President Obama ended up his first term by consolidating the job approval polling gains he made in his re-election. His numbers have settled into a new range, and were remarkably steady all month long. Obama's "second honeymoon" period with the public may not last more than a few months, but for now seems to be holding steady. With the election fading into the past, Obama's in a pretty good position right now in terms of "political capital," but this will likely change as legislative reality sets in.

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A happy chart indeed for Obama fans. Last month I predicted this rise by noting that many of the nationwide polling operations just ceased polling after the election was over. This dearth of data meant that while Obama's numbers were climbing fast, the "poll of polls" average at RealClearPolitics.com was dragged downwards by pre-election numbers still being averaged in. While I did predict that Obama's numbers would continue to rise in December (as more and more data came in), I will admit that even I was surprised at size of the post-election bump which Obama managed.

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All in all, a pretty triumphant month for the president, no matter how you look at it.

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Welcome to the last of these Electoral Math columns, at least for the next three and a half years. Today, we're just going to throw caution to the wind, and go ahead and predict the outcome of tomorrow night's returns. Before we get to that, though, a quick rundown of my previous record in the election prediction business, and then (for completeness' sake) the final electoral math graphs for 2012.

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October was debate month, and -- surprise! -- it didn't affect his job approval numbers much, if at all. In either direction, really. Obama's job approval rating hardly fluctuated at all throughout all three debates, continuing his trend upward but at a more modest rate.

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Are you worried that Frankenstorm will restrict your access to up-to-date polling numbers? Do you know more about the state of the race in places you’ve never been to, but haven’t decided what to do for Hallowe’en yet? Then you have come to the right place! With one week to go before Election Day dawns, the race for president is about as tight as it can get, so let's get right to it.

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As you can see, the race has tightened considerably since the first debate. There were more states tied during this last week than we've seen in a while, which shows up in white on the above chart. Virginia, Colorado, and New Hampshire were all tied at one point during the period, although at the end Virginia was the only one left even.

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Welcome back to our now-weekly Electoral Math column series. In the introduction to last week's column, I warned that the full effects of the first televised presidential debate had yet to fully appear. This week, the effects showed up in a big way -- which (as you can probably guess) was mostly good news for Mitt Romney and bad news for Barack Obama, as some of his numbers fell off a rather large cliff.

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Among Barack Obama supporters, panic seems to be setting in after his first debate performance was roundly panned. National polls have pulled back into a neck-and-neck contest. This is all fun for the pundits, who (pre-debate) were on the verge of declaring the race all but over (and, hence, boring), but we hasten to remind everyone that this is not how we elect presidents. The national popular vote is meaningless -- just ask Al Gore. Presidential elections are won and lost state by state, which is how this column series examines things.

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Shockingly, after a half a year of virtually no news whatsoever, last month was actually newsworthy in the world of presidential job approval polling. Barack Obama had a good month, and hit a noteworthy milestone in the percent of Americans who approve of the job he's doing.

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