October 28, 2012 Ohio Update

RCP dropped Gravis, Quinnipiac, and Fox from the Ohio average and added a new poll from the Cinncinati Enquirer.  This new poll shows the race tied at 49-49, but like all the rest it has some significant problems.  The D/R/I for this poll is 47/44/10.  How any legitimate pollster can publish a poll that has almost half of the sample as Democrats is beyond me.  It is also significant that they do not mention the preference of Independents in the poll.  They are able to tell you the percentage of respondents who are scared if the other candidate wins, but not this basic metric that has proven to be critical to every race in history.  In order to run my model, I am assigning Independent preference to be equal to the current average across all polls of 8%.  I suspect it is probably much higher, but we can't have a poll showing Romney leading in Ohio, can we?

Reweighting this poll we get the following:

Even - Current result
R+6.10% - 2004 turnout model
O+0.59% - 2008 turnout model
R+3.76% - 2010 turnout model
R+3.18% - 2012 registration model
R+1.76% - D+3 turnout model

Looking at the new averages across 9 polls:

Polls included:
O+3 - Survey USA
Even - Rasmussen
O+1 - PPP
Even - Suffolk
O+5 - Time
O+2 - Purple Strategies
O+4 - CNN/ORG
O+2 - ARG
Even - Cincinnati Enquirer

O+1.89% - Current RCP Average
R+7.85% - Average using the 2004 turnout model
O+1.41% - Average using the 2008 turnout model
R+4.70% - Average using the 2010 turnout model
R+3.99% - Average using the 2012 registration model
R+1.88% - Average using the D+3 turnout model

Several polls that had good internals (D+9 and D+11) for Romney dropped out of the average, bringing the numbers down across all models.  However, Romney retains his lead in Ohio.  Who will be the first pollster to break the moratorium and actually show Romney leading?