All Tied Up.

Yesterday was another good day in the polls for Mitt RomneyReal Clear Politics has Romney up about 0.7

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points nationally — and Nate Silver thinks the post-debate surge doesn’t show any signs of waning. “So far, the evidence that Mr. Romney’s debate bounce is receding is a bit anecdotal,” he writes. Silver’s complicated algorithmic model still gives President Obama a 71-percent chance of winning on Nov. 6, but that’s down from the high 80’s just weeks ago. Before the debate, the president was up almost eight points in Pew’s poll; he’s now down four.

Jamelle‘s take is very different from Silver’s. “Romney received a sizable post-debate bounce, which leveled off on Saturday and declined on Sunday,” he writes. “Together with polls from Public Policy Polling and Rasmussen, there’s a chunk of evidence to suggest that this race will stabilize by the end of the week, and Obama will regain his slight advantage over the Republican nominee. Indeed, the fact that Obama’s approval rating went up—to 53 percent—is a sign he is still well-positioned to win reelection, even as the race tightens.”

Obama is still leading in several swing states, and Democrats have registered considerably more voters in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. David Silbey over at Edge of the West put together an electoral map that was deliberately generous to Romney, and still shows the president with the narrowest of electoral victories:
This time, I used polls from after the debate or, if none were available, from before the debate but giving Romney a five-point bounce…The final score, based off of this map? Obama 276, Romney 262. The debate has certainly thrown the results of the election more into doubt than they have been in a while. A shift of any of the substantial swing states (ie not Nevada, NH, or Iowa) from this allocation from Obama to Romney gives the GOP the victory. Yes, Virginia, I’m looking at you.

Other morning links:

  • Having a parent who was recently incarcerated increases the risk of infant mortality by about 30 percent. ” Estimates suggest that had the American imprisonment rate remained at the 1973 level—the year generally considered the beginning of the prison boom—the 2003 infant mortality rate would have been 7.8% lower, absolute black-white inequality in the infant mortality rate 14.8% lower.”
  • The number of Americans who don’t claim any religious affiliation has grown to 20 percent, and the people who identify as such are becoming more Democratic. Paul Waldman at The Prospect hazards a guess as to why: ” My guess is that it’s for the same reason that Latinos are becoming more Democratic, and African-Americans stay Democratic: Republicans. If you don’t believe in an all-powerful deity, you know that you’re unlike most Democrats, just as you’re unlike most Americans. But you also know that in the Democratic Party you’ll find a lot of people who are like you and will welcome you. From the Republican Party, on the other hand, you get a message of unremitting hostility.”
G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.