Recent polls in NH and FL have shown a closer race than polls out a few weeks ago. A couple polls in NH show only a 2 or 3 point lead for Obama, down from about 10 points. In Florida, a recent poll shows McCain only up by two points on Obama. Perhaps the biggest shift is in Ohio, where Obama’s lead of as much as 6 points last month has now turned into a 6 point lead for McCain in the latest Rasmussen poll. In Michigan, two polls out last week show markedly different results — Rasmussen has Obama up by 8, while a Detroit News poll indicates the race is much closer, with only 2 points separating the candidates.
Some people have written and asked why we don’t update the swing states on our interactive map for changes in polls. Our answer has been that the interactive map is based on a combination of both history and polls; the latest poll results show that it is far too soon to move states like MI, OH, FL and NH out of swing status. Visit the polling map to see how the electoral college looks purely based on current polling.
2 responses so far ↓
1 quincyconscience // Jul 24, 2008 at 2:37 am
what are your qualifications for including a poll in your state averages? I don’t really have a critique to go with this, but it seems that among all news organizations and blogs that everybody has slightly different numbers. The big 2 that seem to be consistent are Rasmussen and Survey USA, but here you mention a local news source. Did you include that in Michigan polling map? How many polls include potential wild card spoilers like Nader and Barr? Love the site, thanks.
270TOWIN: You actually make a very good point. We’re trying to stick primarily to the big 2 you mention, but there hasn’t been much out of Survey USA (at least that is publicly available) in recent weeks. While the Rasmussen polls look reasonable, we’re not sure it is a good idea to go with a single source. So, we’re trying to supplement these polls with others that we come across, particularly if they tell a different story that is more consistent with historical trends and/or they replace polls that are more than a couple weeks old. (For those that tell a different story, like the Michigan one you mention, we use an average). However, there isn’t any great science behind it other than trying to paint a balanced picture of what is out there. There aren’t many polls that we’ve seen that specifically ask about Nader or Barr, although there is sometimes an option for ‘other’. Barr’s name is most likely to show up in polls in Georgia and states with a strong Libertarian streak, like Alaska.
2 Zach // Jul 27, 2008 at 2:11 pm
What I don’t understand is why you shifted Ohio so dramatically toward McCain, while the latest SurveyUSA and Quinnipiac polls still favor Obama. It seems a little extreme to put Ohio in the leaning McCain category when there is still a 16 point gap between the Quinnipiac and the Rasmussen.
270TOWIN: This was a very close call, but since the other polls were several weeks old, we decided not to weight them. This is generally the rule we’ve been following, but obviously it takes on added relevance in such an important swing state. Hopefully, there will be another Ohio poll out this week to give us a better perspective on whether our approach was correct or not.
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