39 Days: Obama leads in every single tossup/battleground state
I wrote yesterday that you’re going to be seeing a lot more stories doing postmortem on Mitt Romney’s campaign, as the inevitability of his defeat sets in because of polling and the electoral mountain that Romney simply can’t reasonably clime without a major outside event. It has already begun.
My sources for electoral college projections have been limited to reliable sources, and I’ve still been unable to find any projections from conservative sites, papers, news orgs, or pundits. Is that because they know how hard it would be to fake an electoral projection, versus faking polls like Rasmussen does? Or because they simply aren’t invested in “news” enough to bother?
Regardless, I’ve expanded my sources by five of varying credibility. For credible sources, between Real Clear Politics, CNN, and Talking Points Memo, Obama leads Romney 278 to 191, with 270 needed to win. Those sites still have tossup states undecided. Between Nate Silver/538 and Pollster, Obama leads 324 to 317 without any tossups.
For the sites/people of questionable credibility (linked at bottom), Obama leads by an average of 311 to 197. For everything:
General Election
* Barack Obama is surging enough that even Rasmussen is showing him with a slim 1 point lead. Given how biased Rasmussen is, that’s worth a 4-6 point lead with any respected, reputable pollster.
* The Economist wonders if America forced everyone to vote, if Democrats would win every Presidential election. I haven’t read the story, but the answer is probably yes, with reservations. Party ID polls have shown a lead for Democrats over Republicans (fake Independents trump all) for decades, and with fake Independents removed by forcing leaners, Democrats take the top spot. One of the reservations is that polls also routinely show more conservatives than liberals, which means there are a lot of conservative Democrats in America that aren’t necessarily partyline sheep.
* People dislike Mitt Romney even more than George W. Bush, who left office as the most unpopular President (job approval) in modern history. Sam Stein notes that Bush is also more popular than Joe Biden. I would note: nobody comes anywhere close to the popularity of Bill Clinton.
* AP: “Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Thursday that he wants the Republican campaign message to be so detailed and compelling that Mitt Romney will be elected president ‘by acclamation.’” — That’s an odd statement since a primary criticism of Paul Ryan’s budget in Congress, and Mitt Romney’s budget proposals for the next four years is that they are so lacking in detail as to be meaningless.
* A documentary about John Huntsman says the GOP has “an overly simplistic and extreme way of looking at the world.”
* At least some in the corporate stenographic media aren’t taking anti-poll rage from the right with a coke and a smile.
* New voter registration was a big factor in Obama’s 2008 win, and this story says it’s what’s keeping him competitive in North Carolina again this cycle. What it doesn’t say: North Carolina’s demographics are changing, albeit slowly, to the blue anyway. Manufacturing and farm jobs are out, tech and finance are in. The former tend to be conservative jobs, the latter, liberal. And NBC’s latest poll has Obama ahead in the state by two points. Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by about 14,000 votes, the tightest race in the nation.
* Extremely reputable Charlie Cook: If Romney doesn’t pull something out of his ass quickly, his Big Money may dry up as donors shift to maximizing Senate gains which are looking extremely small lately, making things much worse.
* NBC News: in our latest round of battleground polls, Obama leads them all.
* In the latest FOX News poll from a few days ago, Obama leads Romney by more than 5 points for the White House, on foreign policy, terrorism, moral leadership, and the economy/jobs. Romney leads on “managing your tax dollars” (1 point), and cutting government spending (17 points!) (no link)
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The new sites for electoral college projections are: ElectionProjection.com: 347-191, Electoral-vote.com: 332-206, Josh Putnam: 332-206, Princeton Election Consortium: 298-191, 270towin.com: 247-100-191