Nate Silver explains Why I'm Not Buying the Romney Rally in his late evening analysis of polls tonight, with an encouraging analysis of polls done after the Paul Ryan choice. Silver does not see the magnitude of a bounce he would expect based on historical analysis, or that some are claiming, or that is reflected in the 4.5% increase in Romney's Intrade numbers.
After noting that Romney's Intrade numbers have move up from 39% to 43.5% in the last week, he notes his forecast model has moved from 26.7 to 31.3, but he then lists many caveats. One of which is that a bounce temporarily overstates a candidates poll performance, so one needs to make a downward adjustment in forecasting models.
If so, it would probably be calculated as follows: since the average vice-presidential announcement has produced a four-point bounce in the polls, subtract four points from any poll conducted in between the naming of the running mate and the party convention. In order words, we’d subtract four points from Mr. Romney’s numbers in any poll conducted since he named Mr. Ryan on Saturday.
If I do that and run the model again, it has a rather pessimistic forecast for Mr. Romney — giving him just a 24 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, rather than 31.3 percent as in the official version.
The intuition behind this is simply that, under this theory, it’s a bad sign for Mr. Romney that Mr. Ryan has produced a below-average bounce so far. Among the polls that allow for a direct comparison, Mr. Romney has gained an average of about one percentage point since his selection of Mr. Ryan.
Personally, I don’t think there’s been much in the polling data this week that should substantially change your view of the race. Mr. Romney has certainly gotten some encouraging numbers this week, particularly in state-level polls. It’s surprising how much even a one-point shift in the polls can change the way that the race looks and feels.
Nate also thinks if the election were held today, President Obama would still win Wisconsin, although the election would be closer than it would have been a week ago.
Even though to most of us here, the Republican campaign has appeared weak, and gaffe-prone, I've lived through so many stunningly disappointing Presidential elections, the recent polls have provoke some anxiety, Nate's analysis will help me sleep better tonight. Check it out.
Thu Aug 16, 2012 at 10:54 PM PT: Hey, thanks for putting this on the rec board, If I had thought this would happen I would have put up some links to donate and get involved in the campaign, which you can still do at the official President Obama campaign site here:
http://www.barackobama.com/...
One healthy way to address late summer election anxiety is for us to send in a vast wave of money so our President can respond to the $1 to $1.5 billion the Romney campaign is starting to spend. I just moved from Mass to PA after my ex and I broke up, and we starting to see a wave of really sickening Romney ads here. My son in Ohio says they are seeing them there round the clock. He called me last week really upset, saying "Dad, Romney is on TV just lying right to the camera, and no one is doing any thing about it!!!"
Like he wanted me to go fix it. I told him he ought to get an account here, so he can practice being a good Democrat. But, he knows us well enough to know all of us here are already voting for the Democrats. He thinks we should spend more time on blogboards, LTE, and comments to traditional media. Kids!