Three months remain until election day, and President Obama narrowly leads in nearly every national poll. Gallup's most recent tracking has him up 47-45 over Mitt Romney, for example, and just about every reputable poll for the last two months has shown a similar result. Nate Silver's weighted polling model puts Obama's current share of the popular vote at 50.2 percent to Romney's 48.4 percent, a figure that has scarcely changed since early June.
By the numbers, then, Obama is winning, if barely. (When you factor in the way the election is actually decided, by electoral votes, the president does slightly better.) Yet Republicans seem bullish on their chances. Take Karl Rove: His column in Thursday's Wall Street Journal was headlined "For Romney, Even Means Ahead." Romney, Rove argues, remains standing after weeks of pummeling from the other side. He's gotten tougher and more disciplined, and his fortunes will only improve as voters take a closer look at him with his choice of running mate and convention speech.
Rove isn't being contrarian here -- this is a widely shared sentiment on both sides, for a number of reasons. Here's why many Republicans think they're in good shape -- and many Democrats agree:
1. The GOP's enthusiasm advantage: The evidence that Republicans are more excited about this election than Democrats continues to mount. A memo released Thursday by the Republican polling and advocacy shop Resurgent Republic found that 62 percent of Republicans were "extremely enthusiastic" about voting in November, versus just 49 percent of Democrats. Gallup's recent polling found Democrats less excited about voting than anytime since 2004. Intuitively, this makes sense: Many of Obama's supporters seem weary and disillusioned, while Republicans, though they may not be thrilled with Romney, seem thoroughly fired up to get rid of the president...
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