“This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya. We had constant run-ins on the soccer field. He wasn’t very
good and resented it. When we finally moved to America I thought it
would be over.”
— President Obama, on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, joking about Donald Trump’s latest challenge.
Jon Ralston: “Any reasonable analysis of the early voting numbers so far shows that the Democratic machine is crushing the Republicans’ Rube Goldberg contraption.”
“I have been reliably told that Romney’s internals in Nevada show him up a point – but some of those folks are smart enough to give the margin of error to the Democratic machine. But that makes it a race, so they aren’t going anywhere.”
“Obama’s polls here consistently have shown him up by 5-8 points. Mark Mellman, who consistently showed Harry Reid winning in 2010, is doing those surveys.”
A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds Mitt Romney has erased President Obama’s 16-point advantage among women, while the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney’s edge among men.
Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential race still a virtual dead heat, with Romney favored by 47% of likely voters and Obama by 45%, a result within the poll’s margin of sampling error.
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Harry Enten: “Four years ago, then-candidate Obama said he could heal the divisions of our country. Those who know anything about voting pattern demographics were suspicious that Obama could accomplish this goal. With this year’s election close at hand, we can now see if the president has come closer to reaching his objective. The polls indicate that voting divisions for this year’s presidential race have either not closed or have actually expanded to near-record extents.”
President Obama and his allies “have aired more ads in battleground states this month than Mitt Romney and his supporters, despite being outspent by the Republican nominee and GOP groups,” the Washington Post reports.
“Obama has a key advantage over Romney by raising the bulk of his money through his campaign committee, which qualifies for discounted ad rates under federal election laws. That can allow Obama to pay much less for the same ads compared with conservative super PACs and other outside groups, which don’t qualify for such rates.”
“Unlike Obama, Romney also
bought relatively little ad time in advance — which is cheaper — and has
tended to choose more expensive ad spots with guaranteed placements.”
Here are the latest polls from the battleground, updated through the day:
Nevada: Obama 50%, Romney 48% (Rasmussen)
Nevada: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (Public Policy Polling)
New Hampshire: Romney 50%, Obama 48% (Rasmussen)
New Hampshire: Obama 48%, Romney 45% (Lake Research)
Ohio: Obama 49%, Romney 44% (Time)
Ohio: Obama 47%, Romney 44% (SurveyUSA)
Ohio: Obama 48%, Romney 48% (Rasmussen)
Ohio: Obama 46%, Romney 44% (Lake Resaearch)
Virginia: Obama 50%, Romney 43% (Old Dominion University)
Virginia: Obama 49%, Romney 46% (Newsmax/Zogby)
The latest Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll finds President Obama had a lead of 53% to 42% among the 17% of the surveyed registered voters who said they had already cast
their vote.
In the crucial swing state of Ohio, a new Time poll finds Obama holds a two-to-one lead over Romney among those who have voted early, 60% to 30%.
Molly Ball: “We may not be able to fully size up the campaigns’ ground games and
their effect until Election Day — and maybe not even then. But what
struck me most, in talking to Republicans about their ground game, was
the extent to which they admitted they weren’t even playing the game.”
David Gergen: “In the pivotal state of Ohio, for example, the Obama campaign has three times as many offices, often captained by experienced young
people. By contrast, a major Republican figure in the state, throwing up
his hands, told me that the Romney field team looked like a high school
civics class.”
Bill Clinton appears in another TV ad: “The stuff some folks are saying about President Obama sound kind of familiar. The same people said my ideas destroyed jobs–they called me every name in the book.”
Mark Halperin: “Some additional Bill Clinton events for Obama will be announced in the coming days, likely pairing him with other big names, a la his hugely successful Ohio appearance with Bruce Springsteen.”
Nate Cohn: “The polls are pretty good, but they are not perfect, and with observers paying so much attention to the slight distinctions between Obama’s 1.9 point lead in Ohio and .6 point lead in Virginia, unrealistic levels of precision may be necessary to avoid surprises. And that’s before accounting for the possibility that the race could shift over the final two weeks in subtle ways that move particular demographic groups and states without similar changes in others. The nine battleground states are so close and so diverse that late movement among specific demographic groups or slight errors in the polling could easily reshape the electoral map before November 6.”
“Direct those questions to Boston because Donald Trump is Mitt Romney’s biggest supporter, so he owns everything he says.”
— David Plouffe, quoted by Politico, when asked about Trump’s much-hyped video announcement today.
Here are the latest tracking polls of the presidential race:
Gallup: Romney 50%, Obama 47%
IBD/TIPP: Obama 47%, Romney 44%
RAND: Obama 49%, Romney 45%
Rasmussen: Romney 50%, Obama 46%
Reuters/Ipsos: Romney 47%, Obama 46%
Public Policy Polling: Obama 48%, Romney 48%
UPI/CVoter: Obama 49%, Romney 47%
Washington Post/ABC News: Romney 49%, Obama 48%
Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (R) “refused to apologize this morning for his comments about whether pregnancies from rape were God’s will, apologizing only for what he said were people’s misinterpretation of them,” the Indianapolis Star reports.
Said Mourdock: “I said life is precious. I believe life is precious. I believe rape is a brutal act. It is something that I abhor. That anyone could come away with any meaning other than what I just said is regrettable, and for that I apologize.. The apology — as I said before, roll this tape back — is if anybody misterpreted what I said.”
Mark Halperin: “Chicago remains sufficiently funded and emboldened by its own polling to compete for the final two weeks in all nine of the battlegrounds: Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia in the South; New Hampshire in the North; Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Nevada and Colorado in the West. As they have in the past, Obama campaign officials say they expect to win a high percentage of those states and conceivably could sweep all nine.”
“When pressed, the Obama officials with whom I met said that five of the nine stand out: Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. In that quintet, Democrats believe the combination of their current leads in polling, early voting (where applicable), and ground game makes their chances of winning even greater there than in the other four. And given the Electoral College math, unless Romney picks off one or more of those five states, Obama would win a minimum of 281 electoral votes and re-election.”
As Greg Sargent notes, the polling averages show Obama leading in each of those states as well.
“A knowledgeable source tells BuzzFeed the answer is in a bit of cosmetic technology used commonly by celebrities: spray tanning. The Republican nominee has made a habit of spray tanning before major speeches, debates, interviews, and other events that have a chance of getting wide TV coverage, the source said. He pays for the process out of pocket — sparing his campaign the expense, and the task of masking it on public campaign finance reports — and steers clear of public salons where he could be recognized. Instead, he gets misted down in the comfort of his own home or hotel suite.”
Reuters reports on the uptick in efforts to mislead, intimidate or pressure voters as we head towards Election Day.
In addition to billboards warning against voter fraud and employers pushing workers to vote a certain way, in Florida, Virginia and Indiana, voters have received phone calls that wrongly told them there was no need to cast a ballot in person on Election Day because they could vote by phone.
Meanwhile, a probe of similar phone calls in Indiana has focused on a firm called Vote USA, but it is unclear who was behind the group because its phone number is no longer active.
“Two-to-one, people who say they have already voted are Barack Obama supporters. The majority of people who plan to vote early are Barack Obama supporters. The majority of people who plan to vote on election day, Romney supporters. I think that’s what’s gets tricky — you have to have a huge margin on election day to offset the Democrats.”
— Pollster Ann Selzer, in an interview with TPM on the impact of early voting.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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