Saturday was a light day for polling, with only the national tracking polls and a South Dakota poll out; our forecast was essentially unchanged.
The South Dakota numbers were not bad for Mr. Obama — putting him down by 6 points, closer than the margin by which he lost the state in 2008 — but look like something of a fluke. In North Dakota, which has been more heavily polled because of the competitive Senate race there, Mr. Obama has consistently trailed by double digits.
Indeed, with the presidential election likely to be much closer than it was in 2008, Mr. Obama is unlikely to paint any new state blue this year. The forecast model gives him a 15 percent chance of carrying Montana, which has been sparsely polled; a 14 percent chance of winning Missouri; and an 8 percent chance of winning Arizona. Fourth on the list is South Dakota, where the model gives Mr. Obama about a 4 percent chance after the new survey, followed by Georgia at 2 percent.
Mr. Obama is an underdog in two states that he won in 2008, Indiana and North Carolina.
An earlier post in this space about poll oversampling was published in error and will be updated and published later this week.
