The two tracking polls with the best results for predicting presidential contests now have three days of data after the selection of Paul Ryan as the running mate for Mitt Romney in their calculation and and both polls are indicating that the Romney/Ryan ticket is opening a lead on Obama/Biden nationally. The Rasmussen Tracking poll today shows Romney with a 45% – 44% lead over President Obama while Gallup’s Tracking poll shows Romney maintaining a lead of 47% – 45%.
The average of these two polls is now showing the Romney/Ryan campaign with 46% and the Obama/Biden at 44.5%.
The average approval rate for President Obama is now negative 4.5% meaning that 4.5% more of those polled disapprove of the Presidents job performance than approve of it. The average approval rating for the President was 46.0% and the average disapproval was 50.5%. Both items were unchanged from yesterday but for the first time the Gallup Poll reported a disapproval rating of 50% for President Obama.
Electoral college polls all still show President Obama with a lead over Romney on the basis of having strong leads in the big city dominated states of California, New York, and Illinois. The current safe electoral counts for President Obama and Mitt Romney are 201 and 181 respectively with 156 electors considered to be either toss ups or within the margin of error. The gap for Obama in the toss up states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, & Florida have closed to be within one percent with Obama still clinging to a lead in Wisconsin and the other states all now barely in Romney’s camp.
In an examination of all polls published after August 13th and applying them to the elector count, if the election were held today and the most recent polls are accurate Romney would win the presidency over Obama by an electoral vote of 282 – 256
From the author of electionprojection.com who tossed the Rasmussen poll in Ohio today as an outlier.
“I understand that Rasmussen’s polls measure likely voters while most of the rest only measure registered voters. I also believe Rasmussen’s polls to be closer to the actual sentiment of the electorate out there. That said, I have instituted an outlier test that I must adhere to – even when the outlying poll mirrors my preference for a given race. Don’t worry, though, just as in 2010, the rest of the crowd will migrate toward Rasmussen’s view before the votes are cast. In order to maintain legitimacy, they must.”
Comments are closed.