PPP: Obama leads by 7 in OH

Ohio is another crucial swing state, worth 18 electoral votes (EV) out of the required 270 EV. Polling this year has shown Obama with varying leads, with the exception of a February Fox News poll showing Romney leading by six points. Even Rasmussen gave Obama a four-point lead in April (46/42). HuffPo averages out the polling to show Obama with a five-point lead (47/42), making it a State that "leans Obama". The President won Ohio 51/47 in 2008.

The latest poll from PPP for OH (875 RV, ±3.3% MoE, 5/3 - 5/6) gives Obama a seven-point lead (50/43).
Let's look at the ideological breakdown of the sample to dispel notions of bias:

Q13 Would you describe yourself as very liberal,
somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat
conservative, or very conservative?
Very liberal ...................................................... 9%
Somewhat liberal ............................................ 18%
Moderate......................................................... 31%
Somewhat conservative.................................. 22%
Very conservative ........................................... 19%

So, that's 41% conservative, 27% liberal.

PPP's Tom Jensen sums up the phenomenon that has allowed Obama  to assume this lead:

Ohio voters don't love Obama. They're evenly split with 48% approving and 48% disapproving of him, although that is an improvement from the negative numbers he's posted during most of his time in office. Obama's lead in the state may be driven more by the fact that Ohioans just don't much care for Mitt Romney. 37% have a favorable opinion of him to 53% with a negative one. That includes a 33/59 spread with independents. Romney's performance in Ohio in the primary wasn't terribly impressive and his issues seem to be extending to the general election.

We see this frequently in state polling. It's not so much that Obama is immensely popular, but rather that Romney is just not well-liked at all. This also means that significant margins of key demographics for Romney show soft support -- a greater percentage of a particular demographic saying that they will vote for him than the percentage that has a favourable opinion of him. Voters exhibiting soft support are less likely to turn out, volunteer, donate, or "talk up" their candidate, though they don't usually flip to the opposing candidate.

Even worse than Romney's "favourables" are those for Ron Paul:

Q2 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion
of Ron Paul?
Favorable........................................................ 26%
Unfavorable .................................................... 51%
Not sure .......................................................... 23%

Paul loses to Obama in a match-up 48/40. He loses women to Obama in the match-up by 24 points, splits white voters (45/43 O+2), loses voters 45 and under by at least 15 points, and loses moderates by nearly 30 points. He has all of Romney's weaknesses with key demographics, but he holds a higher percentage of undecided voters in most of them than Romney does.

We are now well past "Rosen-gate", where Ann Romney was supposed to have won over female voters and erased the gender gap by playing the victim card. It hasn't worked. Jensen notes:

The GOP's struggles with women and young voters really show themselves in Ohio. Obama's up 55-36 with women and has a 62-30 advantage with those under 30. If you extend the definition of 'young' voters to those under 45 Obama still holds a massive advantage at 56-35. Romney's winning seniors 49-45 but he needs a much bigger lead than that to make up for his weakness with young people.

 Seniors are a reliable Republican demographic, and they are only breaking for Romney by four points. Men break for Romney by six points (50/44, 7% undecided), which isn't strong. It hardly begins to counter the nineteen-point lead  Obama has with women. Moderates, as we've seen in so many States, break strongly for Obama. Apparently they don't believe that Obama is some kind of radical Marxist. In Ohio, Obama wins moderates 56/31 (13% undecided) in a match-up against Romney. The moderates that do support Romney show five points of soft support.

Conservatives, as one would expect, are Romney's biggest supporters. Those who describe themselves as "somewhat conservative" break overwhelmingly for Romney in a match-up 67/25 (9% undecided). Unfortunately for Romney, 67% of the 22% of the electorate that describe themselves as "somewhat conservative" is only 14.7%. He gains less than 15% from this overwhelming margin toward his 43% support. And only 59% of this demographic has a favourable opinion of Romney, which leaves him with eight points of soft support among those "somewhat conservative" voters.

For those describing themselves as "very conservative", the situation is much the same. Romney wins them by an even larger margin (79/15, 5% undecided). However, this only nets him another 15% of the electorate. Out of his 43 points of support, nearly 30 points (69%) of his support is from conservatives. The price of this is losing moderates steeply to Obama. And only 65% of those "very conservative" voters have a favourable opinion of Romney. That leaves a considerable 14% of soft support with this demographic.

Let's look at Obama's soft support. Among moderates, 58% have a favourable opinion of him -- two points more than break for him. Actually, with these subgroups, these small margins are meaningless. Among women, 53% are favourable (negligible two points soft support). Among white voters, 44% have a favourable opinion, leaving three points of soft support. Obama's senior supporters are solid at 47% favourable, compared with his 45% share of the demographic. Independent voters break for him at  43%, while 41% approve. Even the 25% of "somewhat conservative" voters breaking for Obama show 23% favourable opinions of him. He shows five points of soft support among "somewhat liberal" voters, but he's solid with "very liberal" voters (for what their 9% of the electorate is worth).

With Obama's support being so firm, it's unlikely that negative attacks will be effective against him. Romney, however, is vulnerable to depressed enthusiasm among his base -- especially among the "very conservative" voters showing considerable soft support for him.

Even worse, Romney's team has shown no ability to make Romney himself look better. Instead, they have concentrated on trying to make Obama look bad.

PPP: Obama leads VA by 8

Virginia is a crucial swing state, and one that Romney supporters continue to assert the Republicans will win. Actually, they assert this because there is no realistic path to 270 EV for Romney if he loses VA's 13 EV. Rasmussen, of course, found VA as a virtual tie, but this was mostly a propaganda piece to support the narrative that Romney is seeing dramatic improvement after winning the nomination. It should be interesting to see how Rasmussen walks this back as we get close to the election, since he gave Obama a nine-point lead one month earlier. For Obama, winning VA opens up several different paths to 270 EV, and it would be very difficult for Romney to block all of them. 

PPP's latest survey of Virginia (680 RV, ±3.8% MoE, 4/26 - 4/29) shows Obama ahead 51/43. 

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling notes: 

Obama's approval rating in Virginia is 50% with 46% of voters disapproving of him. This marks just the 3rd time in our polling of the state since he took office that Obama's hit 50% on that front. Meanwhile Romney continues to be pretty unpopular with only 38% of voters rating him favorably while 52% hold a negative opinion.

Remember, this is weeks after Santorum dropped out. The poll was in the field while Gingrich virtually dropped out. Romney is the nominee, for all intents and purposes. We've been told of the impending surge (or "rally") for Romney once his primary opponents were defeated. It hasn't really materialised. In fact, undecided Republicans are only 2.2% of the electorate in VA. How do you overcome an eight-point lead by picking up 2.2% of the electorate? Magical thinking, that's how. Why is Romney still so unpopular if Republicans are "rallying" to him? 

This isn't some one-time phenomenon. Obama has showed a lead in VA of four points or more since 11/10:

Romney has held steady in the low 40's, while Obama has been moving into a slender majority. And this has happened during a bad economy with the GOP mercilessly attacking him. Yet, Republicans think that mercilessly attacking Obama, combined with a bad economy, will win the State for them. How? Magical thinking, that's how.

Tom Jensen again: 

Obama's winning 57-33 with voters under 30, which is not unusual. But he's also up 56-37 with voters between 30 and 45 which suggests the GOP has a problem in Virginia not just with the very young but also with the somewhat young. That generational gap speaks to the days of Virginia as a solid red state in Presidential elections probably being over.

 How about Ron Paul?

Q6 If the candidates for President this year were
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron
Paul, who would you vote for?
Barack Obama................................................ 50%
Ron Paul ......................................................... 39%
Undecided....................................................... 11%

Ron Paul even loses those who voted for McCain in 2008 by 36/46 to Obama. He loses moderates 61/24 to the President. He loses women 55/35 in a match-up. He loses all age groups from anywhere from 7 to 13 points. Yeah, he's the one to save the day. 

In a match-up with Romney, Obama's worst case is a split with voters over 45. He splits Independent voters 44/46 (R +2), and wins women voters 55/38. Male voters aren't particularly strong for Romney, either. He splits them 47/48 (R +1), which is not a good way to overcome a gender gap. Obama also strongly wins over moderates in a match-up 62/28. Moderates were 31% of the sample, meaning that Obama gets 19.2% of the VA electorate here alone. 

Comparatively, Romney wins "somewhat conservative" voters (24% of the sample) very strongly in a match-up - 19/73. That accounts for 17.5% of the VA electorate. And "very conservative" voters (17% of the sample) break a bit more strongly for Romney - 13/82. But that's only about 14% of the VA electorate. So winning conservatives gets Romney 31.5% of the electorate, which is the bulk of his support. He really can't squeeze much more out of the conservative base. Undecided "very conservative" voters are less than 1% of the electorate (0.7%) in VA, and undecided "somewhat conservative" voters are only about 2% of the electorate. Even if Romney won over every single undecided moderate, that would only yield 3.1% of the vote. Add it up: 5.8% potential gain if Romney won every single undecided moderate, somewhat conservative, and very conservative voter. 

Even with this very unrealistic scenario, Obama would still narrowly win. 

With no strong advantage with any age group, either gender, Independent voters, or race, Romney is left with his base. He wins only a slim majority of white voters (51/42) for a mere nine-point lead in this crucial Republican base demographic. His "favourables" with white voters are 44/46, which means he already has 7% of white voters breaking for him who don't really like him. That's soft support. 

Obama's favourables with white voters are 41/55, which means that all of Obama's white supporters have a favourable opinion of him. That's strong support, even though it's less than Romney's. Take away that 7% of Romney's white supporters who don't like him, and Obama virtually breaks even with the demographic.

Even though Ann Romney thinks that she scored big over Rosen-gate, Romney's favourables with both genders are underwater. Women in VA see Romney unfavourably (35/44), as do men (42/50). That means that 6% of men break for Romney, although they don't like him.

For Obama, however, women see him favourably 53/41. Obama still has 2% of women that he could win over, at least in theory. The margin of error for these subgroups blurs these small distinctions. He doesn't even do badly with male VA voters in his "favorables" (47/50), which means that all of his male supporters see him favourably. No soft support at all with either gender.

This poll changes the average in HuffPo's electoral map to a narrow +3 lead for Obama in VA. If Rasmussen's results are removed from the average, Obama would show a 4.4% lead. 

If Obama holds all of the States that lean for him (WI, MI, OH, PA, and VA), he wins the election with 282 EV. He could lose every single "toss up" State, and still win. Even in those "toss up" States, Obama has shown leads in most of them in PPP's surveys. For example, PPP polled Obama with a five-point lead in FL (29 EV) less than three weeks ago. And PPP polled CO (9 EV) with 13 point Obama lead less than a month ago.