538: Obama win probability rising [View all]

[brooklynite]

NY Times-FiveThirtyEight blog:

President Obama, who got good news in Thursday’s health care ruling, received more overnight on Friday when European leaders agreed to terms on a bank bailout. That sent the S.&P. 500 up by 2.5 percent on the hopes that this will reduce some of the downside risk in the economy.

Since the stock market is one of the economic variables the model considers, Mr. Obama’s probability of winning the Electoral College rose with the European news, to 67.8 percent, his highest figure since we began publishing the model this month.

The government also released data on personal income on Friday, another economic indicator the model uses. It rose by 0.2 percent in May, somewhat stronger than in most previous months and slightly beating market expectations. Still, personal income growth has been extremely sluggish for most of Mr. Obama’s term and remains the most pessimistic of the economic indicators the model uses.

The flow of polling has been comparatively strong for Mr. Obama of late, with leads in most battleground states in surveys published this week and national polls moving toward him, though some of this probably reflects statistical noise.

Projected Popular Vote count: 50.7 Obama, 48.2 Romney