Nate Silver: Late Polls Show Gains for Obama

I looked at Nate Silver's analysis of where things stand in the presidential race yesterday and based on late polls, Nate has bumped up Barack Obama's chance of winning up to 91.6%  Needless to say, I hope Nate nails it on this one.  Not only do I want Romney/Ryan to lose, I also want to see a vicious civil war triggered in the Republican Party where just maybe reason will prevail and the Christofascists will be kicked to the political curb.  It is largely the Christofascists who have driven sanity, decency, and yes, morality, from the GOP and made it where honest, decent candidates have left the field because of the utter batshitery that now drives the GOP base. I truly believe that the GOP has become an immoral party given the hate and reverse Robin Hood policies that the far right has ushered in.  Repeated electoral defeats is the only thing that may ultimately save the GOP.  Here are highlights from Nate's latest analysis:

Mitt Romney has always had difficulty drawing a winning Electoral College hand. Even during his best period of polling, in the week or two after the first presidential debate in Denver, he never quite pulled ahead in the polling averages in Ohio and other states that would allow him to secure 270 electoral votes.

But the most recent set of polls suggest another problem for Mr. Romney, whose momentum in the polls stalled out in mid-October. Instead, it is President Obama who is making gains.

Among 12 national polls published on Monday, Mr. Obama led by an average of 1.6 percentage points. Perhaps more important is the trend in the surveys. On average, Mr. Obama gained 1.5 percentage points from the prior edition of the same polls, improving his standing in nine of the surveys while losing ground in just one.
 
Because these surveys had large sample sizes, the trend is both statistically and practically meaningful. Whether because of Hurricane Sandy, the relatively good economic news of late, or other factors, Mr. Obama appears to have gained ground in the closing days of the race.


Mr. Romney’s chances are less, however, of winning the Electoral College. The large majority of polls in battleground states over the past three days have shown leads for Mr. Obama. On Monday, for example, 19 battleground state polls found leads for Mr. Obama, as compared with just three for Mr. Romney.

Ohio remains the largest problem for Mr. Romney, where he has been behind in most polls all year. Mr. Romney might ordinarily take some solace in the fact that Ohio is slightly Republican-leaning, but the auto bailout may have changed its character this year, as there is evidence that Mr. Obama is performing more strongly with working-class voters in Ohio than he is elsewhere in the country.

Moreover, Mr. Obama has a number of backup options were he to lose one or more of these states [i.e., Ohio and Pennsylvania]. In Iowa, Mr. Obama leads by about three percentage points in the average of polls, and by a similar margin in New Hampshire. Recent polls also suggest movement toward Mr. Obama in Colorado and Virginia, and he now appears to be favored in each one.

Read the rest of Nate's piece.  I do hope he is right and that Obama carries Virginia.  We need as many blows landed against the increasingly foul Republican Party of Virginia as possible.