UGA Campaign Discussion Group – November 5, 2012

A day before the election! We looked at Josh’s Electoral Spectrum with Ohio still as the pivot state. Paul gave his assessment of the election, predicting an Obama victory with 290-300 electoral votes. The numbers we have been following since mid-August suggest that Romney peaked before Sandy, contrary the media’s narrative that Sandy stopped his momentum.

An OpEd appeared in the NY Times advocating the abandonment of the Electoral College and moving it by Congressional District. We agreed that this move would currently disadvantage Democrats and would lead to more polarization rather than less in the general population. Rather than focus on swing states, there would be a focus on swing districts. There is a general agreement that a popular vote decision would be more fair than the electoral college, but the counterargument is that the battle would shift to the largest media markets to run up the vote totals in highly populous areas. A popular vote would probably tilt the election toward the Democrats.

Next, we turned to the polls. Obama looks to be the favorite unless there is a systematic bias in the state-by-state polls. Possible explanations for such a bias include the Bradlee Effect, but we generally discounted it as a factor. The commentator, Alex Castellanos, suggested that a vote for Obama is a cool vote, but not necessarily the real vote. We also noted that there could be last-minute movement toward or away from one of the candidates that the polls have not detected. We talked about the closeness of the polls and being within the margin of error. When looking at a single poll the margin of error is relevant. When looking at multiple polls, however, margin of error is not as consequential as the consistency of different polls and trend lines over time. Frontloading HQ had an excellent article on the differences between national and state polls indicating that which set is right or wrong is the wrong emphasis. Rather, a post-election analysis will help develop better projections in the future. See 

http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-electoral-college-map-11312.html

We went back to the potential effect of Sandy on the election. We generally agreed that the electoral vote will probably not be affected, but the popular vote in NJ & NYC could be suppressed by the disruption by the storm.

Obama has the reputation for a get-out-the-vote effort, but Ralph Reed is apparently rallying the evangelicals, particularly in Ohio. The advertising strategy seems to be very different by the two campaigns. Romney’s strategy has been more aimed at the mass media in a swing state with Obama involved in more micro-targeting of his ads. Apparently, Romney has outspent Obama in ads, but Obama has run about twice as many ads by buying up time early and in smaller markets. Josh indicated that Eisenberg has stated that the Obama campaign is light years ahead of Romney in micro-targeting. This situation seems strange when Karl Rove was so successful in the 2004 Bush campaign in micro-targeting. Apparently, Karl Rove took his secrets with him when he left, and Romney was not interested or able in tapping into his expertise.

Last week there were two commentaries directly opposed to each other on projecting the election. Jay Cost predicts a Romney victory because he is leading among Independents and the issue of jobs and the economy is the most important one on voter’s minds.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/search/?cx=%3C%3F%3D%24cx_value%3B%3F%3E&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=jay+cost+november+2012&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&siteurl=www.realclearpolitics.com%2Fsearch%2F&ref=www.realclearpolitics.com%2F&ss=9406j14017830j16

Charlie Cook predicts an Obama victory due to his election ads in July and August. He indicates that we are dealing with two elections – that in the swing states where Romney was savaged by the Obama ads and the other states that have been spared these ads. He contends that Romney has not been able to overcome those swing-state ads.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/search/?cx=%3C%3F%3D%24cx_value%3B%3F%3E&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=charlie+cook+november+2012&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&siteurl=www.realclearpolitics.com%2Fsearch%2F&ref=www.realclearpolitics.com%2F&ss=2845j1423675j12

We talked about the media and their penchant for being wrong in predictions. In a sense the media sets itself up to be surprised as that becomes news. The media also wants to keep the story going. It served as a megaphone for the Romney momentum after the first debate. The Democrats and the Obama campaign added to that momentum by misplaying the results of the first debate.

Will the minor party candidates affect the outcome? We generally agreed that it was unlikely that Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, would affect the outcome in any state. We disagreed as to whether Virgil Goode could affect the vote in Virginia. Third party votes can affect elections as what happened in FL in 2000 where Ralph Nader collected 100,000 votes with a 537-vote margin between the two primary candidates. VA is a key state, possibly critical for Romney to get to 270, but there are other possible paths to the Presidency. If Obama wins, there may be some electors who cast their vote for Ron Paul rather than for Romney.

In closing we addressed two questions. How will the election turn out? We all picked Obama to win with anywhere from 286 to 332 electoral votes. Also, will we know who won by the time we meet at 11:00 on Wednesday morning? We had a 60-40 split with the majority saying yes and the minority not sure. An uncertain outcome by the next meeting time would indicate that Romney would be doing better than expected. We also noted that a 269-269 tie would result in a President Romney possibly governing the country with a Vice-President Biden.

 

 

UGA Campaign Discussion Group – October 31, 2012

Halloween! One week to go. We had a hookup of our group with Paul and Josh in Davidson.

Our first topic of discussion regarded the potential effects of the hurricane Sandy on the election. The only two battleground states affected are VA and PA. We talked briefly on NY if the city did not get to vote, but we concluded that NY would still not be in play. In general, Obama appears to getting the current advantage. He looks very Presidential during the crisis and is getting good press. The good feelings may be over soon as there was a report this morning of the Atlantic City mayor criticizing Chris Christie for not getting the evacuation accomplished. Both Obama and Romney must play this carefully Obama is getting good publicity and kudos from Chris Christie, but an error could hurt him without a chance to recover. We all agreed that he was taking a big risk by resuming his campaigning tomorrow. Our suggestion to him is to do evening sessions say in Ohio after the evening news. Romney must be careful not to get bogged down criticizing the relief effort. Also past statements on FEMA and big government might hurt him.

Paul moved us to the polls. There appears to be movement towards Obama with a current margin for Obama by a hair. In the numbers we have followed from the middle of August, it appears that Romney peaked last week. The most interesting change is a gain by Obama in InTrade up from 55.5% last week back to 64.3 this week, similar to what it was 2 weeks ago. The national polls are leaning towards Romney with the state-by-state polls and electoral-college picture towards Obama. There was an interesting take on the state vs. national polls by Sean Trende this morning

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/31/whats_behind_the_state-national_poll_divergence_115979.html

His conclusion is that the numbers do not add up. If Romney is truly ahead of Obama by a percentage point, Obama would not have the electoral advantage he currently enjoys. Paul indicated that national polls tend to be less reliable than the state polls and tend to be off by 2-5%. Exceptions to this trend are 1972, 1980 and 1992. Late breaking news that could affect next week’s election include the response to Sandy and the Friday jobs report. Events in previous elections include the bin Laden tape and the Bush DUI revelation although one of us think the significance of the DUI report. It is hard to see trends in the last week. Campbell’s research suggests that September polls are more reliable than October polls, which would favor Obama.

We touched on several additional topics including the Romney China-Jeep ad and the expanding battleground map rather than an expected narrowing. Nate Silver is suggesting that Obama write off FL, but Paul indicated this is where Obama should devote more attention to it as a victory here would mean a sure electoral victory. He is working on a decision tree that starts with FL and proceeds to OH. Steve polled the College Republicans and College Democrats. The Republicans are projecting a tie and Democrats a victory. Usually a predicted tie indicates pessimism.

Answer to the trivia question to the last post – Gore was willing to have Quayle bring a copy of Earth in the Balance as a prop in the1992 VP debate as long as he could bring a potato(e). Quayle withdrew his request.

Our next meeting will be Monday at 11:00. Come with your stat-by-state projections.

UGA Campaign Discussion Group – October 17, 2012

We started out discussing the debate last night. It was generally agreed that Obama won the debate, but that the edge from the two debates goes to Mitt Romney. Obama reached out to women and Hispanics in the debate, an Romney may have hurt himself in both demographics. Obama came out much more aggressive while Romney was more muted than in their performance in their first debate. Romney’s worst moment should have been his best in which he tried to score a knockout on the Libya question and came up short. He had a substantive point to make, but he got hung up on the “act of terror” wording rather than the awkward handling of the embassy attack by the Obama administration. Romney also muffed the gun question, declaring that assault weapons are illegal even though they are not, but he seems to be getting a pass on this statement. We expect the third debate to be a wash between the two candidates.

Talk then shifted to the VP debate. Some of us called it a draw while others thought that Biden had a poor performance. It would appear that both candidates heartened the base, and that Biden may have stopped the Democratic-ticket slide. Ryan was credible as a debater. His best statement may have been when he said that he and Romney would take responsibility for their actions and not try to blame their mistakes on anyone else. The statement is a little ironic as Romney surrogates have blamed Martha Raddatz and Candy Crowley for being unfair at the two most recent debates.

It appears that the campaign is shifting primarily to the battleground states in the Midwest – particularly OH and IA, as evidenced by where the candidates and the money are going. This movement suggests a stronger Romney campaign than if they were fighting in NC and VA. In looking at the numbers we have been following since the Ryan selection, 50 Electoral College votes (WI-10, PA-20, NH-4 & MI-16) have moved from Leans Obama to Toss Up as designated by RealClearPolitics. They have also moved MO-10 from Toss Up to Leans Romney. Romney also picked up 2.9% (now BHO 50.8 & WMR 49.7) in favorability rating to Obama and 3.5% (now BHO 45.8 & WMR 44.3)less unfavorable. Intrade has a 64.1 to 36.4 edge for Obama up from 62.5 to 37.5 last week. The job approval number for Obama has stayed remarkably constant since the Charlotte convention, ranging from 49.2 to 49.9 over the six weeks.

The answer to last week’s trivia question was Rob Portman. He served as a stand-in for Al Gore to help prepare Bush in 2000 as well as for Lieberman in 2000 and Edwards in 2004 to prep Cheney. He also served as the stand-in for Barack Obama for McCain in 2008 and 2012. This week’s debate trivia question goes back to 1992 and the VP debate negotiations. Dan Quayle wanted to bring in a copy of Al Gore’s book, Earth in the Balance, as a prop. The Gore team consented as long as they could bring in their prop. After hearing what the Gore prop was, the Quayle team withdrew their request. What was the Gore prop? 

UGA Campaign Discussion Group – October 10, 2012

Channeling Paul at his ironic best, we declared “Well we can all agree that Obama clearly won the debate, but debates don’t really matter!” We did poorly in our projections last week, although Steve did say two weeks ago that Romney would do better than anyone would expect. We need to go back to predicting the past.

While our consensus was a clear Romney victory last week, not all of us thought it was as strong a victory as widely perceived. Romney clearly won on style, but there was no single sound-bite you could point to that was a knock-out punch. Romney’s answers were clear and crisp; whereas Obama’s answers were not. His answers became longer and more rambling as the debate went on. His failure to respond to appear to be engaged, looking down when not talking and failing to challenge Romney’s statements led to the judgment that he was the loser. Although the optics did favor Romney, he has a habit of bobbing his head when talking that tends to fail Paul’s turn-off-the-sound test. It was clear that Obama was rusty and the team apparently was overconfident despite the conventional wisdom that the first Presidential debate tends to favor the challenger to the incumbent and the person on offense over the person on defense. These are lessons that Ford, Carter, Reagan, the two Bushes and now Obama have learned the hard way. Only Clinton avoided this trap as the incumbent. We rejected one reason cited by pundits that Obama’s poor performance was due to being surrounded by yes-men. Rahm Emmanuel and Michelle have been willing to talk back to him. Just before the debate the story from Bob Woodward’s book was that Obama was not getting proper deference because he was not respected. The same pundits who spewed that line then are largely the ones talking about the yes-men now. Also, it was these pundits who were condemning Romney for putting so much time into debate prep and encouraging him to pull his money out of Ohio. Brett clearly stated then that Ohio was crucial to Romney and the Republicans, and it was far too early to talk about pulling out of Ohio. 

We agreed that the Obama post-debate offensive led by Big Bird was not helping his campaign as it tends to remind voters of the poor debate performance. We could not come to agreement on the Libya situation. One view was that it is not receiving that much news time. Another was that if the same event had happened this time last year, it would be a big thing for a short time and then fade away, but coming just before the election it becomes a major liability for the administration. The third perspective is that it represents an indicator of a failed Obama foreign policy. The Libya situation appears to be contributing to the slide started by the poor debate performance and may have been less consequential if he had done well. The Middle East is a dangerous place. It is not clear if the Romney ticket pushes the situation in Syria if that will help or hurt them. Erdogan from Turkey was suggested as a model leader in the region by one of us, but not everyone was convinced.

We went through the numbers we have been following since mid-August. There has been a definite Republican bounce since the debate. Ohio has been moved from the Obama camp back to a toss-up. Obama’s lead last week in the RCP average went from 3.2% to a 0.7% advantage for Romney. Obama’s favorable ratings have gone up but not as much as Romney’s favorable. The Intrade bets have plummeted from a 73.9 to 26.0 advantage Obama down to 62.5 to 37.5 narrowing the gap 22.9%! This bounce was bigger than the one induced by Bill Clinton’s speech and the Democratic convention. Interestingly, the RCP average for the President’s job approval has not wavered, running between 49.2 to 49.9 over the last 5 weeks. Intrade is a leading indicator while job approval may be a trailing indicator. We discussed the upcoming VP debate scheduled tonight. Although it will be less consequential than the Presidential debate, it is important for Biden to stop the slide. Cheney was able to perform this function in 2004 against Edwards. Regardless what happens this evening, Obama will need to perform better next week or he is in real trouble. He may be in the same situation at this point that Romney was two weeks ago.

We also looked at the Berry and Bickers forecasting model for this election (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8700619&fulltextType=BT&fileId=S1049096512000984). It is a state-by-state model which has an excellent record in forecasting electoral-college outcomes in past elections back to 1980 with less accuracy in those elections featuring credible third-party candidates. It incorporates past voting outcomes and unemployment numbers in states. The model predicts 213 Electoral College votes for Obama, significantly less than many other models. It will be interesting if they are right and so many others are wrong. We will revisit this and other models the week before and the day after the election.

We identified Ted Olson and Chris Van Hollen as the two VP stand-ins. Trivia question this week is what person has been a stand-in during debate preps for three (VP/ Pres) candidates? The candidate he helped won all three elections.

The answer to last week’s trivia question was Harvard Professor Archibald Cox who was sitting next to Jackie Kennedy watching the first debate on a rented TV placed on John Winthrop’s desk with a listening party.   

UGA Campaign Discussion Group – October 3, 2012

We started out this week by viewing the changes in the polls since last week. Obama has gained a total of 14 electoral votes since last week with New Hampshire now leaning Obama and Missouri placed back into the undecided category giving Obama a 269-181 lead. That was the only one of the five measures we have been following that continues the trend we have observed in recent weeks. The head-to-head match-up has narrowed from a 3.7 to a 3.2 point lead for Obama. The gap in favorablity narrowed from a 6.6 to 4.8% lead for Obama, but the gap in unfavorability increased from 1.7 to 2.4%  with advantage also to Obama. Obama’s lead in InTrade dipped by only 0.2%, but it stayed a steep decline in previous weeks. The stopping the previous slide by winning the day, as Brett suggested last week, seems to be working.

It was suggested that Obama might have peaked too early. He is still doing well in the swing states with targeted ads to populations in individual states while Romney seems to have consistent messages to all the swing states. Romney is in a difficult situation in that he needs to hold on to conservatives while moderating his positions. If he moderates these positions too much, he could lose the conservatives and be accused of flip-flopping. If he doesn’t moderate his views, he will have difficulty appealing to undecided independents. The question is how many undecided voters are really out there. It all appears to come down to trust – can you trust Romney? Normally you would expect a referendum election, but as Rachel pointed out several weeks ago that Romney turned it into a choice election by selecting Ryan as his running mate. It now comes to Let’s Make a Deal – do you want Obama who is standing next to me or what is behind Door Number Two. He has not been specific on his proposals. This morning there was talk on Morning Joe about Romney pulling his money out of Ohio as Gore did in 2000. We agreed that it is too early for such a move at this time. We discussed whether it was a mistake to select Ryan. It may not have been a mistake if he had adopted the Ryan strengths, but Romney seems to have muzzled him which weighs the ticket down with Ryan’s liabilities.

Next we moved on to discussing the debates. We talked some about the Senatorial debates in Massachusetts and Missouri. The professional politicians, Brown and McCaskill seemed to do better, but both Brown and Warren had an awkward moment. Romney will try to push Obama’s buttons with the latter needing to avoid becoming annoyed and arrogant. Both candidates must be careful not to underestimate each other. Obama must avoid becoming too professorial. Bob Woodward indicated that he interviewed Obama recently who is aware of his proclivity to talk too much and is honing his skills. Romney is capable of a good debate and Obama may be rusty. The rules for this debate are more open-ended this time. We all agreed that a more open-ended debate favors Obama over Romney. Debate preparations include reducing expectations with both parties working hard on this matter. Chris Christie did not get the memo. His comments could hurt Romney’s chances of salvaging a poor performance. If Christie is right, however, his comments could help in the aftermath in turning the election around. We disagreed on how important the debate is for Romney with some of us thinking it is critical and others not thinking it will make much of an impact. It was pointed out that Kerry did well against Bush in 2004 to close the race, but it wasn’t enough to help him to victory. It was suggested that the leak on Romney’s zingers may have been a pre-emptive strike by staffers who did not want the boss to blow it with poorly timed barbs. In a rare prediction for this group, we had 60% of those present selected Obama as the winner and 40% predicted a draw. There were no takers for a Romney win. Next week we will be discussing the aftermath of this debate and previewing the Ryan/Biden debate.

Trivia question of the week: In 1960, Jackie Kennedy watched the first debate on a rented TV placed on John Winthrop’s desk with a listening party. Sitting next to Mrs. Kennedy was a relative unknown person who would become very famous several years later. Who was this mystery person? Tune in next week for the answer.