Introduction – how does JMC Analytics and Polling call a state?

When analyzing the Presidential contest, the more data that is available, the better. Because with both partisan and non partisan sources alike releasing their polls, the truth is somewhere in the middle of all of their poll numbers.

Real Clear Politics has been faithfully posting the results of various polls for over a decade, and for purposes of “the scorecard”, RCP is JMCAP’s primary source of data. And since the Presidential race is a moving target, JMCAP is most interested in a rolling average of recent results, with “recent” meaning polls released in the last 14 days. As the Presidential campaign heats up, “recent” will come a  seven day rolling average.

And while it is true that prognosticators like to focus on national polls, it is the 50 states (and the District of Columbia) that elect a President via the Electoral College, so JMCAP focuses more on the individual state (instead of the national) polls.

It is also worth noting that since the 1992 Presidential election, Presidential contests have become fairly predictable: for six elections in a row, 30 states (and the District of Columbia) have consistently voted for the Republican or Democratic candidate. Therefore, what happened in the 2012 elections is useful as a starting point for this election, and those numbers will be considered as well.

Therefore, these are the “rules of the game” for how JMCAP calls a state:

(1) Safe Democratic/Clinton or safe Republican/Trump (dark blue/red) – If no polls have been conducted within the last 14 days for that state, a 2012 Obama (or Romney) percentage of 60% or above gets this rating. If polls have been conducted, a Clinton (or Trump) average of 50% or more gets this classification;

(2) Lean Democratic/Clinton or lean Republican/Trump (light blue/red) – If no polls have been conducted within the last 14 days for that state, a 2012 Clinton (or Trump) percentage between 53-59% gets this rating. If polls have been conducted, an Obama (or Trump) average percentage of 49% or less with a lead of 3 or more points will get this classification;

(3) Tossup (yellow) – If there was polling done, a candidate leads by less than 3 points or the 2012 election results had the winning candidate (Obama or Romney) receiving 52% or less;

Presidential Scorecard as of June 13

2012 Election: Barack Obama – 332, Mitt Romney 206

6/13/2016: Hillary Clinton – 224, Donald Trump 191, Undecided 123

Presidential race as of June 13

For this first scorecard of the 2016 election season, we have a relatively small volume of polling data, but those states which have been polled generally show a continuation of the partisan alignments that existed both in 2008 and 2012, although there are currently two curious exceptions: Donald Trump’s showing in Utah is far below typical Republican performances, while in Connecticut, he is not running as far behind Clinton as Presidential Republicans typically do – this is a state which hasn’t voted Republican since 1988, although it came fairly close in 2004.

It is in approximately 10 swing states where the race will be decided and, like previous elections, recently conducted polls show a tight race, although in Pennsylvania (which hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1988), Donald Trump is tied with Hillary Clinton, and this is the kind of state where Trump has to run ahead of typical Republican showings if he wants to win.

A recent spate of unfavorable publicity hasn’t (from a perception standpoint) helped the Trump campaign, nor does the fact that President Obama have respectable (51-46%) approval ratings. However, the general atmospherics of the country are favorable towards someone running as an “outsider” candidate: voters are overwhelmingly negative (65-25%) about the direction of the country, and Congressional approval is similarly overwhelmingly (69-9%) low.

Even though both party’s conventions are just over a month away, the current lull in the action (so to speak) is deceptive, because this is the period of time that voters are forming their opinion of each candidate. Which means that the media coverage both Trump and Clinton are getting is all the more critical in generating that first impression.

JMC Analytics and Polling will be analyzing, on a weekly basis, the Presidential race, and as Congressional primaries are held throughout the summer, we will consider those races too, since the Democrats very much want to retake the US Senate, and the location of critical Senate races in November gives them reason to think they can do so.