Let's take a look at where the race stands as we conclude
the Labor Day weekend. Of course, this weekend also represents the halftime for
the two conventions as the Republican Convention concluded Thursday night and
the Democratic Convention begins tomorrow night. As of right now, I calculate
the electoral math as follows:
Safe
|
Likely
|
Lean
|
Total
|
|
Obama
|
172
|
49
|
76
|
297
|
Romney
|
147
|
44
|
0
|
191
|
Tossup
|
50
|
If you want to see a visual breakdown of where states
fall, see the photo above or click here
for a map. Obviously, the darker the shade of blue or red, then the safer that
state is for that candidate. If you want to see how I arrived at these
categories, I would encourage you to review the first “State of the Race” post
I did on August 11 which can be found here.
The only changes from last week to this week was New
Jersey moving from “Likely Obama” to “Safe Obama” and Missouri moved back from “Lean
Romney” to “Likely Romney.” There were some minor changes within the
categories, but the map is relatively static at this point. Initially, I would note that any bounce that
Romney would receive from the Republican Convention will not show up until next
week's review of the race. Likewise, any bounce that Obama receives from the
Democratic Convention will not show up until I post in two weeks. This is due
to the fact that it takes the polls some time in the various states to start
showing any movement and generally it is agreed that a week after an event, the
polling will reflect any movement in the race.
As for the lack of movement in the race since I've been
doing this, I would only suggest that it is largely due to the fact that most
of the impressionable electorate has not engaged in this race yet. Surely there
are a lot of people who are following this race on a day-to-day basis, but
those people are generally the ones who have already made up their mind and/or are
political junkies like me. They say that the general election starts in earnest
after Labor Day, so it's very appropriate that I would be talking about this
issue on that day. Ultimately, over the next two weeks as we see the results of
any convention bounces and whether the polls start to move, this will tell us
if that axiom has some truth.
Next week, I'll try and do a wrap-up of the two
conventions and where I think this sets the race for the remainder of the
general election.
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