HEADLINES

• Obama won
• Romney won
• The Democratic Party’s war on the middle class
• Romney got pummeled last night
• Mittmentum

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Latest news

I’ll leave you with this: Romney is now confident enough to actually say that he’s going to win. As BuzzFeed’s Zeke Miller points out, Romney has been cagey about expressing too much optimism thus far in the campaign:

Exuding confidence is a time-honored and necessary part of running for president, but Romney had in fact avoided making the — until October risible — claim that he was on track to victory. He finally arrived at that posture Tuesday afternoon at an outdoor rally before thousands of enthusiastic fans outside Las Vegas.

“That’s why his campaign is taking on water, and our campaign is full speed ahead,” he added, recognizing his surge in statewide and national polling to a neck-and-neck position with Obama.

“His campaign is slipping, and ours is gaining so much steam,” he later added triumphantly in his freshly-polished stump speech, describing his campaign for the first time “as a movement across the country.”

 

This is what Reuters expects the electoral map to look like the morning after the election.

That’s a 332-206 Electoral College landslide. Obama wins every single swing state (except North Carolina). While the closeness in national polling makes this seem implausible, it’s entirely possible that all or most of the swing states will break one way at the end. Indeed, those predicting a Romney victory, even a narrow one, are making just such an assumption.

Is it possible that Obama could do almost as well in the Electoral College as he did in 2008? Short answer: Yes. All these swing states are competitive—most show Obama with a very narrow lead. If those numbers hold, Obama could win all these states by a hair. But of course, it doesn’t matter how close it is—so long as you capture the state you get all the votes.

One thing’s for sure: The popular vote will be a lot closer than last time.

 

Mitt Romney has caught up to and exceeded President Obama on favorability. Weirdly, we heard about favorability ad nauseum from the mainstream media when President Obama was comfortably ahead of Romney on the measure, but now that Romney’s ahead (albeit narrowly) it’s no longer a topic of conversation.

While Romney’s steady debate performances were probably largely responsible for this uptick, a spate of positive advertising likely also had an effect. In that vein, check out this ad from Crossroads GPS, which aims to humanize Romney. It’s a moving story, and was even more moving when it was told at the Republican National Convention.

 

The new Granite State poll shows President Obama with a comfortable lead over Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. The president secures 49% of likely voters while 41% say they will vote for Romney. Seven percent are undecided.

Obama has a massive lead among women, 57% to 34%. Romney leads slightly among men, 49% to 42%.

When undecided voters are asked who they lean towards, 51% pick Obama and 42% Romney.

Obama has the support of 94% of New Hampshire’s Democrats while Romney captures 91% of Republicans. Independents are almost evenly split, with 37% favoring Romney and 39% Obama.

Only 6% are still completely undecided and 95% of those who prefer a candidate say they will not change their minds.

UPDATE: Real Clear Politics shows a much closer race than this latest poll.

 

Looks like Team Obama is giving up on North Carolina. Looking at RCP, we see that Romney is ahead by 5.6 points in their average of polls. If you weigh those polls by sample size, it’s 5.9 points.

Pundits have long predicted that Obama wouldn’t be able to repeat his win in this state, where he was ahead by only 14,000 votes in 2008. Now it seems like that conventional wisdom is becoming reality.

Here’s Paul Begala, an adviser to the pro-Obama Super PAC, admitting that Team Obama is probably pulling up stakes and focusing elsewhere (h/t Erika Johnsen).

 

Team Romney has come out with two ads based off the debate last night. Take a look:

 

 

This is how political analyst John Ellis sees the electoral college right now.

You can read his full reasoning here. His analysis is excellent, but I’ll outline two areas of disagreement.

1. Virginia. I think Virginia is still too close to call, although Obama may have shot himself in the foot last night with his comments on sequestration and his generally dismissive view of the Navy. A massive number of Virginians are employed in the defense industry, particularly the Navy.
2. Nevada. While Romney could still win Nevada, I feel it’s drifting into the president’s column, mainly due to its massive Latino population. Ellis says that a large Mormon population could be an X factor in Romney’s favor. That may be true, but I’d put it in the leans Obama column.

 

Time for an update to the weighted Real Clear Politics average. RCP’s average spread is currently Romney + 0.7. But if you weight the polls by their sample size, as I have done here, Romney’s lead grows to 1.6.

There’s less variation in the key swing states of Ohio and Florida. In Ohio, RCP has Obama up 1.9. After weighting the polls, Obama is up 2.0.

In Florida, RCP has Romney up 1.8. After weighting the polls, Romney is up 2.0.

Stay tuned for weighted numbers from other key swing states.

 

Gallup’s daily tracking number shows signs of life for Obama. The president increased to 46% in a head to head matchup with Romney among likely voters, ending a 6-day streak where he was stuck at 45%. Romney remained unchanged at 51%, for a 5-point lead. The registered voter numbers remained the same, 48% Romney to 47% Obama.

 

Rasmussen’s swing state tracking poll shows Mitt Romney with a 5% lead, 50% to 45%. The swing state tracker questions likely voters in 11 key states. This is the third time in the last four days that Romney has hit the 50% mark. Romney has been in the lead for 12 of the last 15 days.

Romney leads by 16 points among male voters and only trails by 3 among females.

In Rasmussen’s national poll (not just swing states), Romney has 50% and Obama 46%.

 

Is Romney’s lead larger than Real Clear Politics gives him credit for? RCP’s average of major national polls currently shows Romney up by 0.6 points. But if you weight the polls based on sample size, a slightly rosier picture emerges for the Republican nominee–he’s up by 1.7 points, 48.4% to 46.7%. Five percent are undecided.

You can check out my methodology here. Basically all I did was add up the total vote count for each candidate in each poll to figure out how many total likely voters expressed support for them. I then calculated each candidate’s percentage of that total pool of likely voters.

 

CNN’s Jessica Yellin doesn’t seem too impressed with the new Obama plan.

 

The GOP is going to press the “presidential” argument. In a new web video released today, the RNC takes clips of various media personalities saying that Romney came off as presidential, a big-picture thinker, and someone who is looking towards the future.

 

This is the exchange from last night’s debate that’s getting the most media play. You have to admit, it’s a pretty snappy comeback by Obama, but much of the commentary I’ve been reading is portraying the “horse and bayonets” line as petulant and unpresidential. Did Obama come off as condescending here? You decide.

 

This is the main reason the unemployment rate is ticking down. If the labor force participation rate were the same as it was pre-recession, unemployment would be in the 10% range. Some of this decline can be explained by baby boomers leaving the workforce, but much of it is a result of Americans giving up looking for work.

 

Team Obama does have a second-term agenda. President Obama will be revealing a 20-page “Blueprint for America’s Future” plan at his campaign event today. The campaign is printing out 3.5 million copies of the plan and distributing 1.5 million of those to field offices for distribution.

This would appear to be a direct response to the Romney/Ryan campaign’s charge that Obama has no plan for the future or second-term agenda. We heard that attack from Romney several times during the debate last night.

UPDATE: The president has cut a direct-to-camera ad touting his plans. He also continues the recently-embraced strategy of talking up the economy.

 

Is Nancy Pelosi getting ready to step down as the House Democratic leader? Al Kamen reports in the Washington Post that Pelosi wants to move the date of the party’s leadership elections to December 5th. Those elections are usually held in mid-November. Kamen:

The thinking is that if Pelosi (Calif.) decided not to run for leader, the delay would give potential successors a time to organize a campaign against House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). The Pelosi-Hoyer relationship has never been particularly chummy, though things are said to be okay of late.

“That’s ridiculous,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said of the speculators’ reasoning. “Leader Pelosi is singularly focused on winning the election.” (Meaning the one Nov. 6.) And apparently the leadership vote may still be held the week after the election.

But Kamen isn’t buying Pelosi’s spokesman’s statement:

Loop Fans may recall that, two years ago, after the Great Thumping that relegated the D’s to the minority, Pelosi quashed an effort to hold the leadership elections in December.

So the leadership votes were held the week after the election, leaving no time for a real challenge to coalesce, and Pelosi crushed now-retiring Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.).

So if Pelosi really wanted to run again, you’d think she would want that same short campaign time.

 

Instant polls taken after last night’s debate show President Obama won the night. CNN’s poll of registered voters showed Obama won 48% to 40%. CBS’s poll of undecided voters found 53% thought Obama won, 23% thought Romney did, and 24% thought it was a tie. PPP’s poll of swing state voters had Obama ahead 53% to Romney’s 42%.

But while Obama may have won the battle, he could be losing the war: The CNN poll found that 60% of registered voters think Romney can handle the job of commander in chief. Only 38% said he couldn’t. Romney’s main objective last night was to pass the plausibility test for commander in chief–if CNN’s numbers are accurate, it would appear that he achieved that objective.

 

Here’s what the candidates are doing today, as reported by Politico’s Morning Score.

President Obama speaks at a 10:10 AM rally in Delray, Florida, then flies to Ohio for a 3:50 PM event in Dayton.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are holding two joint events: A 12:15 PDT rally in Henderson, Nevada, and a 7:05 PM MDT rally in Morrison, Colorado. They’ll be joined by New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, Kid Rock, and Rodney Atkins.

Joe Biden joins Obama at the Dayton event in Ohio. He also speaks at an 11 AM event at the University of Toledo.