Politico: Romney Up 4 in 'Toss Up' States

Breitbart's Big Government ^ | October 3, 2012 | Mike Flynn

[2ndDivisionVet]

This week, Politico released its latest Battleground poll of the presidential race. Despite coming from the left-wing news site, the poll is one of my favorites. Its put together by respected pollsters from both parties, makes available its full cross-tabs and uses a very modest and reasonable turnout model for its sample. Including leaners, the sample in the poll is D+2. Nationally, Obama leads by 2-3 points, but, in the critical swing states, Romney now has the edge.

Each candidate leads in states considered "safe" for their party. In safe GOP states, Romney leads by 8. In safe Democrat states, Obama leads by a massive 22 points. But, in the more numerous and more important "toss up" states, Romney leads by 4, hitting the critical 50% threshold.

In the slightly different category of "battleground" states identified by Politico, Romney leads by 2, 49-47. Romney's lead over Obama is powered primarily by his edge with independents. Romney leads Obama by 4 among the important swing voters. By 11 points, these voters think Romney would do better on the economy than Obama, 51-40.

Romney also has a big edge with middle class families, who prefer him over Obama by 15 points, 56-41.

The media has anxiously portrayed tonight's debate as a critical moment for Romney to propel his campaign into the final stretch...

[2ndDivisionVet]

Remember: Undecideds and Independents swing to the challenger 7 to 1, according to many political operatives.

[Viennacon]

No wonder Dems are desperately spamming the debates. They’re losing in freakin’ Politico!

[ConservativeDude]

Romney is winning in every category. But losing in the national head to head polls....hmmmmmm

[gov_bean_ counter]

Is this Battleground Ed Goas’ group? They used to be pretty accurate. Surprised Politico would be using them.

[Theodore R.]

Maybe his margins in NY, IL, MA, MD, CA, WA, etc. provide the national lead.

[scbison]

Ed has a democratic pollster with him. Used to be Celinda lake but not quite sure who it is now.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Thanks. Celinda Lake doesn’t seem to be mentioned in any recent info on him.

[Vigilanteman]

Wow! 279 pages of hard polling data at the link.

[cicero2k]

This could be another 2000 style loss for the Dems. Huge majorities in CA, NY, NJ, IL are wasted. Close elections favor the Republicans, since they dominate the small states which carry outsized electoral college numbers. Examples: AK and WY carry more EVs than their population deserve, numerically.

Also, it’s 2012 not 2008. The census in 2010 shifted EVs to red states, primarily.

[sodpoodle]

When are you starting a live thread for the debate?

[justlurking]

A couple of interesting statistics in the crosstabs:

• 40% self-reported as Republicans, 17% as independent, 43% as Democrats.
• 59% self-reported as conservative, 35% as liberal, and 5% as moderate.
• 61% of independents consider themselves conservative.
• 29% of Democrats consider themselves conservative.

[comebacknewt]

This is the most encouraging polling data I have seen in weeks.

Can’t wait for their next update to see if the trend holds / see if other pollsters confirm it.

[Digger]

You all have forgotten who counts the votes.

[reformedliberal]

Our votes are counted locally. I am very close to some people who do exactly that in my area.

[PermaRag]

This is just Politico, friend of the hard left, making up some *temporarily* good numbers for Romney so they can gleefully pull the rug out later — probably with another set of made-up numbers.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Obama leads by 2-3 points, but, in the critical swing states, Romney now has the edge...this at least makes sense mathematically - Obama is likely to run up big leads in big solidly blue states like New York and California, while Romney is likely to run much closer in smaller but critical swing states......