50 Days and Counting

There are 50 days until Election Day.

The Presidential race continues to look like a toss-up.

Seven states are critical to the race.  Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.  95 electoral votes are at stake in these states.  All seven (with the exception of Missouri) went to Obama in 2008.

Florida is the most critical of these seven states for Romney with 29 electoral votes.  Obama won Florida by a 2.82% margin in 2008. Ohio with its 18 electoral votes is right behind.  Obama's margin was 4.59% in the Buckeye state. If Romney loses either of these two states it will be difficult to prevail.  However, if he wins these two states and holds Missouri as McCain did four years ago he will be only 17 electoral votes from winning the Presidency.

Virginia has 13.  Wisconsin has 10.  Colorado has 9.  Iowa has 6.  Romney needs 17 of these 38 electoral to get the job done.

The math does not look much different today than it did 100 days ago when I did my initial analysis of the Presidential race.  Neither candidate has been able to close the sale with the voters.

President Obama continues to be able to hang in there despite his dismal record because of a basic rule of human nature.  People are slow to change.  Human beings feel more secure with the familiar.  It is always a risk to venture away from what you know.  Even if it is bad.  After all, it could get even worse!  That is why people are generally slow to turn out an incumbent.  It really is the devil you know.

On the other hand, Governor Romney still has not been able to make the compelling case for the majority of the American people to make a change.  He needs to find a "Hope and Change" formula similar to what Obama concocted four years ago to provide swing voters a reason to move in another direction.

The number of polls out there can be confusing to almost everyone.  One day we hear Romney is up.  The next day we hear that Obama is solidifying his lead.  The next day we are back to a toss-up.

What is difficult in polling is getting the poll results to mirror what the behavior of voters will be on election day.  The key factor is what will the split be between Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  Obama won in 2008 because 39% of the voters that year considered themselves to be Democrats.  This compared to a 32% turnout of Republicans and 29% who considered themselves to be Independents.  Keep that 39D, 32R, 29I split in mind.

When President Bush won in 2004 the split was 37D, 37R, 26I.  Bush won the election in 2004 even though he lost independents 48/50.  He won because he got Republican voters to the polls and history tells us that usually about 90% of self identified party voters will vote for the candidate of their party in an election.

In the 2010 mid-year election which saw Republicans take the U.S. House of Representatives and sweep many state offices, the vote split was 36D, 36R, 28I.

The difference between 2008 and 2010 was a 4% point increase in Republican voters and a 3% decrease in Democrat voters to start with.  However, Independents voted 55% to 39% for Republicans in 2010.  In 2008, Obama won Independents 52% to 44%.  That is why you had what was considered to be a landslide Republican year in 2010 to an Obama sweep in 2008.

50 days from now this election is going to be determined by three big factors.

1.  The Presidential debate.  Can Romney convince voters that he is change they can believe in?

2.  Will Republican voters be energized to vote like they were in 2010?

3.  Can Romney win the Independent vote?

Three recent polls seem to indicate that Romney is making headway with Independent voters.  He is up by 6 points with these voters in the NYT/CBS poll.  He is up by 11 points in the WaPo/ABC News poll.  He is up by a huge 14 points in the CNN/ORC poll.  However, the Fox poll has Romney down by 5 points to Independents.  Go figure how this poll can be such an outlier. (and I thought Fox was supposed to be in the tank for Romney).

However, he is down to Obama in all three polls overall.  This can only mean that the pollsters are assuming a Democrat/Republican turnout more consistent with 2008 than 2010.

You might want to read "Can Obama get reelected losing the independent vote" in Hot Air for more perspective on these polls and the dynamics of the independent vote.

Can I tell you who is going to win in November?  No.  However, give me the answers to the 3 questions above and I might be persuaded to get out on the limb.  Let's check back after the debates for a better idea.