The latest electoral vote forecast is unchanged at Obama 337 – Romney 201, but with today’s update, the uncertainty in those estimates decreases a bit. The main reason is another round of state polls showing Obama maintaining his lead in pivotal states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. But just as importantly, new polls in safe Romney states – including Arizona, Missouri, and North Dakota – also show no consistent up- or down-trends.
Taken together, these polls let us not only be more confident in current estimates of Obama’s standing, but also in the overall stability of the race up to this point. One of the ways my model projects forward to Election Day is by assessing the past volatility in voter preferences. If and when the polls begin to indicate more instability in voter preferences, more uncertainty will go back into the forecast. As I mentioned the other day, however, an unusually large proportion of voters are already saying they’ve made up their minds. It’s not as if nothing’s happening out on the campaign trail – only, none of it’s moving public opinion.
The bottom line is that Mitt Romney is facing a very large uphill climb right now. Every major survey aggregator is in agreement that Obama is ahead in current state-level polling – and many see the number of states in the tossup category dwindling. HuffPost has Obama at 290 electoral votes, with only Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia as tossups. Not to be outdone, TPM puts Obama at 310, with just two tossups – Virginia and Colorado. RCP is less aggressive, but still shows Romney needing to (nearly) run the table.
To put things in perspective, Romney could win Indiana, North Carolina, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, and Iowa, and still lose the election. For Romney to rebound, something will have to happen over the next three months to either win over decided Obama supporters, or make undecided voters break overwhelmingly away from Obama – which evidence suggests could be a challenging proposition.
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