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Today's Nate Silver post points out that

"It turned out, however, that the worst was almost over for him. Mr. Obama had one more terrible day in the polls , on Friday, Oct. 12, when Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College rose to almost 40 percent in the forecast. But that was when Mr. Romney’s momentum stopped ."

Just keeping track for history.


538 nate silver

November 1, 2012, 10:16 am 743 Comments Oct. 31: Obama’s Electoral College ‘Firewall’ Holding in Polls
By NATE SILVER

On Oct. 11, this blog posed the question of whether President Obama’s “firewall” in battleground states was all that it was cracked up to be.

At that point, Mr. Obama still technically held the lead in the FiveThirtyEight forecast in enough states to give him 270 electoral votes. But Colorado, Florida and Virginia had turned red in our map, meaning that our forecast suggested that Mitt Romney had better-than-even odds of winning them. Iowa was just on the verge of doing so. And Mr. Obama’s lead was down to just a percentage point or so in Ohio, which would have collapsed his firewall at its foundation.

Theories that the decline in Mr. Obama’s polls that followed the first presidential debate in Denver would somehow skip the swing states were not looking good — as dubious as the idea that tornadoes “skip” houses.

Instead, at that point, Mr. Obama’s position in the FiveThirtyEight forecast had declined for seven consecutive days. If he stopped the bleeding there, he might still be the Electoral College favorite, albeit a narrow one. But it wasn’t clear where the bottom was.

I t turned out, however, that the worst was almost over for him. Mr. Obama had one more terrible day in the polls , on Friday, Oct. 12, when Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College rose to almost 40 percent in the forecast. But that was when Mr. Romney’s momentum stopped . Since then, Mr. Obama’s standing has rebounded slightly. His position in the national polls has stabilized; although the national polls continue to tell a different story about the race than the state polls do; it can no longer be said that they have Mr. Obama behi