October 29, 2012 Ohio Update

Scott Rasmussen, come on down!  You are the big winner!

I asked yesterday who would be the first to show an Ohio lead, and it was Rasmussen.  His new Ohio poll is conducted completely on a Sunday (traditionally a bad day for polling Republicans) and it finally breaks through the wall, and shows Romney ahead 50-48.  The D/R/I is 38/38/24 which at an Even split is a little surprising.  Independents favor Romney by 4.  Even so, we still get a silly result where 33% of voters claim to have already voted.  As of 10/27 1,006,398 ballots have been cast, or 17.4% of the registration numbers.  For 33% to be correct, 2 million votes would need to have already been cast.  Since these early vote samples are clearly wrong, their 2 to 1 preference for Obama has to be questioned.

We also have new polls from PPP (O+4) and Gravis (O+1) that are horribly over sampled with Democrats, D+8 in both cases.  The PPP D/R/I is 43/35/21, while the Gravis D/R/I is 40/32/28.  Independents in the PPP poll favors Romney by 4, while Gravis shows preference to be 10.  I'm going to give the model results for all three polls.  You will see that Rasmussen and PPP are actually very similar, while Gravis is a strong poll for Romney.

Rasmussen:
R+2 - Current result
R+6.40% - 2004 turnout model
O+2.30% - 2008 turnout model
R+3.44% - 2010 turnout model
R+2.72% - 2012 registration model
R+0.81% - D+3 turnout model

PPP:
O+4 - Current result
R+6.36% - 2004 turnout model
O+2.47% - 2008 turnout model
R+3.32% - 2010 turnout model
R+2.70% - 2012 registration model
R+0.62% - D+3 turnout model

Gravis:
O+1 - Current result
R+9.42% - 2004 turnout model
O+0.03% - 2008 turnout model
R+6.20% - 2010 turnout model
R+5.49% - 2012 registration model
R+3.32% - D+3 turnout model

Looking at the new averages across 10 polls:

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

O+1.90% - Current RCP Average
R+7.67% - Average using the 2004 turnout model
O+1.55% - Average using the 2008 turnout model
R+4.53% - Average using the 2010 turnout model
R+3.83% - Average using the 2012 registration model
R+1.72% - Average using the D+3 turnout model

A slight movement in Obama's direction across all of the models.  The CNN/ORG poll remains the big outlier, being almost 5 points off the averages.  Interestingly, both PPP and Rasmussen are also slight 1% outliers pulling the averages in Obama's direction.  Independents favor Romney by an average of 8% across all polls.