State and National Polling: Is There a Disparity?

There's been some talk on the web about a disparity between national and state polling for the Presidential race. Mitt Romney trails Barack Obama by only 2-3 points nationally, yet he's only leading in two states Obama won in 2008, Indiana and North Carolina, and one of the 12 states considered to be swing states. One reason for this might be that Mitt Romney has only improved on John McCain by 4-5 points. There were only two additional states, Ohio and Florida, that Obama won by 4.5 points or less, Florida and Ohio. Barack Obama won Virginia, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire by 6-11 points.

If all states swung uniformly, as posited in my previous post, Romney would not only need to win, but likely win by 2 points. Obama did that well in swing states. That aside, Mitt Romney is actually doing better than the 2.7 point national aggregate spread right now.

In fact, based on current polling the national margin should be around 2 points. Mitt Romney has improved in blue states by 6.4 points, in swing states by 5.1, and in red states by 4.7. Romney will need to do better in swing states in order win the electoral college. Flipping the other states that Obama leads by 3 points or less, Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire, and Colorado, he still won't result in a Mitt Romney win the election.

Unfortunately for Mitt Romney, many of the states he's doing the best over John McCain, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, and Connecticut, are so blue that he won't flip them.