PURPLE Poll for CO FL IA MN NC NH NM NV OH PA VA WI

[ajb]

If Romney leads Obama by 1% in CO+NV+NM he must lead in at least one of the 3 states. Looking at the 2008 results it seems reasonable to think that he would be ahead in Colorado. You could potentially make a case that he could also be ahead in Nevada.

Or in New Mexico, because the sample size for NM would be about 100.

In 2008 the results were
NM: Obama 57 McCain 42
NV: Obama 55 McCain 43
CO: Obama 54 McCain 45

So if he's leading in only one of the three (which I think is unlikely, but is what the poll suggests), it's most likely NM.

Which also makes sense when you look at the % of each state that is Hispanic: NM 46%; NV 27%; CO 20%.

[ajb]

The subsets for CO, OH, PA and FL would actually make decent polls.

The description says that "Purple Poll" uses an oversample in each region with a MoE of 4.1%

Using a population of 10 Mio. in the western region, this would lead to a sample of roughly 580.

Because CO has about 50% of the 10 Mio. people, the CO subset alone would have about 300 respondents. 300 people would not be too bad of a poll.

The same is true for OH and PA, with PA having about 300 respondents and OH about 250.

FL would also have 300 respondents in a regional 580 oversample.

Wouldn't it make more sense to weight by electoral vote? In which case, CO would be 45% of the sample, NM 30%, NV 25%, for example.