Michigan is Moved Back to Mr. Obama – but Colorado Goes to Mr. Romney

The Race is Still Mr. Romney’s to Lose

What has happened in the last several days is that the state polls have started to move with the national polls.  For some reason state polls have seemed to lag national poll movement, but now that Mr. Romney has surged to a tie or lead in the national polls, states polls are also starting to move in his favor.

Earlier this Forum moved Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin to Mr. Romney.  But the latest polling suggests that Michigan has not moved, and that actions of the candidates indicate Mr. Romney has ceded Michigan, at least at this point.  So Michigan goes back to Mr. Obama.  Unfortunately for him, Colorado now moves to the Romney camp, so the pickup in electoral votes for Mr. Obama is not much.

Here is the new guaranteed (until it changes) way the Presidential election will play out.

		States
Certain		Competitive		Certain		Competitive
Romney		Romney		Obama		Obama
Alabama	9			California	55	Michigan	16
Alaska	3			Connecticut	7	Iowa	6
Arkansas	6	Arizona	11	Delaware	3	Maine	4
Georgia	16	Florida	29	D. C.	3	New Jersey	14
Idaho	4	Missouri	10	Hawaii	4	Pennsylvania	20
Indiana	11	Montana	3	Illinois	20	Washington	12
Kansas	6	Nevada	6	Maryland	10	Minnesota	10
Kentucky	8	New Hampshire	4	Massachusetts	11	New Mexico	5
Louisiana	8	North Carolina	15	New York	29
Mississippi	6	Virginia	13	Oregon	7
North Dakota	3	Wisconsin	10	Rhode Island	4
Nebraska	5	Colorado	9	Vermont	3
Oklahoma	7	Ohio	18
South Carolina	9
South Dakota	3
Tennessee	11
Texas	38
Utah	6
West Virginia	5
Wyoming	3
			Totals
Certain	167		128	Certain	156		87
Competitive	128			Competitive	87
Total	295			Total	243

At this point Florida becomes crucial for Mr. Obama.  He could win by taking back Florida or by taking back Wisconsin and Ohio.  So far there is not movement either in the national polls or state polls to suggest he can do that.

Notice also that Nate Silver, the real expert here is slowly moving to Mr. Romney.

But unlike earlier, Mr. Romney is now seeing some of his best results in swing state polls. Six of the seven polls published on Friday from such states had him ahead.

Thus, just as the hypothesis of a fading Romney bounce was damaged on Friday, so was the idea (which we critiqued in an earlier post) that his gains would be more modest in the swing states.

It might be noted that some of the state polls released on Friday were from firms that have had Republican-leaning results, and they might slightly exaggerate his standing. It is unlikely, for instance, that Mr. Romney would win New Hampshire by four percentage points right now, as implied by an American Research Group poll of the state.

But even polls that are Republican- or Democratic-leaning can still be useful in detecting the race’s trend, and it is one that clearly favors Mr. Romney.

He still has Mr. Obama favored, but every day the probabilities move towards Mr. Romney.  When Mr. Silver finally moves the race to Mr. Romney, it will really be all over but the counting of the votes.  Once Nate Silver calls it for Romney, and he will in about 10 days or less it’s highly unlikely to change.