Enter the IRS.  We’ve learned the Internal Revenue Service, a branch of President Obama’s Treasury Department, has orchestrated a campaign of abuse and harassment since 2010, lasting at least through the 2012 re-election campaign, against conservative, Tea Party and even pro-Israel groups.

Continue Messrs. Weisman and Wald in The Times, “…the accusations of IRS abuse are sure to fuel an effort that appears to be uniting dispirited Republicans and their conservative political base: investigating Mr. Obama and his administration. Republicans are pushing a portrayal of an administration overreaching its authority and punishing its enemies.”

If this all sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because Mr. Obama and his IRS aren’t carving new paths through the political jungle. In other words, we’ve been here before.

In their Washington Post column, Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan quote Doug Schoen, pollster for NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg: “Politicizing the IRS was one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. That being said, we are still a very long way from that point. The allegations are very, very serious, and it is simply impossible to believe that it was just Lois Lerner and some low-level employees in Cincinnati who came up with this scheme to systematically focus on Tea Party and ‘patriot’ groups.”

Right now, the level of outrage and exasperation with President Obama and the IRS is still so high, relatively little focus is being given to the 2014 elections, still more than 17 months in the future. But once we know more about who really knew what and when, and who really ordered the IRS to lay siege to Conservative America, you can assume the IRS will garner central focus among what already appears to be shaping up as a scandal-centric election cycle.

And this does not bode well for Democrats, because those ever-important swing voters in the center don’t like to be pandered to, don’t like to be taken for granted, and most of all, don’t like to be lied to.

A recent CNN poll released May 19, 2013, shed some interesting first looks at the challenges ahead for Democrats if they handle the IRS and other scandals badly.

By other scandals, I’m referring to the murders of the American diplomat and security staff in Benghazi, the alleged extortion of health care companies by HHS Secretary Sibelius, and the likely-illegal wiretapping and seizure of personal emails of AP and Fox News reporters by the Obama Department of Justice that could very well end with the firing, resignation or impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder.

According to the CNN poll, 6% of Americans have a very favorable opinion (I’d love to meet these people—I’m assuming they’re friends of family of IRS employees) and 28% have a somewhat favorable opinion of the IRS, to 30% somewhat unfavorable and 35% very unfavorable.

In all seriousness, the combined 34% very/somewhat favorable is important to note because these respondents are highest among younger, lower income, non-white, liberal, Democrat, non-white households – exactly those least likely to turnout to vote in the “second off-year” elections when the liberal, Democrat president’s party is depressed, under attack, and unmotivated to vote.

CNN asked respondents, “As you may know, the IRS targeted conservative political groups for greater scrutiny of their applications for tax exempt status. How important in issue do you think this is to the nation?” Overall, 85% of respondents said it is important (55% very, 30% somewhat), to just 10% who say “not too important” and 5% who say “not important at all.”

So who were these people? Non-white respondents (62% very important) are more likely to say it was important than white respondents (52% very important). There’s a major crack in the Obama wall, reminding us of Dr. Dre’s immortal quote (I’m sure you quote the good Dr. as often as I do), “The only two things that scare me are God and the IRS.”

College educated respondents (53% very important) are more likely to say it is important than those who haven’t attended college (57% very important), another potential crack in the Obama base.

Only when sorted by ideology did answers fall back into more predictable patterns: conservatives 71%, moderates 47%, liberals 39%.

Even more interesting is the partisan divide as to whether Mr. Obama is telling the truth. 86% of Democrats insist he is (31% completely, 55% mostly) to just 28% of Republicans who agreed (4% completely, 24% mostly).

Comparatively, among Independents just eight percent say Mr. Obama is still being completely truthful, and 50% said he was still being mostly truthful.  That number, the mostly truthful folks, are the ones with the greatest chance of moving if it is proven the White House did have internal knowledge of the IRS actions before Mr. Obama’s reelection.

This is where it may all come crashing down – and why I wasn’t surprised to see what I expect will be the first of many senior administration staffers asserting their 5th Amendment rights not to testify before Congress.

Finally, one figure outshone all the others as hinting at a volatile 2014 election year, and all the credit goes to Independents once again.

In response to CNN’s question about whether or not Republicans are over-reacting to the IRS scandal, or if Republicans are reacting appropriately, 42% say Republicans are overreacting, while 53% say Republicans are acting appropriately.  This includes a surprising (to me, at least) one in three (31%) Democrats and 85% of Republicans saying Republicans are responding appropriately – a combined 54% of all respondents.

It’s too early to say with real certainty what will happen in 2014, but the senior Democrats announcing their retirements, distancing themselves from the President, calling for investigations into the IRS, into Benghazi, into the scandals? They are clearly seeing the same patterns I am – and I don’t blame them one bit for panicking. Today, it’s a good day to be a Republican.

“Unfortunately you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all of our problems. Some of these same voices do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.”

America has, in recent years, become a partisan and polarized nation. It can be argued that we go out of our way to divide ourselves, if only as a means of identifying ourselves. While the social scientists argue the relative health of self-destructiveness of going down such a path, the fact remains that President Obama and his supporters see the world through very different eyes than a majority of Americans.

The Obama viewpoint, that of today’s unabashed Liberal, believes government is the driving force of change in society, that government creates jobs, hope and opportunity—and that while fallible, it acts generally in the best interests of the people.

For the rest of us (ideologically both the middle and the right), the burden of government has grown vastly out of proportion to the value we get back for the taxes we pay. And to conservatives, tyranny isn’t “lurking around the corner” as Mr. Obama describes it. Tyranny is staring every American right in the face, each and every day, in many forms, shapes and sizes.

Right now, our government is embroiled in scandals which show how much the rights of Americans have eroded in the five years Barack Obama has been in office:

• Beginning in 2010 and lasting through the Obama re-election campaign, the IRS inappropriately (and I suspect illegally) targeted conservative, Tea Party, and at least one pro-Israel/Jewish group.
• The Obama Department of Justice undertook an extensive communications assault on America’s free media (the same media which got him elected twice), by covertly monitoring dozens, and potentially many more, personal and work phone lines of Associated Press reporters.
• The Obama State Department and White House have repeatedly changed their stories and rebuffed direct inquiries into the riots in Benghazi which culminated in the violent murders of an American ambassador and three security staff, and which possibly could have been prevented had our embassy not been denied sufficient protection, or had our president not failed to respond during a crisis.
• And, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has once again come under fire, most recently for possible extortion of funds from businesses and industries regulated by her department for “contributions” to fund the potentially unconstitutional new healthcare law, Obamacare.

By the president’s way of thinking, “you should reject these charges.” Rewind two decades, you can hear then First Lady Hillary Clinton proclaiming a “vast right wing conspiracy” trying to bring down her husband and her own attempt to nationalize health care.

Is some grand anti-liberal conspiracy afoot? Anyone who spent their days in the fishbowl of White House politics might certainly come to believe that. The alternative is much easier to believe, and much more likely:

According to Gallup, just 21% of Americans self-identify ideologically as “liberal”, compared to 40% of Americans who consider themselves as “conservative”.

Add to that the historical lows we are currently witnessing in the public’s trust in government and it’s not hard at all to understand why Americans as a whole are so skeptical of the utter non-sense emanating from both Congress and the White House these days.

Consider this: The federal budget for 2013 is approximately $3.3 trillion. When faced with the prospect of cutting just $85 billion (roughly 2.5%), liberals from the White House to the dog house immediately launched a Chicken Little “the sky is falling” campaign to beg Americans for more money, for any solution other than depriving Washington of $85 billion in taxpayer money to spend.

As it turns out, $85 billion (the dreaded “Sequester”) was cut, the sky didn’t fall, and the sun still rose in the east the next day. Months later, liberals are still blaming everything from natural disasters and the weather to terrorist attacks on the money they didn’t get to spend.

Is it any wonder that Americans are a little less willing to trust Washington?

But, finally, we’ll get some real answers.

So, to put ourselves out there even more, today we engage in the highly foolish act of prognostication.  It would probably be better if we didn’t, but many have been unwise enough to ask me what I think.

So, with great thanks (as always) to WPA partner Bryon Allen who does all the hard work on these forecasts, here is my final WPA election update for 2012.

The Presidential Race

Way ahead or slightly behind 

On Tuesday, we’re going to find out that one of two things is true:

• Obama was able to deliver a turnout that looks a lot like 2008 and the polls using a 2008 model or something close to it were right all along, or
• Three consecutive wave elections (2006, 2008, 2010) has caused pollsters to forget how to model a “normal” electorate.
  • Turnout rates will look a lot like 2004 which, even when adjusted for demographic changes, still yield an electorate that looks a lot more like 2004 than 2008.

Without the ability to actually see the future, we’ll just have to wait for tomorrow to see which of those outcomes occurs.

But here’s what they mean:

• If the “a lot like 2008” model is right, Obama will be re-elected narrowly with something between 270 and 280 electoral votes (and the media polls will have been right all along).
• If “normal” is still something much more like 2004 group participation rates and partisanship, then Mitt Romney will win with more than 300 electoral votes (and media pollsters will have a lot of ‘splaining to do).

You can guess which one I think will happen.   The good news is that none of us now has to wait long to know the answer.

Reading tea leaves

Now, for the very impatient, here are some hints in the latest early voting data distributed today by the AP:

• In Colorado, Republicans lead by two points in early vote turnout.
  • In 2008, Democrats lead by two points in early vote turnout.
  • That’s a four point swing toward Republicans; but not enough to erase Obama’s 2008 advantage without some big shifts among Independents.
  • And, recent polling has shown Obama leading Independents by just two points when he won them by ten in 2008, according to the exit polls.
  • So, based on this, Colorado goes Romney.

• In Iowa, Republicans have an 11 point gap in early votes so far, which compares to an 18 point gap in 2008.
  • Obama won Iowa in ’08 by more than nine points, so there will have to be an even bigger shift in Election Day votes to change the outcome.
  • So, based on this, Iowa goes Obama.

• Ohiois notoriously hard to judge for early voting because the only “party registration” is based on the last primary in which a voter cast a ballot.
  • But, based just on that measure and absentee/early ballot requests, Republicans have shaved a 14 point 2008 gap down to a six point gap (an eight point gain) in a state Obama won by less than five points in ‘08.
  • So, based on this, Ohio goes Romney.

• In Nevada, Republicans trail by seven points in early voting.
  • In 2008, they trailed in the two major counties (which made up 88% of the early votes cast) by 19 points.
  • Even accounting for the fact that the rural counties are more Republican, that’s a significant closing in a race Obama won by slightly under 13 points in 2008 and makes Nevada a very close race even assuming Independents don’t shift.
    • But Romney leads among Independents by seven points in the latest Las Vegas Review Journal poll (Obama won Independents by 13 according to the 2008 exit polls).
• So, based on this, Nevada goes Romney.

In our analysis (estimation?) that yields three states (Colorado, Ohio and Nevada) that are performing quite differently than the 2008 model and are, based on the current evidence, likely to go for Romney.

Adding North Carolina (not really a swing state this year) to that mix gives Romney 268 Electoral Votes.

This is before discussing states without the same information currently available—states like Virginia (Obama at 48% in RCP average), New Hampshire (Obama at 49% in RCP average), and perhaps even a Pennsylvania (Obama at 50% in RCP average), Wisconsin (Obama at 50% in RCP average) or even Oregon (Obama at 50% in RCP average).  All those RCP (Real Clear Politics) averages are based on polls relying on 2008 models.

So, to summarize, if Romney wins any of those states, he becomes the 45^th President of the United States.

Congress 

Status quo is almost certain. 

Unless something shocking happens, Democrats will retain control of the Senate and Republicans will retain control of the House.

In the Senate, it really comes down to the candidates and a shift in the map.  While there is still a path to 50 available to Republicans, it requires essentially a sweep of the close races.  The most likely outcome at this point seems to be Republicans picking up a single net seat, losing a single net seat, or holding steady (by winning two to replace Scott Brown and Olympia Snowe).

In the House, the current RCP generic ballot average has Republicans with a slight advantage.  The equilibrium point in House elections tends to be Republicans down slightly on the generic ballot.  While redistricting will blunt the opportunity for pick-ups, with this generic ballot reading we expect Republicans to add five to ten seats to their House majority.

Hope you’ve enjoyed these over the past few weeks—this will be my last one for the cycle.  We will be preparing our regular post-election “What Happened??” presentation, to try and answer that question. If you’d be interested in having someone from WPA deliver that to a group please contact WPA VP of Marketing, Rob Spicer (rspicer@wparesearch.com).  Also, please go to www.wparesearch.com/blog and subscribe to our blog by email (upper right corner) if you’d like to read more of our thinking throughout the year.  We try to post everything to RedState, but don’t always remember.

It’s a week before Election Day and it seems that the map is expanding for Governor Romney, which means that it’s contracting for President Obama.

In this Election Update I’ll look at the current map and some scenarios that it suggests.  I’ll also give you some ideas about how to interpret the many polls that will come out between now and Election Day.

The Presidential Race

It’s good to have options. 

In some ways, not a lot has really changed in the last week.  Mitt Romney still has a lead in the national polls, and a bigger one among those most likely to vote than among those less likely to vote.  Many of the battleground states are still very close.

But what has changed is that both campaigns have slowly begun redeploying resources away from early battlegrounds such as North Carolina and, to a lesser extent, Florida and Virginia and into states like Wisconsin and Minnesota that were previously thought to be safe for Obama.

This redeployment suggests to us that the internal polls both campaigns are seeing (and we believe these are both more detailed and more accurate than public media polls) are showing that Romney likely to win some of these states that the media still treats as “battlegrounds.”

Let’s look at where the polls are now in a number of states, only analyzing those surveys with interviews conducted entirely in the last week.

In doing this I’m going to look at both the mean of recent polls and the median recent poll.  In some states there is one outlier poll really moving the arithmetic mean.  Looking at the median in those states will give us a better picture of the recent trends.

 *    Because Ohio has so many polls, we were able to use polls only released over the weekend and today.

**  The Wisconsin data is based on just a single poll conducted in the past week. 

Based on these data, there seem to be three courses this election can take.  These are presented in order from what we, today, see as most likely to least likely:

1)   Mitt Romney wins a narrow victory:

• It seems clear at this point that Romney will win North Carolina unless something significant changes in the next week.
• Romney is also clearly ahead in Florida and Virginia though not by the same margins as in North Carolina.  If the election were held today, we would predict he wins both.
• Given that background, Romney would win a narrow victory with any of the following combinations of states:

i.      Ohio and any one other state;

ii.      Wisconsin, Colorado and any one other state;

iii.      Minnesota, Colorado, and any one other state;

iv.      or (least likely) Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Iowa.

• Given the trends over the past few weeks and the issues with the Ohio polling that we’ve pointed out previously, we see a narrow Romney victory including a win in Ohio as the most likely scenario at this point.

2)   Obama wins a narrow victory:

• With the loss of the Southeast, Obama would need to run the table in the Midwestern and Western states in which he currently has narrow leads.
• While we’re skeptical that Obama can withstand the general trend in this race and that he is even ahead today in Ohio, if Obama “runs the table” in those states (including Ohio), he will win re-election.

3)   Romney wins a landslide:

•  There is an increasing possibility that Romney could win this race with 300 or more electoral votes.
• While this is still less likely than a narrow win for one candidate or the other, the fact that some states are moving solidly into the Romney column while others that were previously thought to be solidly for Obama are suddenly becoming competitive is the type of late momentum that leads to landslide outcomes.

So what’s the October surprise? 

With a week to go until the election, there is still time for things to change dramatically.  While the idea of an “October surprise” is often overstated—most late revelations aren’t profound enough to alter the fundamental path of an election—there are two stories that might, just might, change the outcome next Tuesday.

1)   The response to Sandy.

President Obama has cancelled campaign events to return to the White House and “monitor” the course of the storm.  Now, unless Obama is a secret X-Man there’s not really much he can do about the storm and certainly nothing he couldn’t do from Air Force One.   But this does give him the chance to look like a leader and appear Presidential at a critical juncture in the campaign.

It’s possible that, particularly for very late deciding voters, seeing Obama leading the country in a moment of crisis could give him a critical boost.

On the other hand, disaster response is a tricky business especially when major cities that aren’t used to this kind of disaster are involved.  If the response is poor and the federal government looks as incompetent as it often is, Sandy could be the final blow that ends the Obama Presidency.

2)   Benghazi

The evolving story about Benghazi—what the White House knew after the attack and when and, more importantly, what orders were given before and during the attack—has the potential to become a true “October surprise” in this election.

The more information that comes out about the attacks, the worse things look for the Administration.

And it’s pretty clear that groups inside the defense and intelligence community feel wronged by the way the Administration has behaved before, during, and after the attacks and will continue leaking damaging information until Election Day.

The question here is how much coverage this story receives.  So far, many media outlets have all but ignored it—shocking?!  And now we have the real possibility that coverage of Sandy and its aftermath will overwhelm any potential coverage of this story.

If we start seeing extensive coverage of the Benghazi story on CNN and on the network evening news, that too will be the final blow to Obama’s hopes.

Three rules for interpreting polls 

There will be a lot of polls released between now and Election Day.  Here are three rules to help you assess which ones are likely to be the good indicators of how things really stand:

1)   Short field times are better than long.

Some polls, particularly those conducted by colleges and universities, but also some major media outlet polls, have field schedules of four or more days.  Campaign polls will usually poll over two days.  Some robo-polls will poll on a single day.

As we get closer to the election, polls with longer field windows are likely to include data that no longer reflects reality.  In 2008 exit polls, one-in-ten voters said they made their decision in the last week of the election.  This means votes really are shifting day-to-day.  So look for short field-time polls as the best indicator of today’s reality.

2)   Keep an eye on partisanship.

We’ve talked before about polls that have partisan make-up that reflects the 2008 election, or is even more Democratic than that election.

As more and more polls come out, often with divergent results, keep an eye on the partisan make-up of the samples and trust those that are somewhere between the 2004 and 2008 electorates the most.  It’s probably safe at this point to discount polls that exactly mirror 2008 or are even more Democratic than that in their turnout assumptions.

3)   Voter files are better than calling all adults and screening.

This is an old battle in the polling community and one that would be over but for an “old guard” who haven’t kept up with recent research or refuse to put evidence over a theoretical argument about “random samples.”

To simplify the argument, a pollster can either use voters off of the voter file who have turned out in past similar elections as their sample–or they can call random landline (and sometimes cell) phones and ask the person that answers whether they are registered and will vote.

Without going into the arcane details of the argument, let’s look at what happens with the RDD (random digit dial) approach.

• The Washington Post recently released a poll in Virginia showing Obama up by four.
  • This poll was conducted from 10/22-26 (go back to rule 1 about field windows) and used a RDD sample of landlines and cell phones.
  • 1,504 adults answered the screening questions,
  • 1,309 of them said they are registered voters, and
  • 1,228 said they would vote.
    • That’s 82% of all adults and 94% of registered voters as “likely voters.”

Now, most of our readers already know how ridiculous those numbers are.  But let’s look at the actual numbers:

• In 2008, Virginia had an adult population of approximately 5.72 million according to the Census Bureau.
  • According to the State Board of Elections, just over 5 million people were registered to vote.
  • According to the Board of Elections, 3,723,260 votes were cast in the 2008 Presidential Election.
  • That’s only 65% of adults and 74% of registered voters.
    • In other words, the Washington Post poll is over-stating likely turnout by 20 points.

Those numbers aren’t really uncommon for polls that use a self-identified likely voter methodology.  So pay attention to how the polls are identifying voters and give more weight to polls that start from the voter file and use previous voting to identify likely voters.

As always, a big thanks to Bryon Allen and the research team at WPA for helping do all the heavy lifting on this analysis.

Please go to http://www.wparesearch.com/blog to subscribe to updates like this directly from us and like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WPAResearch.

The US National Debt clock was on prominent display, which has now approached a staggering $16 Trillion.

According to a Gallup Poll conducted in August, 65% of respondents agree economic concerns are far and away the most important problem facing the nation.

According to a recent Sentier Research study, median household incomes have suffered more in Obama’s economic “recovery” than they did during the actual recession he inherited.

To illustrate:

• Median household income is down 4.8% since June 2009 (to $50,964)
• Self-Employed median incomes fell 9.4%
• African-American median incomes fell 11%
• Hispanic median incomes fell 4.1%
• Americans Ages 55-64 median incomes fell 9.7%

Despite all of these sad statistics regarding state of the Obama’s term in office, the rhetoric emanating from Chicago and this week’s Democratic convention continues to focus on class warfare.

Obama’s campaign team knows the American people do not trust the President on economic matters, and thus this week’s speeches will avoid discussing them as long as possible. Gallup’s most recent Obama approval data, as well as a recent CBS News Poll confirm this:

• Only 45% Approve President Obama’s Job as President
• 60% of Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy
• Only 37% of Americans approve of Obama’s ability to create jobs

Most importantly:

• 39% of Americans feel as though they are worse off today than four years ago, (40% feel they are the same and only 20% feel they are better off).

Much like in 1980, this election will be decided by Americans asking themselves if they are better off now than they were four years ago.  The data above illustrates how difficult it will be for Obama to convince them the answer is yes.

• The Convention has created large numbers of positive impressions of Romney but this effect is being somewhat offset by highly negative information elsewhere
• Convention Watchers:
• • 67% more favorable rating
  • 33% less favorable

Favorite Speech

• A plurality of likely voters in key swing states who have been paying attention to the convention were able to recall Ann Romney’s speech. More than a third could recall Chris Christie’s speech.  Night one speeches have very high recall among likely voters because they have had a full news cycle of coverage whereas night two speakers have not yet been covered extensively in the press.
  • Convention Speech recall
    • Ann Romney: 44%
    • Chris Christie 37%

• Ann Romney’s speech was the clear favorite among likely voters in key swing states with Chris Christie’s speech coming in second.  
  • Convention Speech Favorite Speaker Night 1
    • Ann Romney: 33%
    • Chris Christie 16%

See full results here:

http://www.wparesearch.com/uncategorized/wpas-republican-national-survey-results/

In addition to the key political numbers, this week’s analysis includes:

• A look Paul Ryan’s image boost after he became the Republican VP nominee.
• The Presidential ballot in Wisconsin before and after Paul Ryan is announced as VP nominee.
• Older American’s views on the Ryan budget plan and the Obama budget plan.
• The Republican advantage in voter engagement.
• Registration rates in swing states.
• The Presidential ballot in swing states.

http://www.slideshare.net/WPAOpinionResearch/wpas-weekly-political-brief-1200816

• Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate this week generated excitement among Republicans     (pg. 4).
  • Ryan’s favorability among Republicans and Independents increased by double digits (14% and 20%) after the announcement.

• By adding Paul Ryan to the ticket, the presidential ballot in Wisconsin shifted 4% in Romney’s favor (pg. 5).
  • In a state that Obama won by 14% in 2008, Romney now leads by 1%.

• Older Americans believe that Paul Ryan’s plan is the best to deal with America’s rapidly expanding federal budget deficit (pg. 9).
  • This is in contrast with conventional wisdom that older Americans are weary of Ryan’s budget plan.

• Republicans have a 13% advantage among those voters who say they have given “quite a lot” of thought about the election (pg. 11).
  • This gap is higher than in recent presidential years and suggests that Republicans will have a higher turnout rate than Democrats in November.
  • Americans giving “quite a lot” of thought to the election decreased 6% from 2008.

• Democratic registration rates fell in 7 of the 8 swing state that Obama won in 2008 (pg. 12).
  • This is troubling for Obama because it suggests that Democrats will have a lower turnout in crucial swing states in 2012.

• Romney leads Obama in 3 of the 4 key swing states (pg. 16).
  • Maintaining these ballot advantages will be critical to Romney’s victory in November.

They didn’t wait long, the following morning found a chorus of pundits and elected officials calling for more restrictive gun control.

Public opinion suggests that these calls are unlikely to be effective.

In the first poll following the shooting, conducted by Rasmussen, showed that 51% of Americans think we do not need stricter gun control laws.

Polling after previous similar attacks reinforces the conclusion that liberals will not be able to exploit this tragedy to restrict gun rights.

Despite a brief change after the Columbine attacks, the American public increasingly favors protecting 2^nd amendment rights.

An April 2012 poll by Pew Research demonstrated this vividly-in 1993 only 34% of Americans thought it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns than it is to better control the sale of guns. In their April 2012 poll, 49% thought it was more important to protect gun rights-a 15 point jump in a decade.

American support goes beyond a generic support of the 2^nd amendment- when asked about specific issues 73% do not want hand guns banned and 53% are against banning semi-automatic weapons.

Democrats who actually face tough elections understand the realities of public opinion and are unlikely to join the liberal punditry and the handful of “safe seat” liberals in opportunistically pushing an anti-gun agenda. President Obama and many other Democrats know the electoral risk of pushing gun control and have steered clear of doing so.

The bottom line is that the events in Aurora are tragic and shocking, but the predictable reaction of anti-gun liberal extremists is mostly just so much talking on the Sunday shows without any real impact on either public opinion or policy.

But the Obama campaign isn’t the only one with a hypothesis about the map.  Over at the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog, Nate Silver has a simulation model that seems to suggest fewer states are in the “nearly 50/50” category.  His model suggests that only Colorado and Ohio fall into that category with Iowa and Virginia slotting in as more 60/40 propositions.

Real Clear Politics has another map, listing 12 toss-ups: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

So what should we believe?  The answer is probably a little of both models.

With five months to go until the election, there’s still some chance we could see a landslide one way or another.  That would require some major news event or a total melt-down by one of the candidates or campaigns.  It’s unlikely to happen (“the private sector is doing fine” notwithstanding), but if it did then all 12 states on the Real Clear Politics map could go for one candidate.

The more likely event, looking at all of the polls both nationally and in the states, is a narrow campaign that hinges on just one or two key states—something that looks a lot more like the FiveThirtyEight map.

So let’s examine the four “close” states on that map in more detail:

• Ohio: Ohio went to Obama in 2008 with 52% of the vote, but has since elected a Republican governor.  Right now polling shows another close race with Obama leading by less than two points in the RCP average but Romney leading in the two most recent polls.
• Colorado: Another Obama state in 2008 and one with a sitting Democratic Governor and two Democratic U.S. Senators, polling still suggests that Colorado is a close race in 2012.  The RCP average is within two points and the latest poll, from this month, shows a tie.
• Iowa: Another Obama state in 2008 (sense a pattern here) and another one that elected a Republican Governor in 2010, Iowa may be in play.  Two recent polls show a tie and a ten point Obama lead.
• Virginia: Just to simplify things, Obama state in 2008, Republican Governor in 2010, polls within three points.

It’s pretty easy to see the trend that emerges when you survey the battleground.  Obama won these states in 2008 but is polling well under 50% in each and is within points of Romney.

If we add in more states like Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, or New Hampshire, we’re adding even more 2008 Obama states to our list.

This far out from the election, there’s a lot we don’t know.  One thing we do know  is that the President is playing defense rather than offense.  Or maybe he’s just leading from behind–something he seems to be pretty good at.

This memo summarizes current data on the issue and shows how, at this time, opposition to gay marriage and a pro-family position is still a winning argument for Republican candidates and leaders.

First, a few caveats:

• This election is unlikely to be about gay marriage, regardless of the position a Republican candidate takes on the issue.
  • With a majority of Americans identifying the economy and jobs as the most important issue in deciding their votes and unemployment still above eight percent nationally, and much higher in many places, this election will be about who voters trust more on the economy and job creation.
  • It is true that the long-term trend in public opinion seems to be moving in favor of gay marriage.  This may matter in future elections if the trend continues.
    •  However, trends in public opinion are not linear and reverse almost as often as they continue, so assuming we are headed for a world with super-majority support for gay marriage seems unwise.
    • To illustrate we’ve seen the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate go from just 33% pro-life in 1995 to 51% pro-life in 2009. Similarly, gun control has shifted from 29% saying it’s more important to protect the right to own guns than to control them to last month’s Pew data which shows that 49% feel protecting the right to own is more important than controlling guns.  In both cases we’ve seen 20 point swings over the last 10-15 years*.

Now the facts:

• Support for gay marriage is a 50/50 issue in the American electorate.
  • A May 3-6 Gallup poll of American adults found that 50% said that “marriage between same-sex couples should be recognized by the law as valid with the same rights as traditional marriages.”
    • Comparatively, almost half (48%) of Americans said that gay marriage should not be recognized by the law.
• When Americans are offered the option of civil unions, support for gay marriage drops to just a plurality.
  • In a CBS/New York Times poll from February, 40% of Americans supported gay marriage, 23% supported civil unions but not gay marriage and 31% said gay couples should have no legal recognition at all.
• The electoral implications of gay marriage are similarly mixed.
  • A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from March found that most Americans (54%) say that a candidate’s position on gay marriage won’t make much difference in their vote.
  • One-quarter (25%) said they would be more likely to vote for a pro-gay marriage candidate and one in five (20%) say they would be more likely to vote against such a candidate.
  • Obama’s decision to come out in favor of gay marriage does appear to have hurt him and may matter, in some way, come November.
    • While a majority (51%) of Americans approve of Obama’s decision to support gay marriage, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll taken on May 10^th, 45% disapprove including 44% of Independents and even 25% of Democrats.
    • Perhaps more importantly, the same poll shows that 26% of Americans are less likely to vote for Obama because of the decision while just 13% are more likely to vote for him.
      • The vast majority (60%) says the issue makes no difference in their vote.
      • One problem with looking at overall national data is that it over-represents electorally less important states in the Northeast and on the West Coast (states Obama will almost certainly win).  Looking at swing states alone shows even more sharply the danger this issue may pose to Obama’s chances.
        • Since 2004 seven of the nine “toss up” states identified on realclearpolitics.com’s electoral map have passed gay marriage bans.
          • The voters of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia (among others) have all voted against gay marriage in the recent past and Obama may face additional challenges in some or all of these states as he attempts to defend the opposite position.

What does it mean?

The majority of voters aren’t going to make their decision in this year’s elections based on gay marriage, but among those who will this remains a 50/50 issue.

In the battleground of this, and many elections, voters have clearly expressed their preference that gay marriage not be recognized in law.

Republican candidates would be wise to note that many swing voters and the Republican base are opposed to gay marriage and avoid falling into the trap that seems to have captured Obama—taking positions that appeal to the echo chamber of the two coasts and not to the middle of the country where elections are decided.

*Gallup (adults)
Do you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?
September 1995 56% Pro-choice vs. 33% Pro-life
May 7-10, 200942% Pro-choice vs. 51% Pro-life
July 15-17, 201147% Pro-choice vs. 47% Pro-life

Pew (adults)
Which is more important to protect?
March 2000 29% Protect right to own guns vs. 66% Controlling guns.
April 2012 49% Protect right to own guns vs. 45% Controlling guns.