There are seven polls out today for the critical battleground state of Ohio (link to US census demographic data). Four of the seven point to close and tight competitive race in the Buckeye State while three provide a comfortable lead for Senator Obama in-line with yesterday’s Columbus Dispatch poll. Below are the results of these eight polls:

Eight Ohio Polls

Here’s the Rasmussen Reports poll overview which finds the race in Ohio to be dead even:

It’s all even in Ohio.

The final Fox News/Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state before Election Day shows John McCain and Barack Obama each attracting 49% of the vote. Last week, Obama held a modest lead in the Buckeye State.

Obama leads among those who have already voted while McCain is projected to pick up more votes from those who show up at the polls on Tuesday.

However, among the six Battleground States polled in the final days of Election 2008, Ohio is one of the two states where McCain gained ground (the other was Florida). This helps explain why the campaigns have had such a strong presence in the state during the closing days of Election 2008. In the last six Fox News/Rasmussen Reports Ohio polls, Obama and McCain have been within two points of each other five times. Neither man has reached the 50% level of support in any of the past six Ohio surveys.

McCain attracts 64% of the vote from Evangelical Christians, 53% from other Protestants, 53% from Catholics, and just 28% from everybody else.

Overall, McCain is now viewed favorably by 57% of Ohio voters, Obama by 50%.

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Polls in Florida (link to US Census demographic data) continue to show a tight, competitive race that fluctuates back and forth. Earlier this week, two polls gave Senator Obama narrow leads of four and five points. Last week, a SUSA poll gave Senator McCain a two point lead, 49% to 47%. Another poll from Rasmussen Reports gave McCain a point lead, 49% to 48%. A Public Policy Polling poll out late last week gave Senator Obama a one point lead, 48% to 47% while a Mason-Dixon poll gave Senator McCain a one point edge, 46% to 45%. Last Thursday, a poll from Quninnipiac pointed a narrow two point lead for Senator Obama, 47% to 45%. Today, there are five polls out for the Sunshine State with four pointing to narrow Obama leads and one giving McCain the edge. All margins are within the margin of error. In Florida, it’s a dead heat.

Five Florida Polls

I am just going to break out the overviews from Rasmussen Reports and Quinnipiac but I’ll comment on some trends from the internals from four of the five polls thereafter. First the executive summary from Rasmussen Reports:

Florida’s neck-and-neck down to the wire in the last Fox News/Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state prior to Election Day.

John McCain leads Barack Obama by a statistically insignificant single percentage point, 50% to 49%. One percent of voters are still undecided.

In the three previous weeks, the lead has changed each time. Just one week ago, Obama was ahead by four points. The week before that it was McCain ahead by one. But this is the first time McCain has made it into the 50s since the middle of September.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of those who have already voted cast their ballots for Obama, 44% for McCain. Nationwide, Rasmussen Reports polling suggests as many as 37% of voters may cast their ballot before tomorrow.

Florida has been carried by the Republican candidates in eight of the last 10 presidential elections, including in 2000 when it took a month to determine that George W. Bush was the winner.

Like the other five battleground states that Fox News/Rasmussen Reports releases final numbers on today – Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, Florida went for Bush in 2004. McCain probably needs all six states to win the White House.

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The latest couple of polls for North Carolina (link is to US Census demographic data) have pointed to a dead heat. Today’s polls are no different, three show a narrow one point lead for Senator McCain and one gives Senator Obama a one point edge.

Four North Carolina Polls

I am just going to cover the Rasmussen Reports, the PPP and the Survey USA and compare their internals and underlying trends. Let’s start with the Rasmussen Reports poll:

John McCain holds the narrowest of leads in North Carolina in the final Fox News/Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state before Election Day.

McCain leads Barack Obama by a statistically insignificant one-point in North Carolina, 50% to 49%. One percent (1%) are undecided. This is only the fourth time McCain has hit the 50% mark all year.

Four days ago, McCain was down by two points. A week ago, he was ahead by just one. On October 12, it was a tie. It’s been that kind of race in North Carolina where McCain had led for months until Wall Street’s high-profile woes in mid-September began hurting the Republican’s numbers nationwide.

Five percent (5%) of North Carolina voters say they still may change their minds before voting tomorrow. Right now that group includes five percent (5%) of McCain voters and four percent (4%) of Obama voters.

Obama has a 57% to 43% lead among those who have already voted.

Fifteen percent (15%) of North Carolina Democrats are supporting McCain, while just seven percent (7%) of Republicans are backing Obama. The Republican also has taken a nine-point lead among unaffiliated voters after trailing among that group last week.

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Three separate polls in Missouri (link is to US Census demographic data) all reach the same conclusion, it’s a dead heat in the Show Me State.

Three Missouri Polls

I am just going to cover the Rasmussen Reports and the Survey USA and compare their internals and underlying trends. First, here’s the poll report from Rasmussen Reports:

Barack Obama and John McCain are now tied at 49% in Missouri, according to the latest Fox News/Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state.

Last week’s Fox/Rasmussen poll found Missouri to be a one-point race in favor of Obama. Neither candidate has reached 50% level of support in the state in the last three surveys.

Ninety-two percent (92%) of voters in Missouri say they are certain of their vote at this time, while 8% say they still might change their minds.

McCain has pulled ahead among unaffiliated voters this week, 50% to 45%. Last week, the race was essentially tied among those voters. His lead also bounced among men, from one percentage point a week ago to seven in the latest poll. Obama still holds a 53% to 45% among women in Missouri.

McCain leads 52% to 46% among white voters in Missouri, while Obama leads 82% to 15% among non-white voters.

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Executive Summary: Time to update the favorability ratio. This is the tenth and final weekly installment. Senator McCain had hit a new low on October 26th at 1.02 in the favorability ratio meaning that he is viewed slightly more favorable than unfavorable (at 1, you’re even) but has since then see a mostly upward trend to finish at 1.18. Senator Obama, however, spent the week treading water. For the past week his favorability ratio ranged from a low of 1.23 on October 31 to a high of 1.30 where he finishes. At the close, Obama enjoys 12 basis point lead over Senator McCain in the ratio.

The Lemos Favorability Ratio
One of the tools that we use on Wall Street to measure movement is by expressing data as a ratio and then tracking the movement of the basis points. A basis point is a unit that is equal to 1/100th of 1%, and is used to denote the change in any financial instrument. The basis point is commonly used for calculating changes in interest rates, equity indexes and the yield of a fixed-income security. The relationship between percentage changes and basis points can be summarized as follows: 1% change = 100 basis points, and 0.01% = 1 basis point. Tracking any movement is possible and movements can be very clearly delineated. Right at the time of the national conventions, I decided to track both Senator Obama’s Favorable versus Unfavorable ratings as well as Senator McCain’s Favorable versus Unfavorable ratings. I take the the favorable rating and divide by the unfavorable rating to get a ratio which I have named the Lemos Favorability Ratio.

I am using Rasmussen Reports Daily Tracking Poll as my raw data. Rasmussen Reports is putting out a daily tracking poll with the national favorability versus unfavorability percentages. Their data extends back to June 4, 2008 and I have created a weekly Excel spreadsheet tracking the data. Here’s that data broken out by candidate and then a side-by-side comparison of the Lemos Favorability ratio is below the fold.

McCain Favourable versus Unfavourable Ratings Nationwide

Takeaway
In terms of the ratio, you want a higher number. The higher the number the greater the spread between your favorable and unfavorable ratings. McCain enjoyed his highest number to date two months ago, 1.58 in the favorability ratio but has seen an erosion of 50 basis point erosion over this period as his favorable rating declined by seven points and his unfavorable rating rose by the same amount. For the period covered dating back to August 26th, McCain’s average favorable rating was 54.5%, his average unfavorable rating was 44.0% and his average favorability ratio was 1.24. In short at the close of the campaign, McCain is below his average.

Obama Favourable versus Unfavourable Ratings Nationwide

Takeaway
Again in terms of the ratio, you want a higher number. The higher the number the greater the spread between your favorable and unfavorable ratings. As of today, Obama now stands at 1.30 in the index, 12 basis points higher than McCain. Obama’s favourable ratings have come down off their peak on October 7th when he had a 1.45 favorability ratio. Since then he has shedded 15 basis points as his favorable rating decline two points and his unfavorable rating climbed three points. But Senator Obama is finishing the campaign at his averages for the period covered. Obama’s average favorable rating is 55.6%, his average unfavorable rating is 42.8% and his average favorability ratio is 1.30. Obama is viewed pretty much as he ever was. (more…)

Though I haven’t gone back and looked and actually counted at the number of state poll posts that I have written up, my guess would be somewhere in the 225 to 250 range since August. But for Hawaii and the District of Columbia, I have written up at least one for each state. There were 18 for Ohio alone and over ten apiece for Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, Florida and North Carolina. And I probably looked at another 200 polls that I didn’t write up as posts. My spreadsheets are filled with numbers and data that lead me to conclude a comfortable Obama win on Tuesday. Trouble is there is much I don’t know and that naturally makes one cautious.

In my career as a Wall Street equity analyst where my job was to predict the behaviour of stocks, I learned to fear the unknown. What am I missing is the question I would ask myself before making a call or changing one of my stock ratings. Even if I couldn’t answer the question, I would at least to provide hedges and probabilities to variation from my predictive course of action.

I tend to believe the polls not so much for their top line, that is Obama X% and McCain Y%, but rather for the trends that can be discerned underneath in the internals. Demographics is political destiny and it is a political hard truth that people vote in blocs. Hence the term voting bloc. The reason that I have paid attention to all these states polls is that in my view the state polls matter more because due to the infinite wisdom of James Madison in the United States one can win the Presidency without winning the popular vote. And if Senator McCain does manage to win on Tuesday, I am convinced that he won’t win the popular vote.

The state polls do have one risk compared to the national polls. The state polls generally have a smaller sample size and thus a larger margin of error and the sample breakout varies greatly by state. Getting those right is of the utmost importance. Survey USA’s polls frankly worry me, they may have overpolled Democrats in some cases. Still my measure of comparison has been to use the respected state-specific pollsters such the Field Poll in California, Siena in New York, the Ohio News Consortium in Ohio, the Cronkite Poll in Arizona among others. These polls are effectively my control. Comparison across polls can point to deficiencies in a poll. And of course all polls have confidence levels, generally 95%. So 5 times out of a 100, a poll is simply wrong.

So what I am missing? Well to answer that question, I’ll point to the UK General Election of 1992 when the Conservatives led by the then bland Prime Minister John Major defeated the energetic Neil Kinnock and the British Labour Party. The polls all had predicted a Labour win. The British electorate of 1992 was especially volatile and those supporting the Tories were reticent in telling pollsters their intentions. The electoral outcome left pollsters wondering where they had gone wrong and added a new term to the political lexicon, a “shy Tory.”

Neil Kinnock was not the only surprise loser at the last general election. The other was the polling industry. Never before had so much egg landed on its collective face. The final polls, published on election day and conducted over the two previous days, showed the Conservative and Labour parties level. NOP and MORI put Labour ahead, ICM declared a dead heat and Gallup put the Conservatives ahead by a mere half per cent; the average of the four was a Labour lead of 0.9 per cent. Everything pointed to a hung parliament and a coalition government. In the event the Conservatives won with an overall majority of 21 seats, 7.6 per cent ahead of Labour in the popular vote. The polls were out by over 8 points, having underestimated the actual Conservative vote by 4 per cent and overestimated the actual Labour vote by 4 per cent.

So what went wrong? (more…)

Polls in the Commonwealth of Virginia seem to be once again tightening after Senator Obama had opened up a ten point lead last week. On October 27th, Rasmussen Reports noted a shift back towards Senator McCain finding making gains among white men and undecided voters. Earlier today a Survey USA poll put the race in the Old Dominion at a four point Obama lead, this Mason-Dixon poll commissioned and published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch points to a three point margin for Senator Obama, 47% to 44% with 9% as yet undecided.

The presidential contest in Virginia is heading toward a photo finish.

The final Richmond Times-Dispatch Poll of the campaign shows Sen. Barack Obama at 47 percent and Sen. John McCain at 44 percent. Nine percent are undecided — an unusually large slice of the electorate. The profile of undecided voters suggests that some are potentially opposed to Obama.

Because Obama’s advantage over McCain is within the poll’s margin of error — plus or minus 4 percentage points — the contest in Virginia can be considered about even.

The battle for Virginia’s 13 electoral votes is raging in the countdown hours to the election — a dramatic contrast with the state’s long history as a Republican stronghold.

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In the latest and second in as many days Rasmussen Reports poll for Pennsylvania (link is US Census demographic data), Senator Obama’s lead remains in the mid single digits range. Yesterday, Obama led by four, today his lead is six. Obama is favoured by a 52% to 46% margin suggesting no major movement in the last 24 hours.

John McCain has closed the gap in Pennsylvania over the past few weeks, but still finds himself trailing Barack Obama by six points on the final weekend of Election 2008.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state shows Obama with 52% of the vote while McCain picks up 46%. That’s little changed from polling conducted on Thursday night and earlier in the week. However, it does reflect a significantly tighter race compared to Obama’s 13-point advantage earlier in the month.

Nationally, Obama continues to hold a modest but steady lead in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and in the Electoral College projections.

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In Utah, my good friend Norm Jensen of One Good Move has been wondering how close Senator Obama might come in the Beehive State. Today’s Deseret News poll does find Obama gaining and likely to surpass Kerry’s tally from 2004 but still fall far short from making the race competitive. Senator McCain leads 57% to 32%.

Demographics remains political destiny in the United States and Utah isn’t changing demographically as fast as its neighbors in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

Demographic Trends in the Mountain West

Senator Obama’s fortunes in the Mountain West are riding the crest of a surging Hispanic population that is supporting the Democratic ticket nationwide by at least a 3:1 margin. In Utah, there aren’t enough Hispanics to make significant inroads to change the political destiny of the state. At least, not yet.

Utah is still as red as ever when it comes to presidential politics, but a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows Republican John McCain’s numbers slipping slightly while Democrat Barack Obama’s are climbing.

Fifty-seven percent of the registered voters polled said if the election were held today, they’d vote for McCain. That’s down from the 62 percent who said they backed him in September.

Obama, though, saw his support in Utah increase from 24 percent last month to 32 percent. A total of 1,205 registered voters were surveyed Oct. 24-30 by Dan Jones & Associates for the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent.

“It’s been a long time since a Democrat’s done that well,” pollster Dan Jones said. He said some Utahns may still resent McCain for beating their choice for president, Mitt Romney, the former leader of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and a Mormon.

Not only did McCain win the GOP nomination, he passed Romney over for the No. 2 spot on the ticket in favor of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Palin initially boosted McCain in national polls but has become increasingly unpopular nationwide, and, Jones said, in Utah.

But McCain’s Utah-based Western states regional coordinator, Tim Bridgewater, said the numbers are due to the campaign’s focus on battleground states. Even the Utah campaign is directing all of its resources toward voters in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.

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This is the eighteenth poll of the critical battleground state of Ohio (link to US census demographic data) that I have covered. Before we dig a little deeper, a word of caution about this poll — the Columbus Dispatch’s mail-in response methodology in conducting polling has historically made the poll one of the least reliable polls in Ohio. Nonetheless, this new from the Columbus Disptach is in-line with the general trend line of recent polling in the Buckeye State though I’ll note that a Mason-Dixon poll also out today for Ohio has Senator McCain up two points (I don’t subscribe to Mason-Dixon Polling & Research and thus the poll is published in a newspaper I can’t get at any additional underlying data).

The Columbus Dispatch poll, however, does seem to represent a tightening of the race in Ohio. Earlier this week, Quinnipiac’s poll gave Senator Obama a nine point edge. In this new poll, Obama leads by six points, 52% to 46%. Some highlights:

• Obama leads fourteen points with early voters and he leads by two points with voters who intend to vote on Election Day.

• Among voters who were already registered, Obama leads by four points. Among voters who registered for the first time this year, Obama leads by a whopping 46 points! First time voters make up 10% of the Ohio electorate.

• Although the poll shows 22% of Hillary Clinton primary voters voting for McCain, the poll shows that Democratic voters are supporting Obama at the same rate as Republicans supporting McCain. In Ohio, there does seem to be a PUMA factor but Obama overcomes it with a stronger than average support among Republicans and Independents. Obama leads by ten points with Independents.

• Obama leads with all education groups except college graduates where McCain has four point advantage. McCain also has slight leads with voters 45-64 with Obama dominating younger voters and with small leads or tied with McCain with other older voter demographics.

• Obama dominates throughout northern Ohio around Cleveland and in central Ohio in Columbus-Dayton-Akron corridor, but is not doing well in southeastern Ohio where McCain is doing as well there as he’s doing in the traditionally GOP territory of southwestern Ohio around Cincinnati.

• The leader in the last Columbus Dispatch poll has won Ohio in every election since William McKinley though in 2004, the Columbus Dispatch poll couldn’t pick a winner. It called the race a dead heat which was accurate. Bush would win Ohio by just 2.4%.

After an unprecedented campaign that seemed to break a record for breaking records, Barack Obama stands on the threshold of history — if his poll numbers hold up.

The final Dispatch Poll shows the Illinois Democrat with a 6-point lead in Ohio, virtually identical to the 7-point advantage he held a month ago. The survey is one of many in key states across America that indicate Obama is headed toward a win Tuesday that might not be close, although Republican John McCain is furiously trying to mount one more comeback and prove the pollsters wrong.

Ohioans also appear poised to elect Democrat Richard Cordray as attorney general, defeat yet another attempt to bring casino gambling to the state, and uphold tighter regulations on payday lending.

The winner of the last Dispatch Poll before a presidential election has carried the state every time in modern Ohio history, although the final survey was a dead heat four years ago between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush, who won by 2.1 percentage points.

If Obama’s lead of 52 percent to 46 percent in the new poll holds, he would become the first Democrat to win more than 50 percent of the Ohio vote since Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1964.

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