So the current media narrative is "Will Obama hold on to Ohio?! It's moving closer and closer to Romney." I wanted to see how much of a buffer the President actually has, so I headed over the RCP and checked the polls. Although the average has decreased over the last month, I noticed something about the individual polls. I noticed the incredible stability of the state's polling. Basically, there is no trend for Ohio moving towards Romney. The trend is no movement whatsoever for the past Two Months. Observe with me the Republican fear in Ohio past the squiggle.
So here is what I did. I checked the polling, by firm, for the last two months to see the dynamic going on in Ohio. First here are the polls with some credibility (I included Ras because it has polled the state for quite some time and, although biased, at least has credible trends.):
PPP (D) 10/12 - 10/13 880 LV 3.3 51 46 Obama +5
PPP (D) 9/27 - 9/30 897 LV 3.3 49 45 Obama +4
PPP (D) 9/7 - 9/9 1072 LV 3 50 45 Obama +5
Rasmussen Reports 10/17 - 10/17 750 LV 4 49 48 Obama +1
Rasmussen Reports 10/10 - 10/10 750 LV 4 48 47 Obama +1
Rasmussen Reports 10/4 - 10/4 500 LV 4.5 50 49 Obama +1
Rasmussen Reports 9/12 - 9/12 500 LV 4.5 47 46 Obama +1
NBC/WSJ/Marist 10/7 - 10/9 994 LV 3.1 51 45 Obama +6
NBC/WSJ/Marist 9/30 - 10/1 931 LV 3.2 51 43 Obama +8
NBC/WSJ/Marist 9/9 - 9/11 979 LV 3.1 50 43 Obama +7
SurveyUSA 10/12 - 10/15 613 LV 4 45 42 Obama +3
SurveyUSA 10/5 - 10/8 808 LV 3.5 45 44 Obama +1
Did you notice anything? No debate, no 47%, nothing has changed the state of Ohio's polling for the last two months. It is almost like everyone in Ohio made up their minds months ago and said screw all these ads, I'm going to ignore it all. So, what actually caused the supposed trend shift? Let's see:
We have Crapsack polling extrardinaire
Gravis Marketing 10/6 - 10/10 1313 LV 2.7 45 46 Romney +1
Gravis Marketing 9/21 - 9/22 594 LV 4.3 45 44 Obama +1
Gravis Marketing 9/7 - 9/8 1548 LV 2.7 47 43 Obama +4
A late comer with a Romney bend
ARG 10/5 - 10/8 600 LV 4 47 48 Romney +1
ARG 9/10 - 9/12 600 LV 4 48 47 Obama +1
Finally a bunch of one-time September poll reinforcers who have not done Ohio in October
CNN/Opinion Research 10/5 - 10/8 Obama +4
WeAskAmerica 10/4 - 10/4 Romney +1
Columbus Dispatch* 9/19 - 9/29 Obama +9
Washington Post 9/19 - 9/23 Obama +8
CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac 9/18 - 9/24 Obama +10
Purple Strategies 9/15 - 9/19 Obama +4
FOX News 9/16 - 9/18 1009 Obama +7
Ohio Newspapers/Univ of Cin. 9/13 - 9/18 Obama +5
Caddell/McLaughlin/SAN (R) 9/13 - 9/15 Obama +3
I believe that the Obama Firewall is composed of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Nevada (Which has not had a poll showing Romney as the winner since a PPP (D) had him winning by 3 points in April of 2011). We may worry about some of the President's composition, but Ohio has shown absolutely zero indication of movement from were it was at every point before the first debate. So how about you, worried?