Battlegrounds vs. National Polls; The Money Advantage

October 23, 2008

Mac Zilber

Today, Obama led by only 5, 4, 7, 1, and 4 points in 5 of the major national trackers. While this is a cushion that is enough to win with, it is several points off his peak numbers. Despite underwhelming national tracking numbers, Obama had arguably his best polling day of the entire campaign. Big Ten released a set of polls that showed him leading in Ohio by 12, Pennsylvania by 11, Michigan by 22 (!), Minnesota by 19, Wisconsin by 13, Iowa by 13, and Indiana by 10. These are supposed to be some of the most important swing states of the campaign, and he’s leading by double-digits in all of them. Furthermore, Quinnipiac released a few polls with Obama up 5 in Florida, 14 in Ohio, and 13 in Pennsylvania; three states McCain has to win to win the election. There were four other swing-state polls out today that also had Obama leading by double-digits. How can he post numbers like this when he’s not doing very well nationally? He is destroying McCain with money in these states.

Throughout this election, one assumption that most analysts have been making, possibly erroneously, is that if a Candidate moves up by X points in the national polls, they’ll move up by approximately X points in each individual battleground state, the theory being that, as the battleground states are where most swing voters are, and since the battleground states are closest to the national electorate in terms of their expected outcome, that their numbers will approximately mirror the national electorate. This assumption, however, is proving to be wrong and the most likely reason may be money.

It appears that we have gotten to a point in the election where the record $600 million that Obama has raised is starting to make a notable difference. Two prominent examples are Michigan and Ohio, states that were, for the longest time, considered the two most important states, and which were consequently very close. Around September 16, McCain led in Ohio by about 3 points on average while Obama led nationally by about 2 points. This meant that the state was about 5 points “redshifted,” and that, based on most peoples’ expectations, if Obama gained 5 points in the polls, he’d gain 5 points in Ohio and lead there by 2. Instead, when Obama gained 5 points in the national polls, he gained over 10 points there, and might even lead by double-digits. In Michigan, we saw a similar story unfold, only to an even more dramatic extent. McCain stopped advertising in Michigan, and so the money advantage for Obama worked to an even greater extent. Michigan was a state with a slight blue-shift for most of the election, with Obama leading Michigan by 5 or so when he led nationally by about 2. As Obama began being able to outspend McCain by huge amounts, however, the blueshift became more pronounced. One would expect Obama to lead in Michigan by 10 points right now, based on its former blueshift, but Obama leads by about 17 points in the current polls. These trends have repeated themselves all over the country, and it appears that when Obama has gained support, it has been in swing states, whereas when McCain gains support, it has been in solidly red states (Idaho, Oklahoma, etc) or solidly blue states (getting the deficits in Oregon and Washington down to lower numbers won’t do much good for him electorally).

What all this boils down to is that McCain is now in a position where he needs to win the national popular vote by 2-3 points to have a strong shot at winning the election. According to the fivethirtyeight.com simulator, if McCain gets the most votes, Obama still has a 40% chance of winning the election. That’s what the money disadvantage is doing to McCain. Based on the latest numbers (some of which are probably outliers), if the election were and today, and the popular vote was tied, Obama would be expected to win the election 317-221 in the electoral college. That’s a very nice cushion to be able to rely on, but it really shows why the electoral college needs to be reformed. You gotta hand it to the Obama campaign, they know how to use flawed rules to their advantage (see the primary season for proof).

The Obama campaign is not the first one to benefit from the electoral college. Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison both won their elections despite losing the popular vote, and Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon both barely won elections in the popular vote despite commanding electoral college leads. Finally, our current president won his first election despite getting half-a-million less votes than Gore, as I’m sure you remember, and John Kerry was about 60,000 votes away from winning an election that he lost by 3 million votes. This year, the campaign that benefits from the electoral college is clearly the Obama campaign, and unlike in the past (when it was due to bad districting and old censuses), this time it’s due to an unprecedented money disparity and a team of strategists for the Obama campaign who seem versed in Game Theory, which is why the old redshift/blueshift theories are no longer holding true. Whatever the reason is, it’s just another hurdle in front of McCain, who is no closer to making a comeback than he was three weeks ago.

Have a question? I answer all emails I receive at themuse@albanyhighcougar.com. If you comment, I may not respond.

No comments yet.

Leave a Comment

All comments are moderated. If your comment contains profanity or libelous content, please don't waste our time.

Name: Some basic HTML allowed

Your comment will be posted when it is approved.