Here's something interesting: a tally of campaign ad spending over the past seven weeks, as tallied by TNS Media Intelligence and reported by the New York Times.
There's lots of interesting stuff to look at there, but what about those Florida numbers? The Obama campaign has bought more advertising time there than anywhere else, whereas McCain has spent absolutely nothing.
Two months ago, Florida looked like a strong McCain state -- not necessarily one that Obama couldn't win, but not the one that would put him over the top to 270 electoral votes. Obama trailed in every individual poll of Florida from the start of the campaign through the middle of June.
Since then, however -- and perhaps because of Obama's investment in the air war -- Florida has tightened, and has now snuck up to fifth place on our Tipping Point Index.
I'm still not sure that the Obama campaign has played its hand optimally. They seem to have a certain stubbornness in insisting they can compete in non-Virginia Southern states, in the same way that the McCain campaign insists in can compete in places like Minnesota.
But having closed the gap in Florida, I think the Obama campaign needs to keep the effort up, and see how the polls behave between now and Labor Day.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Obama on Offense in Florida
-- Nate Silver at 9:09 AM
Labels: advertising, florida
210 comments
And McCain is STILL up on the 538 website... This is a Red state this time around. McCain can spend little and win it.
MVRed--
McCain's advantage in Florida is smaller than Obama's in Pennsylvania or Michigan, and not far off Obama's advantage in Ohio. Should McCain write off the rust belt?
Although, I suppose there is a difference: Obama can win easily without Florida, but McCain is more or less doomed without at least Ohio.
"And McCain is STILL up on the 538 website... This is a Red state this time around. McCain can spend little and win it."
Look at the Rasmussen numbers for FL in the righthand column. That's the pollster we have the most numbers for on the system... Look at them over time:
5/19 McCain +10
6/18 McCain +8
6/26 McCain +7
7/22 Obama +2
There's your trend.
Makes me wonder if the Obama campaign has lots of internal polling results that we have no access to. I mean spending this massively this early when their overall strategy seems to be establishing a ground game is really odd. Does anybody know how big of a staff Obama has in Florida?
Old voters and Cubans aren't exactly Obama's base, to say nothing of northern Florida.
Nate,
Although Obama's chances in the South are slim, but I don't think it's stubbornness that is driving his investment of resources there. Remember, 50 state strategy and all. There are a lot of tight Senate and House races down there and they can use all the help they can get.
Add "Obama loses FL/Wins election" to your scenario analysis. It's probably like, what, a 10% probability at best in your model that assigns (I think you'll agree) an unrealistically high probability to most scenarios (most obviously being the 10% of probability density or so where someone fails to get 100 electors.
I read somewhere yesterday that Obama is opening up a bunch of Florida offices this month and is ahead of McCain in that dept.
Abramowitz really rocks it here
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There's also no correlation between the day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month changes in the two tracking polls. Whether Obama's lead goes up or down in one is unrelated to whether it goes up or down in the other. Today (Monday, June 21st), for example, Obama's lead decreased from two points to one point in the Rasmussen tracking poll but increased from three points to six points in the Gallup tracking poll. Between June and the first three weeks of July, Obama's average lead increased from 2.4 points to 3.5 points in the Gallup tracking poll but decreased from 4.8 points to 2.6 points in the Rasmussen tracking polls. The lack of any correlation between the two polls suggests that these changes are a result of random statistical noise rather than any real shift in the underlying preferences of the electorate. In fact, the results of other national polls indicate that there has been little or no change in voter preferences over the past three months: the average Obama lead was 5.1 points in May, 5.3 points in June, and 5.2 points in July.
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I think you should address the lack of change in overall voter preferences over the past three months. Have there really been no bounces but just statistical noise? Is your model too easily moved?
McCain´s campaign is obviously going for the Rust Belt. Yet, their efforts appear counter-productive in Pennsylvania. They didn´t spend anything in Georgia and Florida, they don´t even seem to think that they have to spend anything there. It would be a bit ironic if they can keep Ohio for the price of Florida.
And it seems Minnesota is now off the table for them. No more Pawlenty?
I have the impression that the Obama campaign is happy to broaden the playing field by getting as many states as possible to a draw in the polls and then win them with superior organization and higher turnout. They seem to spend their money in proportion to the leeway they need to make up. They don´t spend anything in Minnesota, almost nothing in Iowa and Wisconsin, far less than McCain in the supposedly blue states PA and MI and rather much in states where they are behind and which are, by conventional knowledge, out of reach: GA, NC, and IN.
The biggest puzzle to me: Obama seems not to have studied Nate's Tipping Point and Return on Investment maps with respect to Colorado!
As Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd said, Pennsylvania is still in play.
This article in WaPo ought to be a warning sign to any Obama supporters. It's all about Obama's hubris, from a reporter who is normally sympathetic to Obama (it seems to me) but who is intolerant of people who are too full of themselves.
Wow McCain spent a ton of money in PA to get nowhere in the state.
If you look at the Colorado and Minnesota ad spends, remember that the spending will increase there exponentially when the conventions hit. And I would imagine some investment in counter-programming the other as well.
But I would really like to see more spending in Ohio/Michigan to seal the win.
Obama CAN win FL. There is a lot of enthusiasm for him here and the Democratic party is registering a ton of voters.
tarik:
I'm also surprised that Obama hasn't invested more into Colorado. In my opinion, he has two paths to winning the election -- one through Ohio and the other through Colorado.
On this date in history, July 30, 2004, in the Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll, John Kerry led President George Bush 51% to 47%.
For final results, please see Presidential Inauguration January 2005.
There could be a season effect we aren't considering. Snowbirds and college students who aren't in state may be voting in Florida in November. I don't know how much the demographic will shift, but it will be greater than your average state. It might be the case that current polling in Florida has a slight McCain bias.
No wonder those recent NC numbers looked so good for Obama!
Obama had better watch his money more closely. He had a good month in July, but the election is a long way off. McCain can layout a budget today and know exactly what he is dealing with financially; Obama not so much. Worse, Barack must spend a lot of time and energy on raising the money -- something McCain will not have to do.
Juris points out Dana Milbank's interesting article in the WaPo. Dowd has done a similar hatchet job (both reported on as the lead campaign stories on AP radio news, while McCain was portrayed as continuing to meet with working class voters).
The narrative on this election is shifting. The Rainbow Tour appears to have been less than an incredible success. Now we have the Rally at Denver to look forward to.
The whole thing is approaching self-parody. Not good -- for Obama!