Presidential Election Update May 19, 2012

We are still more than five and a half months away from the November 2012 presidential election but both campaigns have begun testing the message they want the voters to base their choice on in November:  It's the economy, stupid.  President Obama will argue that the economy is much better than it was four years ago.  The message is very similar to one of the best campaign ads in history--Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection message proclaiming it to 'Morning Again in America', as seen below.

The president's campaign began with the message 'Forward' making the argument that the policies put in place over the last three and a half years have pulled the nation out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.  Yet, there is still work to do and now is no time to revert to the policies that led to the recession.  Here's the first reelection ad from the president.  An abbreviated version of the ad ran on television.  Here's the web version, which is over 7 minutes long.

Meanwhile, the Romney campaign has also begun advertising on television in several key battleground states.  The focus for the Romney camp is also on the economy.  The Romney team hopes to paint a contrast between the recovery under President Obama versus what the policies of a President Romney would look like.  Here's the ad:

For now, it seems both campaigns want to run somewhat positive ads, though each has a negative undertone...Obama attributing the economic collapse in 2008 to Republican policies, Romney arguing that growth is too slow because Obama 'blocked' job creation.  

Of bigger concern will be the role of the 'unaffiliated' Super PACs unleashed by the Citizens United decision two years ago.  Both sides are likely to spend in excess of a couple hundred million dollars on negative attack ads.  This may turn out to be the most brutal campaign in many years.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the madness of the polling organizations continues to show a volatile race between Obama and Romney.  One poll has Romney up a couple points, the next has Obama comfortable ahead.  It's too early to make any forecasts but here's what they look like today:

Media Polls

Gallup Daily Tracking Poll

Away They Go!

Now that Rick Santorum has officially suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination the media is sure to turn its attention to the 'horse race' between President Obama and Mitt Romney.  While I certainly question the usefulness of polls conducted 7 or more months prior to election day, I also recognize that previous political science research indicates most voters have already decided for whom they will vote in November.  For voters who have made their decision, the issues no longer matter on a daily basis, thus why should the media cover them if their reporting is for the bulk of their audience?  In some ways it would be similar to a caller of a horse race announcing the past performances of the entrants in a race after the bettors have made their wagers and the horses have left the starting gate.  If the media are just providing an update on the status of the race to voters who have already made up their minds, the horse race coverage may make sense as Andrew Gelman argues.    To be sure, though, there are a small percentage of voters who will make up their minds later in the campaign, as the classic book The American Voter reported in 1960 (and has been confirmed by American National Election Studies every two years since).

All that is to say that the polls the media are reporting today won't tell us much about who will ultimately be elected president in November.  Polling conducted after Labor Day will give us a much better picture.  The polls do, however, provide us with a pretty good idea of the floor and ceiling of support for each of the party nominees.  Since 1932, the largest margin of victory for a presidential candidate was 24.3% (FDR's landslide reelection in 1936), while two others enjoyed victories by at least 20 percentage points (LBJ in 1964-22.6%; Richard Nixon in 1972-23.2%).  Most presidential elections are relatively close with margins of 5-8 percentage points.  This year is likely to be no different.  Having said that, today will be the first of an ongoing series of posts that will be updated whenever a new national poll by a reputable polling organization is released.  I will include results from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Pew, USA, and CNN (and each of their respective partners).

So, in the classic style of my favorite race caller the great Trevor Denman, 'away they go.'

Mr. Turner Goes to Washington (briefly)

Yesterday voters went to the polls in two special elections to fill vacant seats in the House of Representatives.  Republicans won both seats, one in disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner's old district, NY-9, which is largely Democratic, though much more conservatively so than thought.  Political analyst Charlie Cook rates the district Partisan Voting Index a D +5, which means that the Democratic nominee for president in the last two presidential elections exceeded his party's national average (51.3%) by about 5 points.  Thus, the Democratic candidate for the House is assumed to have approximately a 5 point advantage in the district.  In practice, the advantage may be larger or smaller due to incumbency and a host of other variables.  The other seat up for grabs yesterday was NV-2, a seat vacated by Dean Heller when he was appointed to replace the scandal plagued Republican Senator John Ensign.  Cook rates the district R+5, largely on the strength of President Bush's 16 point win in the district in 2004.  President Obama and John McCain split the district in 2008, even though it remains a Republican stronghold.

The question is whether the outcome matters for 2012?  The answer is a resounding no, though Republicans and the media are sure to say otherwise (see here, and here).  The victory for Republicans is no more (or less) important than the Democratic takeover of NY-26, a district with a rating of R+6, last May, with one exception:  NY is slated to lose two house seats as a result of reapportionment from the 2010 Census.  One of those is likely to be NY-9, as it will likely be carved up to meet the reapportionment requirements established by the constitution.  Since the Democrats and Republicans share power in the redistricting process in NY, it would not surprise me to see NY-26 become the other casualty...thus effectively eliminating the party swap that occurred in NY this year.

Another reason that the results of many special elections don't matter is because they are notoriously low turnout affairs.  Few people pay attention to the contest and even fewer of those go to the polls.  NY-9 is a low turnout district as it is.  In 2010, Democrat Anthony Weiner coasted to reelection by 21 points over Bob Turner, who won the seat in the special election yesterday.  Yet, only 110,000 citizens bothered to vote in a district of 660,000 people (voting age population is about 450,000), which is less than 1 in 4 voters.  I expect turnout last night was even lower, though full results are not yet available.

In the end, the election doesn't matter.  NY-9 is a district that has been trending Republican since 2000 and will likely be sliced and diced during redistricting.  That means the newly elected Republican Bob Turner will have to run for reelection next year in a heavily Democratic district that will likely be far more liberal than the current 9th district.  Enjoy your time in Congress, Mr. Turner.  It probably won't last long. 

**NOTE: An earlier version of this post erroneously stated the Democrats took over NY-23 in January. It has been fixed to reflect the fact that it was NY-26 and the election was in May.**