Considering that Obama improved in Gallup and got fair numbers from the swing states?

It didn't seem a huge polling day for Romney like the last two. It suggests to me that what Nate's looking for in state polls is not "do they still show Obama in the lead by a fair margin?" but, rather "are they tighter than the last time around?" If that's the criterion, look for him to call the race tied by the weekend, even if Obama still seems to have majorities in enough states to get to 270.

Lately numbers have looked like August. These are what the August probabilities looked like.

Wasn't here in August. So don't know what DU was like then. Intense fear?


I am often glad that I have depressed emotional affect.

the winner.

It's already more than a bounce--it's a bump, a game changer.

Apparently not enough of one.

But, the debate took care of that.

Ridiculous. We'll hold the WH, we'll hold the Senate. The House will probably stay repub, but by lesser margins.

convention.

It was the most consequential presidential debate in history.

he will get them in the next debate

It's so ludicrous, it's obviously an attempt at a joke. [url=http://www.cosgan.de/smilie.php][img][/img][/url]

I'll leave the others to point out the obvious. [url=http://www.cosgan.de/smilie.php][img][/img][/url]

you just dont realize how much that horrible performance in the debate hurt our side. I cant believe people will base whom they vote for on a 90 minute debate, BUT THEY DO!. we have had little good news since then. i hope im wrong, i hope we win a landslide, but i think its going down to the wire

What I think has no standing on this election. It does no one any good to get worked up over the unknown. Hey, guess what, Nate Silver knows exactly as much about the state of the race as you and I. He can't predict what the polls will be tomorrow, let alone a week from now.

Let's face it, the national polls suck for Obama. The State polls may have stabilized a bit today but Obama still lost a pt in the ipsos and Ras trackers. Plus the Tipp came out with a some what unrealistic lead for the other guy. R +5. We really need Biden to kick some serious ass to stop the blood letting. If he does, things will look brighter. Otherwise, it's up to Obama.

Come on Joe, let's kick some ass.

There are rare exceptions, but on the whole, they do tighten. In '04, Kerry gained a lot on Bush. Even in '96, Dole erased a 20 point deficit and pulled to within single digits of Clinton ... four years earlier, Bush gained on Clinton before eventually losing.

It shouldn't be a surprise the race tightened. Here's something people don't seem to remember: the polls were tightening even before the debate.

It won't happen again. Everyone expected Romney to move to the center after securing the nomination...his seemingly inept campaign let him continue wooing the right wingnuts right up until he had the largest audience imaginable. Then boom Magical Moderate Mitt appears out of nowhere and neither Obama nor his campaign team were prepared for the exquisite timing and sheer audacity of the performance. If we have learned nothing else about our guy, we should have learned by now that he is non-confrontational...Mitt on the other hand thrives on being a bully...an unprepared Obama never had a chance and that's what the Boston crowd were counting on to win that debate. Now the meme is that "the family" finally overruled the campaign advisers and Mitt is now being Mitt. God help us....

This race was never going to be a walkover for Obama...there is too much money, too much white republican anger, too little intellect in the electorate and too much diversion (think voter suppression and the effort it to block it) for it to be anything but a squeaker. Nate Silver can't predict the polls, but he is excellent at interpreting them. Intrade is another excellent predictor...and right now Obama is sitting on a 61.1% chance of being re-elected after being as high as 79%.

Right now we are drowning in Romney ads here in FL and I'm sure that's true in the other swing states as well. The gap has closed and will probably remain close right down until the last vote is counted....and frankly, that worries me more than anything... Romney seems much too confident...just like The Shrub did in 2000....

I especially like the first line of your second paragraph--I think you're absolutely right about the money, the anger, the lack of intellect, and the shameless disregard for the democratic process. If every voter was a deep thinker and every Republican in charge of counting the votes had morals, we wouldn't have a care in the world.

Ann Romney? Is that you?

It's taken a while, but we are slowly chipping away at his ill-gotten gains. He won by lying like a dog. Yes, Obama had a less-than-stellar performance, but the truth has come out about the lies and how he cannot be trusted.

Ohio is still Obama's; as is Pennsylvania; Iowa; Nevada and many other swing states.

If the public is that fickle--that they'll swing to lying dog Romney after a decent debate performance--they'll be swinging back to Obama after Biden mops the floor with Ryan and after Obama does extremely well in the next two debates.

You watch.

...that Biden does well tomorrow night and Obama follows suit in the next two debates. Ever since last week's debate debacle, we've been going downhill. Spin it any way you want to, but this has really gotten scary. If we don't get the momentum back soon, we're going to lose.

This is a BIG drop from where we were a week ago (80-85%).

Having said that, to put this in perspective, Obama was actually only at around 60% in Nate's model when this year began.

I'm not going to get my panties in a wad over a two-point drop.

It's a total of about a 15-20 point drop from where Obama was a week ago.

Anyway, not point in debating that.

Let's just hope that Team Obama goes nuclear on Romney & Ryan over the next week.

They need to fight back against Romney fast in his attempt to steal women voters from Obama. Expose the truth about his whole record of MULTIPLE CHOICE like Ted Kennedy did.

The total drop! And every time there is a sub-component drop, there has to be a freak-out thread on it, and then the total drop in the "model" is the super freak-out.

That's how "we" do it!

By the way, the underlying story is that Romney made a big, giant, huge, unheard-of, monster, incredible, fist-thumping comeback; that Obama is a lazy, terrible, mistake-prone, arrogant do-nothing; that he's fallen terribly; that Romney has risen meteorically; that Team Obama (Obama can't do anything on his own, except fall terribly, so any action has to be by "Team Obama," except failing, which has to be attributed to Obama alone, except, of course, that Team Obama is also stupid and arrogant and confused) can perhaps still correct this catastrophe, and blah blah blah something about Romney bad.

That's the story! Please stick to it, sir.

That's how "we" measure it, after all.

I really do wonder if some of our great prognosticators even know their precinct captain's name.

That's how we measure the impact.

Didja say sickie-seben? Oh mah!

It beats me what people expected.

It 50/50 if that is what he believes. Needs to stop playing games. If it is a toss up then say so and be done with it.

After a week or so, Romney's bounce is no longer a bounce but a change to the structure of the race.

In other words, the debate was a real game changer that very well may have decided the election.

You just embarrass yourself. Seriously. You're more dishonest than Mitt Romney ... and that's saying something.

possibility that it's just noise and the greater the possibility that it reflects a change in the reality of the race.

Stop with the bullshit. Seriously. I know you want to drive the narrative that Obama sucks and he's going to lose, but knock this shit off. You're just looking more and more like a concern troll and less like a Democrat cheering for a good outcome (do you even want Obama to win?).

There hasn't been any evidence to suggest a trend has turned into game-changer. There just hasn't been enough polling since the debate, and enough time to allow the debate bounce, to suggest this. We won't know until probably next week if this was a game-changer because the polls haven't yet caught up to the potential of a bounce or lack thereof.

To suggest this changes the race is absolutely dishonest and does no one any good. But I suspect you know this and don't care. You're mining for bad news at every chance you get. It's pathetic and you know what? You're not even worth my time.

Welcome to ignore. I hope you enjoy wallowing in your own disdain toward Obama. Fuckin' pathetic.

You said what is in my mind about that poster.

VA: 55.9%
CO: 50.8%
IA: 62.5%
Florida is gone.
NC is gone.

The state percentages have taken a beating.

The Obama campaign in the mean time runs Big Bird.

Biden needs to pull a fucking Rabbit out of his hat to stem this shit.

I post this because I'm still pissed at that fucking debate performance.

Man the fuck up Obama.

The model is the model but the data isn't all fresh.

The debate was a week ago tonight. Any poll from a week ago today is irrelevant, since all would have been done prior to the debates. Moreover, any movement in the post-debate can't accurately be gauged until a few days out ... so, really, a week out wouldn't be until next Monday.

It's dishonest to say that it's been a week since the debate had time to sink in.

It's too long an average. Old data stays in the mix too long and that data stays in Nate's model.

They smooth out volatile short term data.

Can also create trends from random noise through moving average.

Soothing is just that, smoothing it doesn't get the valliesvallies or the peaks of more short term models, because it keeps data longer. Statistically, it is very useful for seeing actual trends versus blips.

Because there is no such thing as the probability we are speaking of. It's a measure of confidence in an outcome and not real probability. So in some cases it might be valuable to see what the effect of a single event is on confidence. In this case I want to assess effect of the few days after the debate on model prediction. But I can't because of five and seven day trackers dominating the model.

So I have to wait. I do not like waiting much.

Which is why Nate even has the two probabilities for if the election were held today versus held in November. The nowcast is extremely volatile while the real prediction is smoother.

For the record, I think Romney made some real gains but not add much as we've seen this past week. Without getting all mathy I expect things to level again if the debates are not perceived as lopsided as the first one.

We also get state polls from legit pollsters.

Also, Obama internals are showing it to be a game changer.

This is what a "senior Obama strategist" had to say:

That was supposed to be Obama's task at the first debate, one he clearly fumbled. Internal Obama swing-state polling now confirms this harsh reality: The president's lackluster performance cost him all of the advantages he built up through the Democratic National Convention and via Romney's now-infamous dismissal of the "47 percent" of the country that he said in a closed-door fundraiser would never vote for him.

In other words, in 90 minutes, Obama flushed a month's worth of convention and 47-percent bounce.

"We were in the lead, but that's all washed away," the president's strategist said. "Now it's up to us to make the case against him. Most undecideds are making a choice about him, not the president."

Freak out or don't. It makes no difference to the real world, apart from the noise.

But the Obama campaigns internal polling isn't showing a game change. It shows them ahead. Ahead enough for a decent win. Just not a blowout.

Obama does/says, but rather what Romney dos/says.

Stats don't tell me that.

The internals of most polls have shown that almost all of Romney's gains have come from solidifying Republican support and enthusiasm. In fact, in some polls, Obama is the one making gains among independents.

Personally, I think it's the other way around -- if Obama can show, in the next two debates that he a) has a pulse and b) can go toe-to-toe with Mittens, he'll "close the deal" -- not Romney

Yesterday, two Obama staffers told Mark Halperin that their internal polling in swing states wasn't showing any change. This afternoon, we find out that they only got the first such post-debate internals today (i.e. those staffers were talking out of their asses), and that, while they still showed Obama in the lead, they were within the margin of error -- which they certainly weren't before. So, I suspect the advisor is correct in saying we've lost everything gained since August. Strictly, that's neither the best (no change) nor worst (bottom falls out, Romney leads) scenarios possible -- but it does represent a tightening, which I suspect is all Nate needs to move the race to "dead heat" status.

Their July and and August levels. This I believe as several swing state polls had Obama ahead again today. Also their is lag in state and national polling. Typically, in this cycle I've seen the national numbers play catch up with the swing state numbers. Tomorrow we'll get a real good idea of where things stand when the better polls come in, state and national. It's a huge day actually. If Obama's average is below Romney, we could be screwed. No candidate has ever lost the electoral college since 1960 if they are behind in the national polls one week after the first debate. I'm not sure if that means tomorrow, or if that means the body of polls taken immediately after the end of the first week.

Ahead in the key states, but Romney could pass him if undecideds break his way.

There are so many frivolous "no one has ever..." facts, you could make an elaborate and unprecedented collage out of them. It's not a "huge day" unless Ryan tramples all over Biden; given Romney's steady momentum, I suspect that an easy victory for his running mate could go some way to ending this election as a contest. Barring that disaster, there's plenty of time for Obama to make his case and point out Romney's myriad flaws during their next two one-on-ones.

My feeling is that this is going to be decided by the final jobs' report. I had that notion in the back of my head prior to the DNC, and I think that the calamitous events of the past week have elevated it once more. Any sort of uptick and it's a minimum of eight - probably twelve - years of Romney / Ryan (come on - if they manage to convince a credulous, simplistic majority that the economy is all on Obama less than four years after Bush left office, there's no way on Earth that they're being turfed out in 2016, none whatsoever...barring the Democratic Party going all out to tempt the Kochs and Adelsons to jump on board), and if it edges down again, I think Obama will pull it out.

One could also say "no president in the modern era with an approval above 50% has ever failed to be re-elected." There' a whole lot of dueling precedents here...

An unnamed democratic strategist quoted in a conservative outlet makes you, a democrat, decide that it's a lost cause.

by the way, the previously complacent base that was worried no one would turn out for GOTV because the polls looked so great are pretty fired up and worried now. Who does that benefit?

I think maybe we all have to acknowledge that reality is more fluid, and that, given a whole series of circumstances, there usn't a neat cut-off date where "possibly temporary" becomes "lasting.". For example, I'm not convinced Romney's gain in the polls is entirely due to the debate -- I suspect a vector of it is due to a "negative bounce" from the 47% tape subsiding after a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, for those who like models, I see the Princeton site's projection for today is for Obama to get 304 EVs -- more than Nate has been predicting for several days.

The win-% is changing because some states moved closer to viable for Romney and he gained ground in the national polls. Romney is not winning in the places he needs to win in order to actually win the election...the only thing that is happening is an increase in uncertainty within the model. If the tracking polls and state polls stay where there are right now then by the end of next week Romney's win-chances will be dropping right back into the 20%s. All the current number indicates is if he keeps up this momentum he's shown over the last week, he's got a 1 in 3 chance of pulling it out.

A bet on Romney today is still a sucker-bet.

Two weeks from now if he's still this close then maybe we can commence to begin to think about maybe considering the possibility of starting to worry.

First, by predicting pre-debate that, even if Romney won the debste decisively, it would only slightly improve his longshot chances, then by saying the night of the debate that a Romney win didn't matter, because there were too few undecided voters to make a difference, and finally by stating confidently that even a clear-cut Romney win would only move the polls a maximum of 2.2%. Basically, he's been proven wrong on a number of things in a short amount of time, suggesting that the predictive value of his model (and, counter to what some are saying here, his model really is supposed to be of predictive, and not just evaluative, value) is in need of some major re-figuring. I think the rapid changes to his results are an admission that, to be honest, he has no more idea where this is headed than the rest of us do.

He updates daily based on the latest news and let's the model translate it. It might hit 50-50, but I doubt it. Based on his comments after the Pew poll, my guess is the drop us driven almost entirely by the IBD Romney +5 poll released today.

He doesn't throw out the stranger polls as he doesn't want to add opinion to the model. The recede should level out when data normalizes.

Followed by a rebound into the low to mid 70s by election day. No data just a hunch.

If anyone cares

especially with good or even debates that are a draw.

Hopefully it's just a "correction" as the last few days of data cycle through Silver's model and things start to flatten out and maybe even slowly creep back upward over the next week or so. A flat day at 538 would be awesome right about now.

Romney's a terrible candidate, but even a senile Republican with a terminal illness would capture nearly half the votes in this polarized country.

Romney's pulled himself up to mediocrity and everybody's showering him with praise for it. But the fact remains that unemployment looks to be going down, people like Obama, and they approve of the job he's doing overall by a significant margin. Once Obama gets his chance to stick up for himself at the town hall debate, people will once again realize why they didn't like Romney.

It was 85% chance of winning, which was not unrealistically high given that a week ago Obama had a national lead of several points with HUGE leads in many of the swing states.

Romney was COOKED a week ago.

That's what makes this so frustrating. Romney successfully orchestrated a big comeback.

Anyway, no point in worrying about it anymore.

Just get out there and convince Obama, the DNC & the media to expose Romney's PATHOLOGICAL LYING.

Mitt Witt is doing more damage as time goes on again.
I truly feel that things are going to be okay.

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!

EVERY damn election people here at DU go nuts when things get a little rough. I saw the same thing in 2008 when McCain got a bump in the polls, and I'll say the same thing now that I said then:

CHILL OUT, folks. Obama is going to win this thing. Mark my words.

Fucking ridiculous.

How the hell can one fucking debate shift things that much?

And we're not this unlikely either

.... of these polls say. I never understood how nate silver got his numbers anyway.

Obama has a better than 2/3rds chance of winning. If that holds up that's great!

...that, once you get down to 60-65%, an Obama win is no longer a sure thing, and that low Democratic turnout could cost him the election.

BTW, he's also written that the "60-65%" figure ought to be what Obama gets on economic factors alone.

Maybe a little history could put this into perspective.

It seems that the first debate allows the challenger to shed off the unflattering image that the incumbent has forced upon him. Both Kerry and Romney were effectively caricatured by their opponents, and the first debate let them define themselves, at least for a week or two.

It really says a lot about volatility and how far these things can swing when everyone thinks its a wrap. I know Kerry won the next two debates, but not by much, yet Bush still took back his polling lead to some degree. Looks like a rough ride ahead.

It depends on Registered Voters. The RV polls are looking good. We must show up to vote in large enough numbers to beat any possible cheat. When that happens, it's a wrap.

For a whole week, it's been nothing but about the Return of Romney.

i love joe, but he has as much skill speaking as my german sheperd. im sure joe is a smart man, but 50% of the time, when he opens his mouth, he sticks his foot in it

He did what he had to do and didn't play down to her.

The "Biden gaffe" meme comes from the fact he tells the truth about Rethugs, and they soil their shorts in offense over it. The people who think he "gaffes" are right wing dickheads.

going to lose.

With numbers like these, no wonder he's so accurate!

If Romney's odds of winning reach 35% then he will have a 100% chance of winning.

Don't you understand The Model?

I'm so sick of you spreading your doom and gloom all over this board. It is VERY clear that you are not an Obama supporter. You seem more like a troll! Thankful for the ignore button.

Some people are more emotional than the median human. Half actually.

Took me a long time to get this through my head. My problem. Good at math but not when bit involves humans. Lol.

That is 72 hours. 72 is a big number! And he is ahead by about 1 point. ONE!

We're all gonna die!!!

You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip slidin' away.

Is this supposed to be a site where anything other than happy happy joy joy news is to be censored?

Here I was earlier meeting with the other Commissars regarding several unloyal citizens!



The Directive from Obamaboro Central was for only Happy Happy Joy Joy News on the political forums - all else is Defeatist! We're here to enforce that!

It isn't at all because a lot of DUers just happen to find a number of our new friends to be, well, dishonest, abusive assholes. No, that's not it at all.

It's a grand effort at Happy Happy Joy Joying the political boards in the service of the Party. Get on board, Comrade!

I said early on to watch out for these motherfuckers, and all I got was flame. Never underestimate these people. That should be clear from the Dubya years. It apparently was not to many, but maybe now those many are beginning to realize whom they're dealing with. If they're not, they'd better. Anybody who thinks these assholes aren't in striking distance is foolish.

mark my words, the first debate will be rmoney's only bright point in the campaign.

After the VP debate, hopefully the media will turn away from the first debate and polls done completely post-bump can be released. The race will certainly be tighter but I expect the model flatten out soon.

"Blah blah blah, blah blah enthusiasm, blah blah blah some other common narrative blah blah blah Obama and Biden have to do good in debates."

Wow. Color me enlightened.

Oh, don't worry. We have a lot of similar shit going on in the 'digital humanities.' Some supposedly wizard-like number crunching meant to look really impressive, followed by an interpretation that could have probably been generated by an undergraduate in one of those late-night paper-writing sessions. But fear not: these people get jobs.

Magicians are always moderately interesting.

Romney has had a lot of bad things happen these past two days: abortion flip flop, ex-SEAL's disparaging comments & his mom saying she doesn't trust Romney and publicly telling him to quit talking about her deceased son, that ludicrous GOP "emergency hearings" over embassy security, even though the GOP is largely to blame by cutting embassy security by almost half a billion $, then, of course, I expect Joe to bury Ryan.

I actually feel pretty good--by no means cocky, but good.

...just seven days ago, Obama's chances of winning according to NYT 538 was over 4 to 1. Now it's barely 2 to 1. Amazing how just one debate has changed everything. If the Obama campaign doesn't get the momentum back soon, we're going to lose this election.

Is that he accepted that Pew poll as it was, instead of with a generous dose of salt. Several people on both this site and Daily Kos, myself included, have pointed out the irregularities in that poll. So I'm not hopeless yet....sad thing is, though, the media keep pushing the "Romney will win" bullshit as if it's a sure thing.

There were issues that would imply the need for salt, but they were balanced by the fact that Pew has one of the largest "house effects" in the other direction.

So I suspect that Silver used the "irregularities" as an excuse to not read Pew as even worse than the headline number.