Nate Silver: Obama Got a Bump After Leaked Romney Video

The lines diverge

If the election were held today, President Obama would win more than 52 percent of the popular vote, an increase that could be attributed to the release of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” video, according to political calculus done by Nate Silver of The New York Times’ Five Thirty Eight blog.

Silver charted our Romney video, along with three other events he considers the most important political news of the last month: the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the attack on the US Consulate in Libya. His conclusion:

By Sept. 17, the date when the video of Mr. Romney’s remarks was released and received widespread attention, the momentum from Mr. Obama’s convention appeared to have stalled (although not necessarily reversed itself). Mr. Obama led in the popular vote by 4.1 percentage points on that date, according to the “now-cast.” Since then, however, Mr. Obama has gained further ground in the polls. As of Thursday, he led in the popular vote by 5.7 percentage points in the “now-cast,” a gain of 1.6 percentage points since Mr. Romney’s remarks became known to the public.