Presidential Polls: Candidates Essentially Tied Nationwide, Obama Holds Electoral College Edge
Presidential polls have settled since Mitt Romney erased a wide Barack Obama lead with a strong first debate performance, and now the majority of polls show the candidates tied or within a few points nationally.
There are positives for each candidates in these polls, however. For Romney, an election once seen as slipping away is now firmly within reach. Most polls nationwide show the GOP challenger with a narrow lead or tied with Obama, though there are some outliers like the The Gallup Daily tracking poll that shows Romney up seven points and an Investors Business Daily/TIPP survey that shows Obama with a nearly six-point lead.
A national tracking model from HuffPost Pollster smooths out these outlying presidential polls to see a remarkably close race:
The differences among these surveys, whether the result of ordinary random sampling error or variations in the methods used by the pollsters, are less important for the moment than their collective finding of a near tie nationwide. The HuffPost Pollster poll tracking model, which takes into account all public polls both national and statewide, currently shows a virtual tie as of this writing. Any brief uptick for Obama since the second presidential debate has been washed out by the surveys released since Saturday.
For Obama, there is still a positive to take from a race once decidedly in hand that has now become razor thin. He still has many paths to victory. The president has slumped nationally since his poor performance in the first debate, but presidential polls from the important swing states showed that Obama has been able to maintain his firewall in these states.
If Obama can win Ohio, Wisconsin, and either Iowa or Nevada, he will have the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the election. So far he holds narrow leads in all all of those states, but his hold on Ohio is seen as the most important.
An Ohio survey released on Monday morning by CBS News and Quinnipiac University shows Obama leading Romney by five points (50 to 45 percent). Though a good sign for Obama, this presidential poll still represents a five-point swing for Romney, who had trailed by 10 points in a previous survey.
The HuffPost Pollster tracking model for Ohio puts Obama with a lead of a little more than two percentage points (48.4 to 45.8), though it does not include all polls released Monday.
In Iowa, presidential polls have shown mixed results. The Democratic party-affiliated pollster Public Policy Polling (PPP), showed Mitt Romney holding a one-point edge in its own survey and Obama with a one-point edge in a poll for the group Health Care for America Now.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll from last week in Ohio, one that used both landline and mobile phones, gave Obama an 8-point lead (51 to 43 percent).
The election tracking blog FiveThirtyEight noted that the presidential polls have settled into a period of relative stability recently. The blog’s election forecast was essentially changed over the weekend, with Obama holding a close to 68 percent change of winning the Electoral College.
As the blog’s author Nate Silver noted, this may seem out of whack with nationwide polls:
These estimates might seem to be incongruous with national polls that show a nearly tied race. But the FiveThirtyEight method is, principally, an Electoral College simulation, and therefore relies more heavily on state-by-state polls. Our estimates of the popular vote in the critical states are highly similar to those of other Web sites that use different methods to calculate them.
Silver pointed to a series of polls from swing states that show the race tilting toward Obama:
The difference between pollsters using landline phones only and those also taking mobile phones could make a difference nationwide in presidential polls, HuffPost Pollster noted. The discrepancy causes enough of a change to cast doubt on the accuracy of any polls, the report notes:
Obama’s Ohio margin was much closer, however, on several automated telephone surveys conducted in the past week, polls that are banned by federal law from dialing cell phones. According to a recent government survey, more than half of the adults in Ohio either have only a mobile phone (33 percent) or use their mobile phone to answer most of their calls (18 percent). A live interviewer poll conducted by Fox News last week that sampled both landline and mobile phones gave Obama a 3-percentage point edge in Ohio (46 to 43 percent).
With the third and final debate taking place, both candidates could have their last best chance to move presidential polls in one direction or another. Assuming analysis from FiveThirtyEight and HuffPost Pollster holds up, however, the race for president will go down to the wire on election night.
Tags : 2012 presidential race, Barack Obama, battleground state polls, electoral college, electoral college projection, iowa polls, Iowa presidential polls, Mitt Romney, ohio polls, Ohio presidential polls, presidential polls, presidential polls 2012, swing state polls, who wil win the 2012 presidential election, who will win the election
Posted: October 22, 2012
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Oct 26, 2012
Yea let us all settle now, we have Obama for another 4 years and that is for sure.
Oct 26, 2012
I wonder why there's no comments from the repulicans on this story, I think I know the answer.
Oct 26, 2012
You would think more people would have better sense than to vote for four more years of Obama.
Oct 26, 2012
Really liz thats what we said when you voted for bush for two terms.
Oct 26, 2012
we will see nov 6 these polls are nothing either way.
Oct 26, 2012
When you've got more electoral votes you know who is going to win!
Oct 26, 2012
Americans are amazing and these polls are lying, who in their right mind would want a president who uses young girls in his ads talking about their first? OK he complains about Bush 6 trillion in 8 years which is totally ridiculous, while his 16 trillion and climbing in four, more than ALL the presidents combined since our nations history, lied about everything,
Acorn, Romney, taxes, healthcare, oil permits, Libya, Fast and Furious, our Middle East relationships, Mexico relationships, Bin Laden, economy, job reports, his religion, while gas prices have doubled, Tuition and purchase prices have skyrocketed, while interest rates are low and this is election year. Giving all our jobs to Canada and China, lets oil spew all over the Gulf and accepts no help from international community. Then he he has the audasity Romney a BS er while he has lied about everything while doing nothing. Not even attended a security council meeting, I don't believe it, I am from California and I see Romney signs all over the place and no one I know is voting for him, I guess people want America runned by the Chicago Mob and their Czars. Total ghetto
Oct 27, 2012
what are you on and whatever it is i DONT want any
Oct 27, 2012
Liz, get your head out of your ASH.
Oct 27, 2012
Katy, For heaven's sake, get back on your Meds, you Bi-polor B–ch
Oct 28, 2012
How about 4 more years of GEORGE BUSH policy??? Catastrophic for the nation!
Oct 28, 2012
Do not let these polls mislead you…………..get off your ass and vote!
Oct 28, 2012
Obama reminds me of something brown I leave in the toilet each day. Ready to flush him away like I do my #2.
Oct 28, 2012
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Oct 28, 2012
I'm with Katy 100%
Oct 28, 2012
Susan Lindauer …DNC RHETORIC..THINK FOR YOURSELF.
Oct 28, 2012
here's a response…this article like all left leaning media..is wrong..the crowds are larger at every event ofr Romeny and the electoral college they have in obama columen is far to close to count as his…meaning he is not as close as this article says..just more lies ,distortion and desperation from Obama.
Oct 28, 2012
if Obama goes in it si more of the same, more unemployment(blacks 15%) ,more debt(16 tr+) more division,more cronism,the country is dying at the hands of this incompetent Marxist. NOW HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 4 AMERICANS DEATH IN BEHGHAZI,a scandal the MSM refuses to tell people because it is an indictment of the incompetency of Obama admistration and the fact Obama lied for 14 days. He saw it in real time,went to bed ,then Nevada as these men were begging for help….OBAMA SUCKS AS HUMAN BEING AND A PRESIDENT.
Oct 28, 2012
Romeny will win hands down.
Oct 28, 2012
absolutely..what is amazing the Obama media has been covering up Benghazi and other facts about the incompetence of Obama..he has givineg nothing about the next 4 years except 08 rhetoric, and yet with all this help Romeny is tied or ahead in most states and is either ahead or gaining major ground in the swing states ! that in itself says a lot….
Oct 28, 2012
If Romeny is like Bush, then Obama is like Carter !
Oct 28, 2012
thing is Obama does not have more…it is lies to 'BRAINWASH"..hoping to desuade repubs from voting..except it energizes..Obama is the worst president in history.
Oct 28, 2012
MS THOMPSON you are paranoid
Oct 28, 2012
racist
Oct 28, 2012
Glenn, you are an idiot and so is Katy..LOL
Oct 28, 2012
Kathy, what is worse are those ignorant comments you keep posting.
Oct 28, 2012
You racist fool. I am sure you look and smell like that #2. You moth^&#*cker
Oct 28, 2012
If republicans run anybody but the idiot they did they might have a chance!
Oct 28, 2012
This country is tired of war, tired of watching our kids die in some other country, tired of watching them come home an wither away to nothing, tired of politicians deciding the fate of thousands of american lives. Now we have a man running for office who marched in favor of the vietnam war, protesting against those who were opposed to that war knowing god damn well he would never have to serve, knowing his father had a spot in france all picked out for him when the draft knocked on his door. This is the man you want to decide who is or who isn't a friend to this country? Wake me up when this shit is over, If Mitt Romney is our president and another Bush diaster happens will these people be happy then? I'm really starting to think that you republicans are the devil.
Oct 28, 2012
Why is it that obama lovers talk more about Bush than they do obama?
Oct 28, 2012
I don't like either candidate but religion comes before my income.
Oct 28, 2012
Saying Obama is a shit president is racist? You people who scream racism every 5 seconds need to get your heads out of your asses!
Oct 28, 2012
Why the heck is this article considering New Mexico to be a battleground state? Using the numbers from that state alone skews the results further towards Obama. On Real Clear Politics New Mexico has been in the "Likely Obama" category, never in the Toss Up. Taking that state out of consideration for the battlegrounds the numbers would be (if I did the math correctly): 538: Obama +1.3, RCP: Obama +1, Huffpost: Obama +1.9, and TPM: Obama +1. That is just using the numbers in the chart given above minus New Mexico for that day alone. It doesn't change their conclusion that Obama has a slim lead (at the time this article was written), except that it is a little closer among the actual battleground states.
Oct 29, 2012
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Oct 29, 2012
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Oct 29, 2012
If you are a veteran, google VEAP; especially if you are over 50 with or without 20 years of serviice, and thank Pres. Obama for providing you with a chance to be job ready rrather than companies looking overseas to fill jobs. If you are without insurance (health) due to pre condiitioned illness, thank Pres. Obama for placing "obamacare", If you were concerned about another "911" Thank President Obama for quietly in the midst of public criticism for the killing of Bin Laden, If you are unemployed, Presl Obama does not hire or fire (Like Romney), but he did provide several tiers to extend unemployment until you CAN obtain a job. President Obama has not lied about "jeep going overseas"….Think people…think!
Oct 29, 2012
Kathy Butler Thompson, Please please do not believe that President Obama, determines employment. PLEASE! CEO' s determine how much revenue they will generate and line their pockets and that of their shareholders. Remember now, Republicans do not want government intervention, so really, do you truly believe that he determines employment? You AR!E much wiser than that!!!!
Nov 7, 2012
Congratulations! Obama wins!
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Nov 21, 2012
Like a turd you flush but keeps coming back up. I hate that!