But the most recent set of polls suggest another problem for Mr. Romney, whose momentum in the polls stalled out in mid-October. But the errors in the polls are sometimes correlated, meaning there are years when most of them miss in the same direction. Mr. Obama could secure the Electoral College by winning Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania, along with Ohio. If the national popular vote winds up roughly tied, instead of favoring Mr. Obama by two points or so, then Mr. Romney could claw back to win Florida, Colorado and Virginia, and perhaps Iowa and New Hampshire. "In order for Mr. Romney to win the Electoral College, a large number of polls, across these states and others, would have to be in error, perhaps because they overestimated Democratic turnout.," Silver writes. It’s this possibility, more than the chance of a successful hail-mary in a state like Pennsylvania, that accounts for most of Mr. Romney’s remaining chances of winning the Electoral College. But Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College have slipped, and are now only about 8 percent according to the forecast model — down from about 30 percent 10 days ago. As any poker player knows, those 8 percent chances do come up once in a while. "In terms of EV or the Meta-margin, [Obama has] made up just about half the ground he ceded to Romney after Debate #1."
– It's Election Day—a day of reckoning not only for the candidates, but for America's pundits, including one recent lightning rod named Nate Silver. Silver's final prediction: President Obama has a 91.6% shot at winning, to Romney's 8.4%, though he emphasizes he expects a close contest. But the momentum has lately been in Obama's favor, and 19 battleground state polls yesterday showed Obama in the lead, while Mitt Romney led in just three, Silver writes in the New York Times. Silver sees Obama winning 314.6 electoral votes to Romney's 223.4, and believes the popular vote margin will be similar to George Bush's over John Kerry: two or three percentage points. Elsewhere in crystal-ball land, via the Washington Post: RealClearPolitics puts Obama up 48.8% to Romney's 48.1%; it sees Obama winning 303 electoral votes to 235 for Romney Intrade gives Obama a 72% chance of victory to Romney's 28% Jim Cramer at CNBC: Obama 440, Romney 98 (a bit of an outlier) Ross Douthat at the New York Times: Obama 277, Romney 261 Ezra Klein at the Washington Post: Obama 290, Romney 248 Drew Linzer at Emory University: Obama 326, Romney 212 Dick Morris of Fox News: Romney 325, Obama 213 Karl Rove: Romney 285, Obama 253 Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia: Obama 290, Romney 248 Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium: Obama 303, Romney 235 George Will at the Washington Post: Romney 321, Obama 217 Mike Allen over at Politico, meanwhile, has a pointer for those looking to call it an early night: "Watch Prince William and Loudoun counties in Virginia's increasingly diverse DC exurbs. Old Dominion polls close at 7, and the Commonwealth tends to count pretty fast. Obama won both counties in 2008. Romney has to take back territory like that if he's going to win. Tell me who won Prince William and Loudoun, and I'll tell you whether we have President 45 or President 44, Part II."