History and the polls are against Mitt Romney

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts," said Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late senator.

But, lately, facts haven't been breaking in Mitt Romney's direction and so his campaign is fluctuating between moments of panic and outright denial, trying to impose its opinion on unwelcome polls.

"At this early stage, polls go up and polls go down. I'm tied in the national polls; both Gallup and Rasmussen have the numbers at even," Romney told ABC News, while asserting that he didn't just think he was going to win, he was sure of it.

Yes, candidates always say they will win elections. But there is a problem with this bravado - Romney is basing it on made-up information. Because at the time, Gallup put Barack Obama six points ahead, 50% to 44.

This matches most national polls to date. The swing states have all been breaking for the president over the past two weeks - with Virginia and New Hampshire showing eight-point moves toward the Democrats after months of being deadlocked.

Ohio is likewise drifting decisively in Obama's direction. Florida and Nevada remain closer in most polls, but neither shows a Romney lead.

The Republican response has been to blame the polls. After all, in this hyper-partisan view, "mainstream media" is skewed by a liberal conspiracy to diminish conservatives and so the polls must be rigged. This is the bargaining stage, denial masked by rationalisations, desperately searching for silver linings and reflexively shooting the messenger.

The national numbers seemed to have hinged on Romney's infamous 47 per cent comment, caught by a bartender's camera-phone at a fund-raiser.

Speaking in front of a well-heeled crowd, Romney said that was the proportion of Americans who didn't pay federal income tax and were in the tank for Obama. Calling this 47 per cent, which includes senior citizens and military personnel on active duty, "victims" didn't do the candidate any favours. In addition, the division of the country into producers and moochers seemed un-presidential, if you believe that the job of the president is to try to unite the nation.

The comments crystallised negative narratives about Romney being the candidate of the super-rich and out of touch - a million miles from George W Bush's successful campaigns based on a philosophy of "compassionate conservatism".

Moreover, it is no longer an "early stage" of this campaign, despite Romney's assertions. Yes, a week can be a long time in politics and the three presidential debates remain, but we are now 40 days out and despite the still sluggish economy and with 8.1 per cent of Americans unemployed, Romney has yet to lead in any recent polls.

Politics is not a science: at its best it is an art and at its worst it is something like a war, but in all cases history is the most reliable guide.

And here, too, there is bad news for Romney. Nate Silver, a statistician with the New York Times, calculates: "Of the 19 candidates who led in the polls at this stage since 1936, 18 won the popular vote (Thomas E Dewey in 1948 is the exception), and 17 won the Electoral College (Al Gore lost it in 2000, along with Dewey)."

In other words, while the fat lady isn't yet singing, she is clearing her throat.

In the past, a candidate could disregard the polls and say with some defiant confidence that "the only poll that matters is on election day" - but that is no longer the case. Thirty-six states now offer early voting. Iowa started this week and the bulk of the other states begin in early October, meaning that the current polls reflect current voting trends - and the trend is not the Republicans' friend.

John Avlon is senior columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast