News from the Votemaster

Romney Leads Obama Nationally in New Polls

A new PPP poll puts Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama 49% to 47%. While this is a statistical tie, this is the first PPP poll this year showing Romney ahead. Especially noteworthy is that Obama's lead among women has dropped from 15 points to only 6 points. Most of the polling was conducted Friday, at the height of Romney's debate bounce.

A new Gallup tracking poll of likely voters also shows Romney with a 2-point lead nationally. Together with the PPP and Pew polls, now three national polls put Romney in the lead. However, as we have pointed out before, in politics, a week is a long time. There is a vice-presidential debate tomorrow and two more presidential debates down the road.

Obama's response to his precipitous drop in the polls is to stop fundraising and go into campaign mode full time. He raised $181 million in September and probably does not need any more money, but he does need to talk to the voters.

Romney Says He Will Not Pursue Any New Restrictions of Abortions

In an obvious play for women's votes, Romney said yesterday that, as President, he would not pursue any new legislation concerning abortion. This position is in contrast to what he has been saying all year in order to woo pro-life voters. He is counting on people not remembering his earlier positions. This change is what his advisor Erik Fehrnstrom meant by shaking the Etch-a-Sketch. Fehrstrom felt that Romney could completely change his positions on taxes, abortion, and anything else that was inconvenient near the end of the campaign and hardly anybody would notice.

Ohio Secretary of State To Appeal Early Voting Decision to the Supreme Court

Last week a three judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Ohio cannot have the polls open the weekend before election day just for military families. Everyone has to be allowed to vote. Yesterday, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) announced that he will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Husted claims that he has the sole authority to determine the opening times of polls in Ohio and the federal courts have no authority to challenge his decisions. Democrats say that this is a naked attempt to suppress the votes of minorities, many of whom cannot take Tuesdays off to vote, so they normally vote the weekend before the election. The three-judge panel agreed with the Democrats and said the state has no compelling reason to allow one class of voter to have extra voting days. Since Husted's plan keeps the polls open on the weekend, the state can't argue this is an economy measure.

It is far from certain that the Supreme Court will even take the case. The justices probably do not want to be put in a position where their decision could determine the outcome of another presidential election. None of them have forgotten what happened in Florida in 2000. Chief Justice John Roberts, in particular, is very concerned about maintaining respect for the Court and realizes that thrusting it into the middle of another election would be very controversial. There is also a good chance that if he turns down the appeal, the Democrats will be very happy with him for the moment, giving him the ability to vote with the conservatives on the court for years to come and later claiming that sometimes he supports the conservative position and sometimes he doesn't.

The Role of Congress Likely to Loom Large in Vice-Presidential Debate

The word "Congress" was uttered only four times during the presidential debate last week. Given that Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) have a combined total of 53 years of ties to that body, it is probably a safe bet the subject will come up in their debate tomorrow.

In addition, some of the big issues facing the country, especially Medicare, will be fought out in Congress and are expected to dominate the debate. Democrats are looking forward to this since virtually every poll on the subject has shown that the voters do not want to change the way Medicare works and Ryan is the author of a plan that replaces it with a voucher system.

The Ten Most Competitive Senate Races

Earlier this year it looked like the Republicans were very likely to capture the Senate because the Democrats were defending 23 seats to the Republicans 10. However, separate events in multiple states have changed the picture. In Indiana, a tea party candidate knocked off a long-term incumbent and changed what would have been a Republican rout into a close race. In North Dakota and Arizona, the Democrats put up surprisingly good campaigners, and so on. The Washington Post has a story on the top 10 most competitive Senate races. Below is a table giving the most recent poll in each race. Democrats are defending seats in Connecticut, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The Republicans are defending the others. Incumbents are marked with an asterisk.

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	I	I %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Richard Carmona	45%	Jeff Flake	43%			Oct 01	Oct 03	PPP
Connecticut	Chris Murphy	51%	Linda McMahon	46%			Oct 07	Oct 07	Rasmussen
Indiana	Joe Donnelly	40%	Richard Mourdock	38%			Sep 19	Sep 23	Howey-DePauw
Maine	Cynthia Dill	14%	Charlie Summers	33%	Angus King	45%	Sep 25	Sep 25	Rasmussen
Massachusetts	Elizabeth Warren	45%	Scott Brown*	48%			Oct 05	Oct 07	MassINC
Montana	Jon Tester*	44%	Denny Rehberg	42%			Sep 23	Sep 25	Global Strategy
Nevada	Shelley Berkley	43%	Dean Heller*	49%			Sep 23	Sep 25	Marist Coll.
North Dakota	Heidi Heitkamp	47%	Rick Berg	47%			Oct 03	Oct 05	Mason Dixon
Virginia	Tim Kaine	51%	George Allen	44%			Oct 04	Oct 07	PPP
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin	48%	Tommy Thompson	46%			Sep 16	Sep 18	Marist Coll.

Democrats Have Massive Lead Among Latinos in Arizona

Latino Decisions, a firm specialized in polling Latino voters in English and Spanish, has just released a new poll of Arizona Latinos and found that Obama leads Romney by 80% to 14% in Arizona. While no one expects Obama to win the state, a large Latino turnout would be of enormous help to Democratic Senate candidate Richard Carmona, who leads Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) by a margin of 75% to 12% in the same poll. Carmona, a Vietnam veteran who served as George W. Bush's Surgeon General, is of Puerto Rican descent. If Carmona wins, the chance of the Republicans capturing the Senate are dim at best. Early in the year few observers expected this race to be close, but Carmona has run a flawless campaign and Arizona's law that allows police to stop anyone who they suspect of being an illegal immigrant has enflamed the Latino community in the state.

Three States Have a Referendum on Same-Sex Marriage

On election day, voters in four states will determine if same-sex marriages will be allowed in their States. In Maryland, Maine, and Washington state, the voters are going to be asked if they want to legalize marriages between same-sex couples. In Minnesota they are being asked if they want to ban these marriages.

The state most likely to approve same-sex marriage is Maine, where polls show it is leading 57% to 36%. Washington is not far behind, with 51% approving and 37% disapproving. In Maryland, 49% support the idea and 39% oppose it. The Minnesota ballot measure is close, with the most recent poll showing 47% opposed to the measure and 48% supporting it.

Also of note is that polls in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia show that if a referendum allowing same-sex marriage were on the ballot (which it is not this year), it would pass. The change with 8 years ago is striking. In that year, the Republicans got a referendum on the subject on the ballot in many states, largely to get older, conservative voters to the polls. Now the reverse seems to be true. The measures are likely to attract younger, liberal voters to the polls.

Today's Presidential Polls

The national polls showing a large debate bump for Mitt Romney are now starting to filter down to the state polls. Romney is shooting up in Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The map does not fully reflect the post-debate situation because the algorithm averages all polls going back a week, which includes polls with some data collected before the debate. Within a few days, however, we should have a better picture of how much damage Obama sustained from his poor debate performance.

State	Obama	Romney		Start	End	Pollster
Colorado	46%	50%		Oct 05	Oct 08	ARG
Connecticut	51%	45%		Oct 07	Oct 07	Rasmussen
Massachusetts	52%	36%		Oct 05	Oct 07	MassINC
Massachusetts	55%	34%		Oct 02	Oct 08	U. of Mass.
Massachusetts	63%	33%		Sep 28	Oct 04	Western New England U.
Minnesota	53%	43%		Oct 05	Oct 08	PPP
New Hampshire	47%	41%		Sep 30	Oct 06	U. of New Hampshire
Nevada	47%	47%		Oct 08	Oct 08	Rasmussen
Ohio	45%	44%		Oct 06	Oct 08	SurveyUSA
Ohio	47%	48%		Oct 05	Oct 08	ARG
Ohio	51%	47%		Oct 05	Oct 08	ORC International
Pennsylvania	43%	40%		Oct 01	Oct 05	Siena Coll.
Wisconsin	49%	47%		Oct 04	Oct 06	PPP

Today's Senate Polls

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	I	I %	Start	End	Pollster
Connecticut	Chris Murphy	51%	Linda McMahon	46%			Oct 07	Oct 07	Rasmussen
Massachusetts	Elizabeth Warren	45%	Scott Brown*	48%			Oct 05	Oct 07	MassINC
Massachusetts	Elizabeth Warren	48%	Scott Brown*	45%			Oct 02	Oct 08	U. of Mass.
Michigan	Debbie Stabenow*	55%	Pete Hoekstra	35%			Oct 04	Oct 06	EPIC MRA
Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar*	57%	Kurt Bills	31%			Oct 05	Oct 08	PPP
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	44%	Tom Smith	35%			Oct 01	Oct 05	Siena Coll.

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster