State of the Race – October 27 (T-Minus 10 Days & Counting…)

We are now just 10 days from the election, and this week there was a flurry of new polls conduct-ed. Since last week's report, there have been 77 polls done in 26 states; including 53 polls in the 11 battleground states I have identified (CO, FL, IA, MI, NV, NH, NC, 0H, PA, VA & WI). So with a week and a half until Election Day, here's where we stand:

	Safe	Likely	Lean	Total
Obama	172	65	40	277
Romney	143	48	44	235
Tossup				26

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 photo above gives a visual breakdown of which side each states fall on. For a list of which states fall in which categories, I provide the following chart:

	Safe	Likely	Lean
Obama	CA, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI, VT, WA	CT, MI, MN, NM, OR, PA	IA, NV, OH, WI
Romney	AL, AK, AR, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, MT, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY	AZ, GA, IN, MO	FL, NC
Tossup	CO, NH, VA

Here are the changes from last week: New Jersey and Washington moved from “Likely” Obama to “Safe” Obama; Pennsylvania from “Lean” Obama to “Likely” Obama; Nevada from “Tossup” to “Lean” Obama; and Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee from “Likely” Romney to “Safe” Romney.

Most of these changes are insignificant and represent a return of some states to categories they were in the previous week – such as states on both sides of the margins moving from “Likely” back to “Safe.” At this point, I think the map has pretty much taken shape and I do not expect any more major changes as we get closer to Election Day unless there is some late “October Surprise,” but I don't even think anything major in this final week would be reflected accurately in any more polling that is done due to the time it takes to conduct the state-by-state polls.

As for the final debate, I thought it was clear that President Obama won the debate as it ended up playing much like the first debate except in reverse. President Obama was the one who was being aggressive and engaging his opponent and his positions, while Governor Romney was sitting back and playing it safe. However, the major difference with the first debate was that the third debate was not nearly as lopsided as the first. Additionally, since the debate focused on foreign-policy, it was largely expected that President Obama would have the advantage.

As we exit the debates, I believe the tally on who won the three debates was Obama 2, Romney 1. However, this is not like a baseball playoff series where it is a best-of-three. In fact, all the debates are NOT created equal – the first one is clearly the most important and the winner of that debate is generally seen to have won the debate series unless something extraordinary happens in the last two debates. This is especially true in this instance when Governor Romney won the first debate so convincingly. The final reason that this debate was less significant was due to the fact that it was also the least watched. The debate occurred on a Monday night opposite Monday Night Football and Game 7 of the NLCS baseball playoffs. While it still drew more viewers than the two sporting events, it was still watched less than either of the first two debates.

As for the debate itself, I think that Governor Romney's strategy to play it safe was an interesting one when considering what was on the line. Since I have been doing this analysis, Romney has consistently trailed in the Electoral College math and while his first debate win helped close this gap, the president has consistently remained in the lead. Also, except for one week immediately after the first debate, President Obama has remained above the magic number of 270. If Romney had a good final debate and was able to beat the President on foreign-policy, it very well could have tipped the scales in Romney's favor. It makes me wonder if the ending of the second debate made Governor Romney a little gun shy about attacking the President on foreign-policy. You might remember towards the end of the second debate a question came up about Libya. I believe that President Obama’s response was one of the strongest from either candidate in all three of the debates as he looked at Governor Romney in the eyes and said he took it personal when people he asked to serve were killed and that he found it offensive when people used those events for political gain. It seemed like Romney backed down a bit and became less aggressive in that second debate after that exchange. There may have been a carryover effect into the third debate as Governor Romney tried to avoid a similar situation by not attacking the president and his foreign policies.

Now we enter the final 10 days of the campaign as both candidates attempt to finish strong. I will try and do a midweek report this week and in doing so, I'll also take a look at the status of the Senate races and which party has the upper hand in controlling the upper chamber. Finally, look for my report next Saturday as I will be giving my prediction on both the presidential race and the Senate races.