Romney Regaining Support of Conservatives

Two weeks ago I wrote Are Conservatives Abandoning Romney based on analyses, of multiple swing state polls, looking specifically at the ideological support that Obama and Romney were receiving.

At that time the numbers demonstrated lower than desirable support from self-described Conservatives for Governor Romney with a larger percentage of this voter bloc expressing support for President Obama than historically typical.

Today, using the same analysis of the most recent polls in the eight swing states I track, there is a clear and perceptive trend moving back to favor Romney. The numbers for both September 16 and 30 were obtained by averaging the responses in more than 24 polls, which represent the support for each candidate from the three ideological groups.

Empirically the numbers are not extreme but they are telling. Obama has seen an increase of 3.8% in support from Liberals with a decrease of 3.3% in support from Conservatives. At the same time Romney has realized an increase of 5.5% in Conservatives support with only a 0.5% decrease in support from Liberals. Bottom line is the Liberal support trend favors Obama by 4.3% but the Conservative support trend favors Romney by 8.8%, or more than twice the trend Obama has experienced.

There could be many reasons for the trend change; previous undecideds are now committing to a candidate, conservatives who formerly expressed support for Obama are changing their minds, and the possibility that efforts from Tea Party organizations to motivate their supporters are taking hold. I won’t wage a guess and will let the numbers and trends speak for themselves but they are clearly in Governor Romney’s favor.

The important nature of this trend is magnified when looking at the current swing state numbers.

The chart above graphs the average lead Obama has in each of the eight swing states based on the most recent six public polls per state, all demographically adjusted for party bias. The average lead Obama has is only 1.3% with an average of 4.8% of Others.

If the ideology trend, cited above, were to continue for the next two weeks (I will do this analysis again on October 14) the projected differences in the eight swing states would be effectively zero, with just over three weeks until Election Day.

There are many factors that may have impact on these numbers and trends between now and October 14 including the first Presidential debate and the Vice-Presidential debate, and it’s impossible to project what the numbers will be then but what is clear today is Governor Romney is trending in the right direction with the conservative base.