aquariumdrinker

From Nate SIlver: This is not a tossup: 

Friday’s polling should make it easy to discern why Mr. Obama has the Electoral College advantage. There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday. Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida. … 

Although the fact that Mr. Obama held the lead in so many polls is partly coincidental — there weren’t any polls of North Carolina on Friday, for instance, which is Mr. Romney’s strongest battleground state — they nevertheless represent powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a “tossup.” A tossup race isn’t likely to produce 19 leads for one candidate and one for the other — any more than a fair coin is likely to come up heads 19 times and tails just once in 20 tosses. (The probability of a fair coin doing so is about 1 chance in 50,000.) (Emphasis mine.)

From The Washington Post: it’s better to have “ors” than “ands:”

If the president were to carry Ohio — and he continues to hold a narrow lead in public polls there — he could win an electoral majority by adding Virginia (13 electoral votes) or Wisconsin (10) or Colorado (nine), or by winning Iowa (six) and New Hampshire (four).  (emphasis mine)

If Romney does not win Ohio, his path to victory would have to include Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin and either Iowa or New Hampshire. But if he does capture the Buckeye State, he could become president by taking Florida and Virginia and then just one other contested state. (emphasis mine)

In other words, while there’s a lot of attention being paid to Ohio, both candidates still need other states to win. On Obama’s map, there’s a lot of “ors,” but with Romney — even with Ohio — there’s a lot of “ands.”

From Real Clear Politics: Pennsylvania is NOT, I repeat NOT, competitive:
Go ahead and hit the link above right now. Over the last seven polls, Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania has ranged from a tie (more on that in a second) to +6 and his current average is +4.1. With the exception of two polls from the same firm (can you say “outlier?”), Obama hasn’t been behind or tied in the Keystone State since February. It is not a competitive state. 

Romney is making a last-ditch effort to campaign in Pennsylvania because he needs to expand his avenues to victory — see “ands” vs “ors” above — but it’s not a competitive state now and it won’t be on Tuesday. 

From The Denver Post: Republican and Democratic political scientists agree: it’s Obama:
Nine different maps from nine different political prognosticators predict an Obama win with electoral counts ranging from 281 electoral votes to 332 votes. What’s particularly striking about these maps is how many states Obama can lose and still win. 

So there’s the data. You can believe it, or you can can believe Romney aides that say they have secret data that shows them winning in Ohio and competitive in Pennsylvania. But to believe them, you have to not believe in data, but instead have simple faith in Republican operatives. Given that choice, I’ll go with data every time.