News from the Votemaster

New Batch of Polls Welcome News for Obama

A new batch of polls released yesterday (see below for the numbers) spells good news for President Obama. With Obama leading in Wisconsin by 5-8 points, it looks like Paul Ryan has failed to do the running mate's main job: bring in your home state. In Ohio, four new polls show Obama leading by an average of 3.8%. Obama is also leading in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. Two of the three polls put him ahead in Virginia and he is essentially tied in Florida and Colorado. It appears that Romney's post-debate momentum has now stopped, If the current numbers continue to hold over the weekend, the popular vote could be close but Obama is likely to win the electoral college because he needs to win only a few of the big swing states whereas Romney needs to win them all.

Poll: Obama Doing a Good Job Dealing with the Storm

About 80% of likely voters say that President Obama is doing a good or excellent job of dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Even 2/3 of those voters who support Mitt Romney give Obama credit for doing a fine job. These results are from the latest WaPo/ABC poll. The poll, held nationwide, shows that 18% of all likely voters have already voted, rising to 23% in the swing states.

Can Romney Expand the Map?

By now, everyone who is paying attention can cite all the swing states from memory, recite their capitals, name their governors, and describe the smell of their state flowers. But now the Romney campaign is claiming it can expand the map by putting Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota into play. Obama advisor David Axelrod responded by saying that if Romney wins even one of those states, he will shave off the mustache he has had for 40 years on national television. It is true that Romney is now advertising in those states, but he has more money than he is able to spend, so that says almost nothing. Similarly, Obama is countering those ads with his own, but he, too, has more money than he can reasonably use, so this is just a precaution and probably means little. In 2008, near the end, the governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, publicly pleaded with Obama to dump a load of money on ads in his state because an internal poll showed big problems ahead. Instead, McCain began pouring money into the state but Obama didn't. Obama carried the state by 600,000 votes. Most likely, Rendell, a canny old pol, achieved his goal: tricking McCain into wasting money on a state he had virtually no chance of winning.

Jobs Report Will be Issued Friday at 8:30 A.M.

In a year full of surprises, there may be one more in store for us. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has confirmed that the October unemployment report will be released at 8:30 A.M. tomorrow, as planned. There was some doubt about the release date because the office was closed for two days due to Hurricane Sandy.

A lot is riding on the report. If unemployment has dropped compared to last month's 7.8%, Obama and the Democrats will cheer. If it has gone up, the Republicans will try to stifle a cheer, but use the last three days of the campaign to say that Obama has failed and now Romney should be put in charge to create more jobs.

The only thing for sure is that the report will be very contentious. And it should be. It is really nothing more than a poll, albeit a big one. The BLS asks about 140,000 employers about the sizes of their payrolls. A change of 100,000 in the employment figures could swing the election, yet this is only a drop in the bucket in a country with a labor pool of 130 million people. Furthermore, the unemployment number reported is no more exact than any other poll. Because it is not a random sample, the margin of error is generally not reported, but it is certainly several tenths of a percent. Unfortunately, the media treat the number as though it were an exact count of the unemployed, which it most definitely is not.

Will the Loser Blame It on Sandy?

There is a very real possibility that if Obama loses the election, his supporters will say that he actually lived John McCain's slogan "Country First" and lost three precious days actually doing his day job instead of zipping around Ohio. This allows them to forget that his stimulus wasn't big enough to fix the economy, he wasted months negotiating with the Republicans on the ACA instead of just ramming it through Congress using the budget reconciliation process, and he completely botched the first presidential debate. Just say he was unlucky to catch some bad weather at the end of the season. Much nicer.

If Romney loses, his supporters will say that it wasn't fair Obama was handed a Commander-in-Chief moment by providence. They can then conveniently ignore the fact that his party was solidly against him in the primaries and he won them only because he outspent his opponents by vast margins and targeted them with vicious ads, foolishly allowed Obama to define him all summer without responding, and never answered any questions about how he was going to fix the economy or create more jobs.

Of course, there are a few ways Sandy could actually affect the election. It could disturb early and election-day voting substantially. And all the kisses Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) is blowing in Obama's direction could convince Republican-leaning voters in Virginia that maybe Obama isn't so bad after all. But probably none of this matters since the polls don't appear to be much different post Sandy than they were pre Sandy.

Native Americans Sue Montana over Voting Rights

Native Americans who live on reservations are U.S. citizens and can vote in federal and state elections--if they like driving. Fifteen Native Americans have sued the state of Montana for lack of a place to register and vote anywhere near their reservation. Some of them may have to drive over 100 miles to get to the nearest polling place. The U.S. Dept. of Justice supports their lawsuit. Their tribes have even offered to pay the costs of operating a polling place on the reservation.

At first, this sounds much like the now-usual story of a Republican Secretary of State trying to disenfranchise poor Democrats. But it is not. Native Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats but the Montana Secretary of State, Linda McCulloch, is an elected Democrat. It is not at all clear why she doesn't want to help the 30,000 Montana Native Americans vote. It is a foregone conclusion that Romney will carry the state, but there is a fierce battle for Jon Tester's Senate seat, something Tester won in 2006 by only 3,500 votes out of 400,000. The Native American vote (or lack thereof) could determine which party controls the Senate, so McCulloch's actions are puzzling, to put it mildly.

Same-Sex Marriage Initiative Tied in Maryland

A ballot measure that could overturn a new Maryland law allowing same-sex couple to get married is effectively tied according to an OpinionWorks poll. About 47% of the voters want to overturn the law and make same-sex marriage illegal and 46% want to keep it. A major source of opposition to same-sex marriage comes from black churches, where ministers have shouted down the idea from the pulpit. In the OpinionWorks poll, conducted Oct. 20-23, 50% of black voters were against same-sex marriage while 42% supported it.

Dick Morris Predicts a Romney Landslide and Republican Senate

Dick Morris, Bill Clinton's political advisor until the day a Washington newspaper published photos of him with a Washington prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, is getting even with the Democrats by predicting a massive Romney landslide and a Senate with 53 Republicans, things that not even Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell are predicting. Try to remember these predictions for a week. It is people like this who give punditry a bad name.

On the other hand, nearly all the other pundits and editorial writers are saying "beats me." No presidential race since 2000 has been this close and there are so many late-breaking factors to consider this year, including the debates, Sandy, and the final jobs report tomorrow, that only fools like Morris or dyed-in-the-wool partisans are daring to make a prediction.

Today's Presidential Polls

State	Obama	Romney		Start	End	Pollster
Colorado	45%	46%		Oct 27	Oct 30	IPSOS
Florida	47%	47%		Oct 27	Oct 30	IPSOS
Florida	48%	47%		Oct 23	Oct 28	Quinnipiac U.
Iowa	44%	45%		Oct 18	Oct 27	U. of Iowa
Iowa	50%	45%		Oct 29	Oct 30	PPP
Massachusetts	59%	40%		Oct 25	Oct 25	Rasmussen
Michigan	48%	42%		Oct 26	Oct 29	EPIC MRA
Minnesota	50%	43%		Oct 26	Oct 28	SurveyUSA
North Carolina	49%	49%		Oct 29	Oct 31	PPP
Ohio	48%	45%		Oct 27	Oct 30	IPSOS
Ohio	48%	46%		Oct 25	Oct 30	U. of Cincinnati
Ohio	50%	45%		Oct 23	Oct 28	Quinnipiac U.
Ohio	50%	45%		Oct 29	Oct 30	PPP
Pennsylvania	49%	45%		Oct 23	Oct 28	Franklin+Marshall Coll.
Virginia	44%	49%		Oct 23	Oct 26	Roanoke Coll.
Virginia	48%	46%		Oct 27	Oct 30	IPSOS
Virginia	49%	47%		Oct 23	Oct 28	Quinnipiac U.
Wisconsin	51%	43%		Oct 25	Oct 28	Marquette Law School
Wisconsin	51%	46%		Oct 29	Oct 30	PPP

Today's Senate Polls

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	I	I %	Start	End	Pollster
Florida	Bill Nelson*	52%	Connie McGillicuddy	39%			Oct 23	Oct 28	Quinnipiac U.
Florida	Bill Nelson*	52%	Connie McGillicuddy	42%			Oct 27	Oct 31	IPSOS
Michigan	Debbie Stabenow*	52%	Pete Hoekstra	38%			Oct 26	Oct 29	EPIC MRA
Nevada	Shelley Berkley	40%	Dean Heller*	46%			Oct 23	Oct 29	SurveyUSA
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	49%	Josh Mandel	41%			Oct 27	Oct 31	IPSOS
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	49%	Josh Mandel	44%			Oct 25	Oct 30	U. of Cincinnati
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	50%	Josh Mandel	48%			Oct 28	Oct 28	Rasmussen
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	51%	Josh Mandel	42%			Oct 23	Oct 28	Quinnipiac U.
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	48%	Tom Smith	39%			Oct 23	Oct 28	Franklin+Marshall Coll.
Rhode Island	Sheldon Whitehouse*	55%	Barry Hinckley	33%			Oct 24	Oct 27	Fleming and Assocs.
Virginia	Tim Kaine	42%	George Allen	47%			Oct 23	Oct 26	Roanoke Coll.
Virginia	Tim Kaine	47%	George Allen	45%			Oct 27	Oct 31	IPSOS
Virginia	Tim Kaine	50%	George Allen	46%			Oct 23	Oct 28	Quinnipiac U.
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin	47%	Tommy Thompson	43%			Oct 25	Oct 28	Marquette Law School

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster