Status of the Electoral College

We have two sets of polls released this morning, and either Obama has suddenly shot well ahead in some states, but are some of these numbers off?

First, let’s look at the pretty reasonable numbers.  Quinnipiac surveyed Florida, showing Obama up 5%, 49-44%.  That’s a bit higher than most recent polls, but it’s still within the realm of possibility.  Both pollsters also surveyed Pennsylvania, with Quinnipiac showing Obama ahead there by 13% while the Big Ten Network shows him up by 11%.  Again, both of those polls are well within reason.

The Big Ten Network also surveyed Illinois, which shows a 29% lead for Obama, Iowa, whish shows a 13% lead for Obama, Michigan, which shows a 22% lead for Obama - that’s quite large, but plausible given that McCain has completely pulled out of the state now - and Wisconsin with a 13% lead.  All of those are at least inline with current polls or plausible given the situation.

Now, I’m separating out Ohio.  At first I thought the Ohio numbers - Quinnipiac showing Obama up by 14% and Big Ten showing Obama up by 12% - were both wrong.  But then when I looked at the recent Ohio numbers, Suffolk also had a recent poll showing Obama up 9%.  the problem is that several other recent polls show numbers such as Obama by 4%, McCain by 2%, and McCain by 1%.

So what’s going on here?  It looks like we’re now having the same problem in Ohio as we’ve had in the past in both Florida and North Carolina: two different sets of likely voter models, one of which is very favorable to McCain and one of which is very favorable to Obama.  As a result, we have one grouping of three polls where the results range from +9 to +14 for Obama, and another grouping of three polls where the range is from +2 McCain to +4 Obama.  Which is right?  There really isn’t any good way to know.  And we have reputable pollsters in each group as well.

My hunch is to actually agree with the polls showing a near-tied race.  The first reason is because Quinnipiac has tended to show larger margins for Obama than other pollsters anyway.  The second reason is that, at least this time around, the Big Ten polls appear to be greatly favoring Obama as well, as you’ll see in a second.

Next, on to the states where the polling definitely seems off, and both of these are Big Ten polls.  There are a couple of states which seem just way off when looking at their numbers.

This poll shows Obama up 19% in Minnesota.  This lead just seems way too big.  Most polls in the state show the lead to be between about 6 and 12%.  The Star Tribune at the start of the month was really the only recent poll showing such a margin, and their more recent numbers have narrowed it down to a more realistic margin.

Second, this poll shows Obama up 10% in Indiana.  Now, having a poll showing Obama ahead in Indiana isn’t unheard of: the most recent PPP poll showed Obama up by 2% there.  But by and large, most polls in the state have shown a consistent McCain lead in the state, not an Obama one, to say nothing about a double-digit Obama lead.

So I think Quinnipiac is either right or at least plausible on 2 out of 3 polls, but Big Ten blows it on at least 2 and as many as 4 of their 8 polls.  Since I don’t make judgement calls about what polls I stick into the database, these are still going in, but I thought I would express my thoughts about these polls as I do.

So says the Politico who says that McCain is shutting down all operations in the state.

This seems to be a really ominous sign for the McCain campaign.  For one, it suggests that they’re already running out of money a full month before the election.  It’s just difficult to keep up with an Obama campaign which will probably have $150 to $200 million to spend in the general election vs. McCain’s $84 million.

Second, it suggests that McCain has decided to play an entirely defensive electoral strategy.

McCain really has no choice but to try to just barely win.  Now, there are two ways to do this.  The first is to broadly defend all of Bush’s states, but to also go after big battleground Kerry states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.  Basically pile as much money into those states as possible, regardless of the polling, and pray on election day. The bad part of this plan is that McCain’s money gets spread around, but the good part is that if he could have picked off Michigan, that insulates him much better just in case Obama can win, say, Colorado and Nevada or something.

The second is to cede all the Kerry states plus probably Iowa and New Mexico, and battle for a 274-264 win over Obama.  This would mean that all of McCain’s money would be concentrated toward trying to preserve states that would tip the election to Obama.  In this case, that would be Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, and probably Nevada since McCain can’t really afford a tie either.

The pros to this campaign is that it allows him to concentrate and conserve cash, which is why I think he may already be running out of money.  The bad side to this strategy is that the entire firewall has to hold.  If he loses even a single state, he loses.

Yet, the abandoning of Michigan suggests that this second strategy may be where he’s going.  Given that Pennsylvania is looking even better than Michigan, I almost wouldn’t be surprised if McCain pulls out of there pretty soon too if the polls don’t start turning around.  That would probably leave New Hampshire as the only Kerry state which McCain would have any real shot of still winning.

Michigan has now become the 4th state in 2 days to switch from Too Close To Call to Weak Obama, extending Obama’s official lead over McCain to 260-163 with 115 Too Close to Call.

This constitutes the most Electoral Votes in Obama’s total, the biggest lead Obama’s had over McCain, and the fewest Too Close To Call Electoral Votes since July 22nd when the totals were Obama 280, McCain 154, Too Close To Call 104.

This is effectively the best position Obama has been in since the 3 to 4 weeks which marked his peak after clinching the Democratic Nomination in July.

Since yesterday, 58 Electoral Votes have switched to the Obama column.  This now leaves New Hampshire as the only Kerry state left on the Too Close To Call list.  There are a total of 9 states with 115 Electoral Votes remaining in the Too Close To Call list.

For the first time in about a week, obama is back over 200 Electoral votes with Washington moving from Too Close To Call to Weak Obama this afternoon.

Recent polls have also pushed lean McCain states pusher to lean Obama states, with Ohio only having a 1.7% lead for McCain and his lead in Indiana down to 2.6%

Meanwhile, Obama is rebounding in other states, including Michigan where he now leads by 3.9% and now may be in a position to push Michigan back into his count soon.

P.S.: If you notice on the sidebar, we’ve now passed 500,000 total respondents for polls conducted in 2008 (that I count).