Drive-By Media Admits Romney is Winning Independents

It's a detail that has been ignored in the cooked polls that the Drive-By Media keeps posting: Romney is winning Independents in the Swing States. Remember how the "conventional wisdom" is that Independents are the kingmakers, right?

Well, according to some polling in both Florida and Ohio, Romney is winning Independents in each state. Today, we're going to do a little exercise. It's not meant to be scientific, mind you. Just a little illustration.  First, the data:

Ohio – Romney Leads Among Independents:

Ohio Newspaper Organization – Romney +28
CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac – Romney +1
American Research Group – Romney +16
Fox News – Romney +4
We Ask America – Romney +3
Public Policy Polling – Romney +2                 
Average: Romney +9%

Florida - Romney Leads Among Independents:

CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac – Romney +3
Gravis Marketing – Romney +4
We Ask America – Romney +2
American Research Group – Romney +1
Florida Times Union – Romney +4             
Average: Romney +2.8%

So now, let's do a quick exercise. Using the last three Presidential elections as our baseline we'll arrive at a baseline for the election, then arrive at a prediction including Independents.

Florida Turnout: 2008 - Democrat +3 - 2004 - Republican +4% - 2000 - Democrat +2% = D +1 average

Furthermore, Florida has 23% Registered Independents. So we're going to use as our hypothetical turnout model for Florida 39% Democrat, 38% Republican and 23% Independent.

Using that turnout model, and figuring in an average of Romney winning independents of 2.8% over Obama; assuming that Romney wins 90% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats; also assuming Obama wins 90% of Democrats at 10% of Republicans, the result would be Romney winning 52.4% and Obama winning 47.6% of the total vote. That means Romney would win Florida's 29 Electoral Votes.

Ohio Turnout: 2008 - Democrat +8% - 2004 Republican +5% - 2000 Democrat +1% = Democrat +4% 

Using that turnout model, and figuring in an average of Romney winning independents of 2.8% over Obama; assuming that Romney wins 90% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats; also assuming Obama wins 90% of Democrats at 10% of Republicans, the result would be Romney winning 50.3% and Obama winning 48.7%% of the total vote. That means Romney would win Ohio's 18 Electoral Votes.

Source: Media Ignore Independents' Swing Toward Romney