State Of Play--July 22

++The Electoral vote is aligning together:


Electoral Vote.com 332 Obama 206 Romney
Election Projection  303 Obama 235 Romney
538                        332 Obama 206 Romney
Princeton Consortium 332 Obama 206 Romney
Real Clear Politics       332 Obama 206 Romney


Obama on Intratrade yesterday 60.2%
Nate Silver on Romney's chances today: 32%
Intratrade on Romney today: 36.5%


++The reason Obama remains in decent shape is that he has led in 90% of Swing State polls during this cycle. Romney would have to take the lead and hold it for several polls until the dynamic would change.


++The alignment of the Electoral vote tallies has to do with recent Florida polls showing Obama in a lead. For instance, the Survey USA poll shows Obama with a 48 to 43 lead. Most importantly, the poll shows Obama way ahead with those who use cellphones.


++A few other observations. Larry Sabato said today that independents really only constitute 5-6% of the electorate. Nate Silver says they break toward the incumbent but then again we haven't seen the money deluge yet and the effects of voter suppression efforts. Also Obama in the past week has registered larger leads in the Gallup poll hitting a 48-44 lead. The likely voter filter is being put on more polls, which should favor Republicans but that doesn't seem to be true this year.


++Remember no Ohio, no Republican president. While Calvin Coolidge won but lost Florida and Virginia, he didn't lose Ohio. Never been done by a winning  Republican. In the Republican Rasmussen poll,Obama has a 47 to 45 lead over Romney in Ohio and the Swing State polls showed Obama with a slightly larger lead in Ohio. 


++The multiple tracking sites have the Republicans picking up Indiana and North Carolina this year. The only real bright spot for Romney in the state polls was a right-leaning Civitas poll showing he has a 49-48 lead over President Obama in North Carolina.


++PPP shows Obama up 49-44 in New Mexico. 


++University of New Hampshire shows Obama at 49-45 and ARG has Obama up by 51 to 43 in New Hampshire.


++Obama's best state is New York at 61-34 in the Siena poll and Pepperdine shows him up 52 to 33 in California. 


++Two Nevada polls show Obama in the lead. Magellan has him at 50-46 and We Ask America has it 49-43. 


++Decision Latino shows Obama with an overwhelming lead among Latino voters. Among naturalized citizens 72 to 19. Among U.S. born Latinos 69 to 25. 


++Rasmussen has Obama leading Pennsylvania 48 to 44.


++Almost all these polls were done prior to the whole controversy over Romney's taxes and whether he will release any more. We haven't seen the impact of the Obama ads on Romney's taxes on the polls, if any. Pollsters are saying that the two sides look locked in now and that all the rest of the campaign will be struggling over a few percentage of voters.