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.