigning on the unemployment rate staying above 8%.
Yes, the most recent Gallup tracker has Romney up by 5% points (despite the fact that they have the incumbent President at 51% approval) but is this really something that Romney supporters should latch onto while ignoring the other polling evidence that suggests that Obama is clearly in the lead when it comes to the race to 270?
I used web.archive.org to find out what Gallup has said about the past four presidential races at about this time:
1996:On November 2, 1996 they had President Clinton ahead of Bob Dole by 16% points. A few days later Clinton won by 8.5% points.
2000: I already posted about how way off the mark Gallup was in 2000. Less than two weeks before the election they had Bush winning by 13% points, but ended up losing the popular vote by 0.5% points.
2008: On this date in ’08 they had Obama winning by 3% in the traditional likely voter model (to be fair they did have Obama up by the eventual 7% margin in the “expanded” model.)
Conclusion
This is a truly terrible track record. You could have done better by guessing. To take Gallup’s national tracker as the gospel while ignoring 538/Nate Silver & PEC/Sam Wang is absurd.
New polling from Quinnipiac/NY Times/CBS has President Obama ahead by a solid 5% margin in Ohio and by 2% & 1% points in Virginia & Florida, respectively.
The significance of these Obama swing state leads is fully realized when you consider there is no realistic path to 270 electoral votes for Mitt Romney unless he wins all three of these states.
PPP / Ohio
PPP has a new Ohio poll out as well and they also have Obama up by 5% points in this crucial state.
These days Romney supporters are “clinging” to the Gallup tracker poll (the “Likely Voter” version anyway) as evidence that their candidate has a lead in this race and is likely to win on November 6th.
Today Gallup is showing Mitt Romney with a 5% point lead in their LV model (even though they say it’s tied among registered voters.)
But let’s put that # in context. Where was Gallup 12 years ago today? On October 26, 2000 Gallup had the race at:
George W. Bush 52%
Al Gore 39%
Gore went on to win the national vote on November 7th by 0.5%! Gallup missed by over 13% points less than two weeks before the election.
In 2008, Nate Silver called 49 out of 50 states correctly. Sam Wang’s methodology nailed every state in both 2004 & 2008. There’s really no comparison between Gallup’s tracking poll and these advanced poll aggregating systems as far as accuracy is concerned.
It’s ridiculous the way so many are acting like Gallup is the last word on where the race is considering how terrible their track record is.
Tonight’s instant poll of undecided voters from CBS News gave President Obama a commanding victory of Mitt Romney in the final debate of the 2012 presidential election:
Obama: 53%, Romney 23%
In comparison, take a look back at the results of this same instant poll after each of the previous debates; Obama won the previous debate by a 37% to 30% margin, Joe Biden beat Paul Ryan 50% to 31% in the VP debate, and Mitt Romneylied his way to a 46% to 22% win in the first debate.
This 30% margin betters the 24% margin that Romney had in debate 1 and the 19% margin Biden had over Ryan in the VP debate making this the most convincing debate victory of the four.
One of the Many Debate Highlights for the President
There were many great moments for the President (and likewise terrible moments for Mitt Romney) in tonight’s overwhelming debate victory for Obama but perhaps the best moment for the President (and worst for Romney) was this exchange over President Obama using the phrase word “terror” the day after the attacks in Libya:
