GOVT SHUTDOWN

GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST

House Republicans are allowing the government to shut down, rather than permit a vote on continued funding of the government at sequester levels, which alone would (in a sane universe) have been a real victory for them. This puts Republicans in precisely the same position they were in before they caved to conservative demands and launched a series of anti-Obamacare votes that have proven futile. Remember, Congress will vote to fund the government soon enough. Dems are not going to meaningfully undermine Obamacare, which means John Boehner will have to figure out a way, very soon, of allowing a vote on funding for the government, untethered from the health law, even if it means making the Tea Party very, very angry.

How long Boehner is willing to postpone this will be partly influenced by how much damage the GOP is sustaining, as judged by influential party insiders. And on that score, today’s new Quinnipiac poll should set off alarm bells.
It finds that 58 percent of Americans, including 58 percent of independents, oppose Congress defunding Obamacare. Seventy two percent, and 74 percent of independents, oppose shutting down major activities of the government to stop the health law. On the debt limit, 64 percent oppose not raising it to block the law. All of this is in spite of plurality disapproval of Obamacare. Dems have opened a nine point lead in the generic House matchup, 43-34. Underlying structural factors mean even a wide lead probably won’t dislodge the GOP majority. But as Steven Shepard rightly notes, a shutdown could make things “volatile.”

[The poll] finds that ...54 percent say Obama is “honest and trustworthy”; 54 percent say he cares about people’s needs and problems; and he leads Republicans on handling the middle class by 51-38. While 50 percent say Obama isn’t doing enough to compromise with Republicans, 68 percent say Republicans aren’t doing enough to compromise with Obama. This may be the most important finding:
Which comes closer to your point of view; there is gridlock in Washington mainly because President Obama lacks the personal skills to convince leaders of Cnogress tow ork together, or there is gridlock in Washington mainly because Republicans in Congress are determined to block any President Obama initiative:
Obama lacks skills: 33
Republicans block 55
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These findings were taken before the government shutdown. There’s no telling how much worse public perceptions could get now that it’s under way, let alone how they’d be impacted by default and a resulting economic crash.

BUSINESS WEEK:  Wall Street to Washington: 'What, Me Worry?'

....the market assumed a sense of serenity unseen in more than seven years. Volatility, as measured by the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (or VIX) is down 9 percent year-to-date, to a level that is now 18 percent below its average since 1990, Bloomberg data show. The average daily change for the S&P 500-stock index narrowed to 0.45 percent in the third quarter, the smallest rate since the end of 2006. Compare that to the record 3.31 percent a day clocked in the final quarter of 2008, during the worst of the financial crisis.

The market recently hit all-time high, and is up by a third just since June 2012, a run that has pumped nearly $5 trillion into the capitalization of the Standard & Poor’s 500.
“I think the risk aversion is back to near historical lows mostly because of the no-taper decision by the Fed,” says Chun Wang of the Leuthold Group, referring to the Fed’s decision not to slow the pace of its bond-buying program. “The market still expects a last-minute resolution of the debt ceiling and the effect of the government shutdown to be minimal.” Leuthold’s Risk Aversion Index is near an all-time low.
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However copacetic Wall Street may be feeling about things, a protracted government shutdown would inflict real pain on the lackluster economy. Moody’s Analytics’ (MCO) chief economist Mark Zandi calculates that a three- to four-week shutdown would shave 1.4 percentage points off growth; without a shutdown, he was predicting a 2.5 percent annualized pace of fourth-quarter growth.

LAST POLL FROM NATE SILVER

FROM five thirty eight

Among 12 national polls published on Monday, Mr. Obama led by an average of 1.6 percentage points. Perhaps more important is the trend in the surveys. On average, Mr. Obama gained 1.5 percentage points from the prior edition of the same polls, improving his standing in nine of the surveys while losing ground in just one.

Because these surveys had large sample sizes, the trend is both statistically and practically meaningful. Whether because of Hurricane Sandy, the relatively good economic news of late, or other factors, Mr. Obama appears to have gained ground in the closing days of the race.

The national polls now range from showing a 1-point lead for Mr. Romney to slightly more than a 4-point advantage for Mr. Obama. The FiveThirtyEight forecast of the national popular vote is within this range, projecting Mr. Obama’s most likely margin of victory to be two or three percentage points, approximating the margin that George W. Bush achieved in defeating John Kerry in 2004.

[Silver's data show a tie at 48.2% in Florida and a lead of 2% for Obama in Virginia. In the popular vote nationwide Obama leads 50.8% to 48.3%]

FINAL POLLS BEFORE THE REAL POLL

According to Nate Silver at FiveThirty Eight in the NY Times, the President leads 50.6% to 48.5% in the popular vote and leads in the Electoral College 307--231. Obama leads in Ohio by 3%. Obama is behind Romney in Florida by less than one percentage point. In Virginia Obama leads by 1.4%

from New York Times Nate Silver: Five Thirty Eight 11/5/12

When the hurricane made landfall in New Jersey on Oct. 29, Mr. Obama’s chances of winning re-election were 73 percent in the FiveThirtyEight forecast. Since then, his chances have risen to 86 percent, close to his highs on the year.

But, while the storm and the response to it may account for some of Mr. Obama’s gains, it assuredly does not reflect the whole of the story.

Mr. Obama had already been rebounding in the polls, slowly but steadily, from his lows in early October — in contrast to a common narrative in the news media that contended, without much evidence, that Mr. Romney still had the momentum in the race.

Moreover, there are any number of alternatives to explain Mr. Obama’s gains before and after the storm hit.

Mr. Obama was adjudicated the winner of the second and third presidential debates in surveys of voters who watched them.

The past month has brought a series of encouraging economic news, including strong jobs reports in October and last Friday.

The bounce in the polls that Mr. Romney received after the Denver debate may have been destined to fade in part, as polling bounces often do following political events like national conventions.

Democrats have an edge in early voting based on states that provide hard data about which party’s voters have turned out to cast ballots. Some voters who were originally rejected by the likely voter models that surveys apply may now be included if they say that they have already voted.

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney have been running lots of advertisements, which could have some effect, especially in the swing states.

Mr. Obama’s voter-targeting operation may in fact be stronger than Mr. Romney’s and may have begun to show up in the polls.

Mr. Obama’s approval rating is at 49 or 50 percent in many surveys, a threshold that would ordinarily predict a narrow re-election for an incumbent.

Some elections “break” toward one or another candidate at the end as undecided voters tune in and begin to evaluate their decision.

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If I had told you in January that Mr. Obama’s approval rating would have risen close to 50 percent by November, and that the unemployment rate would have dropped below 8 percent, you likely would have inferred that Mr. Obama was a favorite for re-election, with or without a hurricane and what was judged to be a strong response to it.

This is not to dismiss the effects of the hurricane entirely. But the fact that Mr. Obama’s rebound in the polls has been slow and steady, rather than sudden, would lend weight to some of these other ideas, even if they make for less dramatic narratives.

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from The Huffington Post;

With just one day remaining in the 2012 race for president, the polling picture is now virtually complete. President Barack Obama continues to hold narrow but significant leads over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in enough battleground states to put him over the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

The sheer volume of data tells us that Obama's leads in the tipping point states like Ohio and Nevada are not a matter of random chance, and there are no signs of any late breaks to Romney. If anything, the latest national polls appear to indicate a slight uptick in Obama's favor.

Before weighing those possibilities, consider the dozen or so new national polls released on Sunday. The results appear to be converging, as they often do in the final days of the campaign. A week ago, the margins separating the candidates varied between a 4-point Romney advantage and a 3-point Obama edge. Now the spread in the margins is narrower. Five of the polls show an exact tie, and seven give nominal advantages to Obama that are between 1 and 3 percentage points. The new surveys include the final national samples from the Pew Research Center, NBC/Wall Street Journal, CNN/ORC International and YouGov.



The NBC-Wall St Journal Poll gives Obama a one point lead, but the Gallup Poll (not listed in the above chart) has Romney one point ahead. The Pew Research Center ahead of Tuesday's election shows President Obama has a 3 percentage point lead. The CNN Poll has both men tied at 49%.

ONE WEEK TO E DAY; LATEST POLLS

By JEFF ZELENY and MARJORIE CONNELLY Published: October 30, 2012 NYT

President Obama and Mitt Romney enter the closing week of the campaign in an exceedingly narrow race, according to the latest poll by The New York Times and CBS News, with more voters now viewing Mr. Romney as a stronger leader on the economy and Mr. Obama as a better guardian of the middle class.

The president is holding his coalition together with strong support from women and minority voters and is supported by 48 percent of likely voters nationwide, the poll found, while Mr. Romney holds a wide advantage among independents and men and is the choice of 47 percent.

October 30, 2012, NATE SILVER NYT

The effects of Hurricane Sandy on next Tuesday’s election are hard to predict. But the storm is likely to have an impact on the volume of polling in the meantime.
Three of the eight national tracking polls — those from Gallup, Investors’ Business Daily and Public Policy Polling — have announced temporary suspensions in their polling. Further delays and cancellations are likely over the next few days, especially in the Northeastern states.

Obama continues to lead Romney 50% to 49%. Obama continues to lag by 1% in Florida and to have a 3% lead in Ohio.The electoral count projection is 295 votes for Obama and 243for Romney.

The Washington Post:

The new Pew poll shows the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney a dead heat among likely voters [47% apiece] -- what else is new -- but also provides plenty of other fascinating glimpses into the relative strengths and weaknesses of each man as well as the mindset of the electorate with election day just a week off.
We combed through the poll -- while sequestered in official Fix headquarters to wait out Hurricane Sandy -- and came up with [five] takeaways. They are below.

1. A Republican intensity gap: More than three-quarters (76 percent) of Republican and lean Republican voters said they are likely to vote on Nov. 6 as compared with 62 percent of Democrats and lean Democratic voters. That double-digit intensity gap should be concerning for Democrats as, typically, the side whose base is more energized usually winds up winning.

2. Obama's huge "connection" edge: As has been the case in previous Pew data (as well as virtually every other polling conducted in the race) the new Pew survey shows a huge edge to Obama when voters are asked which of the two candidates better connects with "ordinary" Americans. Fifty nine percent of Pew's sample said Obama connects better while 31 percent say Romney does. (Worth noting: That 28-point gap was significantly smaller than the 43-point bulge Obama enjoyed over Romney on the question in mid-September.) If the election comes down to voters asking themselves which of the two men "gets" them better, President Obama will be re-elected.
3. Romney as the "ideas" candidate: Despite Democratic attacks that allege that Romney has offered nothing in the way of new (or specific) ideas on what he would do differently or better than Obama, voters -- at least in the Pew poll -- don't see things that way. Forty six percent say Romney has "new ideas" while 41 percent say the same of Obama. That gap grows to 16 points in Romney's favor when only swing voters are sampled in the Pew data. Romney's lead on the question is exhibit No. 1 on how difficult it is to run as the new/change/fresh face when you are the incumbent president of the United States.

4. First debate mattered more: When we tweeted that Romney's clear win in the first debate probably mattered more than Obama's narrow win in the second debate and less-narrow win in the final debate, liberals blanched. But, the Pew data suggest the first debate simply did matter more. Thirty six percent of people said that the three debates gave them a better opinion of Romney while just 18 percent said the same of Obama. Some of those numbers are explained by the fact that Romney was less well known than Obama going into the first debate and in his solid performance he effectively beat back the caricature the Obama team had crafted of him in their television ad onslaught. Regardless of the reasons though, the debates -- especially the first one -- are the reason Romney is as close as he is in the race today.

5. An overblown gender gap focus?: In the Pew data Romney is losing women by six points. If he keeps that margin on election day, Romney would lose the female vote by less than half the margin that John McCain lost them in 2008. (McCain lost women by 13 points.) In fact, if Romney fell short to Obama among women voters by just six points, it would be the narrowest loss for a Republican presidential candidate among females in more than 20 years. It's worth noting that many other national surveys suggest a wider gender gap than Pew but as we have noted before, the idea that Romney is headed toward anything like a historically large loss among women voters simply isn't born out by the data.

MONEY FOR OBAMA & GOOD NEWS FOR ROMNEY

President Obama and his party shattered the election cycle’s fund-raising record with a $181 million t0tal for September, the announcement offered a jolt of good news for Mr. Obama’s supporters in the wake of a lackluster debate performance on Wednesday that left many of them worried.

Meanwhile, The Mitt Romney on display this week was looser and more relaxed, offering a counter to his reputation as a data-driven technocrat.

Facing off against President Obama in Denver, Mr. Romney had been the candidate his aides had longed to see all year: funny (joking about the “romantic” evening he and Mr. Obama were spending on the president’s 20th wedding anniversary), commanding (challenging Mr. Obama on taxes and government spending) and even warm (placing his right hand over his heart at the end of the debate, in an homage to his supporters in the crowd).

 

On Friday night, at a rally here, his campaign seemed determined not to let that more emotive, three-dimensional Mitt Romney slip away. Before the crowd of several thousand, Mr. Romney shared stories of friends who had died.

 

Perhaps his most moving anecdote — about David Oparowski, a 14-year-old boy with leukemia to whom Mr. Romney had ministered — first made an appearance at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, when David’s parents talked about how Mr. Romney had tended to their son, a member of his church ward in Belmont, Mass. But Mr. Romney had never before mentioned the experience on the stump. Mr. Romney recounted how, as he sat in David’s hospital room, the teenager called him “Brother Romney” and asked him about “what’s next.”

 

“I talked to him about what I believe is next,” said Mr. Romney, recalling that a few days later he got a call from David asking if he would help write his will.

 

“So I went to David’s bedside and got a piece of legal paper, made it look very official,” he continued. “And then David proceeded to tell me what he wanted to give his friends. Talked about his fishing rod, and who would get that. He talked about his skateboard, who’d get that. And his rifle, that went to his brother.”

 

He concluded: “I loved that young man.”

 

 

 

By NATE SILVER:

Mitt Romney continues to show improved numbers in polls published since the presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday and has now made clear gains in the FiveThirtyEight forecast. The forecast gives him roughly a 20 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, up from about 15 percent before the debate. Mr. Romney’s gains in the polls have been sharp enough that he should continue to advance in the FiveThirtyEight forecast if he can maintain his numbers over the next couple of days.

Mr. Romney gained two points in the Gallup tracking poll, which now shows him down by three. He also gained roughly 1.5 percentage points in the RAND Corporation’s online tracking poll, reversing a gain that Mr. Obama had made on Friday. And a companion pair of polls published by Clarus Research Group just before and after the debate showed a five-point swing toward Mr. Romney. He trailed Mr. Obama by four points in a poll that Clarus Research Group conducted on Tuesday night, before the debate, but led him by one point in a poll they conducted on Thursday.