Politics

July 17, 2012, 7:53 pm

July 17: Obama’s Odds Fall on Gloomy G.D.P. Forecast

By NATE SILVER

Tuesday was a bit of an eclectic day for economic and polling news, but there was one data point that had the largest influence on our presidential forecast. That was the latest edition of The Wall Street Journal’s economic forecasting survey, which showed more bearish projections for gross domestic product and other economic indicators. Economists now expect the below-average growth that the economy has been experiencing to continue for quite a while, with G.D.P. growing at a rate of about 2 percent into early 2013. The panel’s previous projections had not been especially bullish, but had been closer to 2.5 percent.

The G.D.P. projections are one of seven economic variables that our model uses in its forecast; a couple of the others were also updated on Tuesday.

Inflation remains low: in fact, there was no inflation at all in June, as the decline in gas prices offset a modest increase in other goods. This is welcome news for consumers, but it did not immediately help Mr. Obama in our forecast because the model was already giving him the maximum amount of credit for the low inflation rate. (The model does not give “extra” credit to the incumbent candidate when the inflation rate is below 2 percent, since a 2 percent inflation rate is considered optimal by economists.)

There was also data out on industrial production on Tuesday, which showed a rebound in June after a decline in May. Industrial production has generally been fairly robust over the past year, and is one of the more emphatic signs that our economy — however tepid the recovery might be — is at least not in recession right now. However, since the trend in the industrial production numbers had already been favorable (excluding the poor May data point), the new numbers did not shift our model’s economic index much.

On the polling front, there were new polls out in Iowa and New Hampshire that look superficially good for Mr. Obama — he held leads of five points and four points in those surveys. But in both cases, the pollster had shown a larger lead for Mr. Obama before. To some extent, this probably reflects reversion to the mean, especially in the case of the Iowa poll, in which Public Policy Polling had previously given Mr. Obama an implausible 10-point lead.

Overall, Mr. Obama’s chances of winning the Electoral College declined to 66.8 percent in the forecast model, from 68.7 percent on Monday.

July 17, 2012, 7:37 am

Is Romney Overreacting to Bain Attacks?

By NATE SILVER

Mitt Romney’s campaign has begun to push back against the notion that President Obama’s critiques on his tenure at Bain Capital have damaged him. A memo released by Mr. Romney’s pollster, Neil Newhouse, suggests that the margin between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama has been narrowing rather than widening in the polls despite the attacks.

I would take issue with the notion that the race has been tightening. Instead, once you remove the statistical noise from the polls, the trajectory looks roughly flat based on our analysis. Mr. Obama has maintained a narrow, but fairly consistent, lead of about 2 points over perhaps the last six to eight weeks.

But Mr. Obama’s lead has also not been widening — and I think Mr. Newhouse is correct that the evidence for the impact of the Bain attacks is rather thin, or at least has been up to this point.

At the same time, Mr. Romney’s campaign has begun to behave as though the attacks are a fairly big deal. And it has backed into a more defensive posture that could change the nature of how they are perceived by the public going forward. Read more…

July 16, 2012, 6:00 pm
July 16: Obama Gains Ground From Ohio Poll | 

A series of surveys in swing states from the firm Purple Strategies shows relatively little change in the race since its last set of polls five weeks ago. But there is an exception in Ohio, where the poll now shows President Obama ahead of Mitt Romney by three points — rather than behind by three, as he was in the firm’s survey last month.

No one poll should be overinterpreted, but Purple Strategies had been one of the few firms to show Mr. Romney with a lead in Ohio, making this bad news for him. Mr. Obama’s chances of winning the Electoral College are now listed at 68.7 percent by the forecast model, up from 67.0 percent on Saturday.

July 16, 2012, 1:24 pm

Keeping Lin Should Make Financial Sense for the Knicks

By NATE SILVER
Jeremy Lin's performance alone did not reflect the impact of Linsanity. The Knicks' parent company has added about $600 million in market capitalization.Barton Silverman/The New York TimesJeremy Lin’s performance alone did not reflect the impact of Linsanity. The Knicks’ parent company has added about $600 million in market capitalization.

In February, during the height of the Linsanity phenomenon, I attended a game at Madison Square Garden between the Knicks and the Sacramento Kings.

The tickets cost an arm and a leg. But Jeremy Lin and the Knicks did not disappoint. Lin had just 10 points in 26 minutes of play, but many of his 13 assists were spectacular, a series of flawless alley-oops that sent Tyson Chandler and Landry Fields dunking on the Kings like the guys from Sacramento were the Washington Generals, the Harlem Globetrotters’ perpetually hapless opponents.

What was more remarkable was the action that took place off the court. This was only Lin’s sixth game as the Knicks’ starting point guard — and just his third start at Madison Square Garden. But the concourses were filled with fans in Lin jerseys. And the high-priced seats were full of people carrying well-intentioned (although sometimes racially insensitive) signs in tribute to him.

The Knicks seemed to be doing everything in their power to encourage the trend. At the team stores around the arena, a wall of Lin bling dominated the displays, while gear for the Knicks’ other high-priced stars — Chandler, Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony — was consigned to the sale racks. (Lin jerseys eventually outsold those of all other Knicks — and all other players in the N.B.A. except Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls.) After every Lin bucket or assist, the Knicks public address announcer Michael T. Walczewski paused for emphasis before reciting his name, before the stadium burst into manic applause.

Lin, in other words, was getting the superstar treatment from the Knicks and their fans. Here, after all, was one of the more remarkable sports stories in a generation. In a sport which is not usually forgiving to underdogs, an undrafted point guard out of Harvard was lighting up cash registers and scoreboards, and turning even the most jaded New Yorkers into die-hard fans.

It didn’t hurt that Lin was Taiwanese-American — in a city where there are about 450,000 residents of Chinese or Taiwanese descent. There are more Chinese-Americans in New York than the entire populations of several N.B.A. cities like Miami, Atlanta or Cleveland (about 400,000 each).

To think of the marketing potential in China itself, which has been starved for an N.B.A. superstar since the gradual demise and eventual retirement of the former Houston Rockets star, Yao Ming.

Investors were quick to recognize the marketing bonanza. Read more…

July 15, 2012, 9:28 am

Measuring the Effects of Voter Identification Laws

By NATE SILVER

Almost every day, I get e-mails and Twitter messages asking me about the effect of voter identification laws on turnout. Most of these messages, I presume, are from Democrats. They worry that more onerous laws, like those in Pennsylvania, could make it more difficult for Democratic-leaning voting groups like African-Americans and young voters to participate in this November’s election.

These concerns are perfectly logical — although it is also possible to exaggerate the effects that these laws might have. Academic studies suggest that they very probably reduce turnout, but not by more than a couple of percentage points. And although Democratic voters may be more affected by the laws, some Republican voters will be disenfranchised by them, too.

As I mentioned, there are quite a number of academic studies that seek to evaluate the effect of identification laws on voter turnout; John Sides has compiled a list of them here; or you can do some searching for yourself on Google Scholar.

On the surface, these studies seem to disagree with one another about whether or not there is any effect on turnout from harsher voter identification laws. But if you read them in more detail, you’ll find that much of the disagreement is semantic rather than substantive.

There is something of a consensus in the literature, in fact, about the rough magnitude of the effects. The stricter laws, like those that require photo identification, seem to decrease turnout by about 2 percent as a share of the registered voter population. Read more…

July 14, 2012, 9:37 pm

July 14: Another Recount in Florida?

By NATE SILVER

We haven’t usually been running forecast updates on the weekend, but a Florida poll will always get our attention. In this case, it’s a new poll from Mason-Dixon, released on Saturday, that shows President Obama with a nominal 1-percentage-point lead there over Mitt Romney.

Our model shows Florida as close as can be. It projects the Nov. 6 result as Mr. Obama 49.5 percent, Mr. Romney 49.4 percent — an outcome that would be close enough to trigger another recount.

Mr. Obama has led in the majority of Florida polls recently — five of seven since June 1. The model hedges against these polls a bit because Florida is normally a bit Republican-leaning and its economy is doing quite poorly. That’s how it gets a tie there.

Still, Mr. Obama’s polling in Florida seems to have improved by a percentage point or so since a couple of months ago, at a time when national polls have generally been quite steady. That has brought it a bit closer to the national average and increased its ranking on our list of tipping point states that are most likely to decide the election.

July 14, 2012, 1:49 pm

In Blue New Jersey, Red Spots May Be Sign of the Past

By MICAH COHEN

Today we continue our Presidential Geography series, a one-by-one examination of the peculiarities that drive the politics in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Today’s stop: New Jersey, the Garden State. FiveThirtyEight spoke with Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, and David Redlawsk, a professor of political science at Rutgers University and director of the university’s Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling.

Optimistic Republicans might be forgiven for daydreaming about turning New Jersey into a red state and getting its 14 electoral votes. For the past 20 years, the state has been reliably Democratic in presidential elections, yet it has a number of characteristics that would suggest at least an openness to favoring Republicans.

New Jersey has a fairly popular Republican governor, Chris Christie. Its Congressional delegation is evenly split, with six Democrats and six Republicans. 1 Moreover, New Jersey is the fourth most affluent state in the nation, with a median household income of $63,540. New Jersey voters also come overwhelmingly from Republican-friendly territory: the suburbs. In 2008, 88 percent of New Jersey voters said they lived in suburban communities, according to exit polls.

And it was not long ago that New Jersey was a reliably Republican state in presidential elections. Republican presidential candidates carried it from 1968 to 1988, overperforming their national popular vote in every election.

But, although the Republican Party in New Jersey is somewhat stronger than in other Northeastern states, the dynamics shaping the state’s politics are more likely to continue moving the state to the left. Read more…

July 13, 2012, 6:55 pm

In Search for Female Running Mate, a Shortlist for Romney

By NATE SILVER

Correction Appended

I’m not going to waste my time, or yours, speculating about whether Condoleezza Rice might become Mitt Romney’s running mate when there is no credible reporting to that effect.

But it does seem as though the days when the four candidates on the major-party tickets are all men will be coming to an end, and soon. Sarah Palin gave women a shot at shattering the glass ceiling four years ago. If Mr. Romney wanted to pick a woman this year, whom might he choose?

Actually, Mr. Romney has a bit of a problem. The Republican women with the most traditional qualifications for the vice presidency tend to be moderates, especially on abortion choice, probably making them unacceptable to the Republican base. Another group of up-and-coming female governors and senators may not be adequately seasoned for the rigors of the campaign trail. The few exceptions are probably too old, or too controversial, to be smart choices with swing voters. It has nothing to do with their gender, but any of the women that Mr. Romney might choose would be at least a little risky. Read more…

July 13, 2012, 6:29 pm
July 13: Obama Forecast Buoyed by Stock Rally | 

No offense to the people of the Peace Garden State. But when the only survey out is one of North Dakota, as was the case on Friday — plus the national tracking polls, which moved in opposite directions — there just isn’t much polling news to worry about. There was, however, a substantial gain in the stock market, which recovered the ground it had lost this week. The Dow Jones was up more than 200 points as investors reacted to better-than-expected data out of China. The forecast for President Obama’s chances of winning the Electoral College rose, to 67.7 percent, on the attendant gain in our model’s economic index.

July 12, 2012, 6:32 pm
July 12: Some Noisy News, but Little Change in Forecast | 

Thursday was a slow polling day after two busy ones. The flashiest number — a Pew Research national poll showing a seven-point lead for President Obama — doesn’t much change our forecast. Pew had shown very good results for Mr. Obama so far this cycle.

Instead, Mr. Obama’s chances of winning the Electoral College dropped incrementally — to 65.6 percent from 66.1 percent — on the decline in the stock market. This was despite a promising-looking report showing the number of initial unemployment claims decreasing to 350,000. Investors discounted the report because it was conducted over a holiday week, when the data is thought to be less reliable.