Demockracy Units and 7 New State Polls

Seven new state polls, covering six swing states, were released today. This includes 5 polls by Rasmussen Reports. Since these polls were taken at the height of McCain’s convention bounce, which is likely to fade in the coming week, the absolute numbers are not all that important. What is important are the state numbers relative to the national numbers. In other words, how does each state compare to the national averages–what we’ll call “demockracy units”. For example, if you assume McCain has a 3 point lead at the height of his convention bounce when these state polls were taken, then you would add +3 to Obama’s numbers to get an idea of where that state would stand in a 50-50 election. (Two caveats to the numbers below: Rasmussen has traditionally had weaker numbers in Ohio for Obama than other pollsters and Colorado may have a slight Democratic convention bounce still permeating since the DNC was held in Denver.)

Results in Demockracy Units:

Colorado: Obama +6
Pennsylvania: Obama +5
Michigan: Obama +4
Florida: Obama +3
Virginia: Obama +1
Ohio: McCain +4

Considering the two caveats above, the only real surprise here is Florida, which was listed as Lean McCain in our most recent presidential forecast. Perhaps because of an older population, Florida is one state where Biden helps Obama more than Palin helps McCain? We’ll need to see a few more polls that confirm this.

We think that looking at states in terms of “democracky units” helps to gauge the current state of the electoral college when looked at in combination with the national numbers. As such, we will be including this in our next presidential forecast.