By GottaLaff
Nate the Great at Five Thirty Eight has the answer to this chart. The Rushpublican Recovery Road to Nowhere:
Although some elements of the proposal are still under discussion -- Eric Cantor is said to want to eliminate North Dakota rather than Idaho, while Thaddeus McCotter has suggested using the balance of TARP funds to purchase scratch-off tickets -- the final plan can be expected to contain most or all of these components.H/t: Seattle Dan
By GottaLaff
Nate the Great at Five Thirty Eight makes an observation about Rev. Rick:
One reason that cultural issues like abortion have been successful rallying points for Republicans is because such issues tend to beget an asymmetry of passion. [...]We lefties have always raised ruckuses (protests, sit-ins, etc.), but per Nate, difficulty in focusing as a party, plus a lack of confidence, have often impeded us from accomplishing our goals. I might add, so has infighting.
[W]hat I think the Warren dust-up reveals is that the left is now willing to raise at least as much ruckus about the issue as the right. The left, of course, has always had its own moral compass, but it's now beginning to convert that into more focused, overtly political action. If John Kerry had won four years ago, and invited Warren or some analogous pastor to give his invocation, would there have been this much debate about it? It's hard to say for sure, but I don't think we would have heard very much about it at all. This all feels very recent, stemming from a renewed self-confidence on the part of the left, coupled in this particular instance with the aftermath of Proposition 8.
I say this as someone, by the way, who buys into the "Can't we all just get along?" side of the argument. There's a difference between feeling as though you have superior morals and feeling morally superior, and some of the discussion has veered toward the wrong side of that equation. Nevertheless, I think the passion aroused among the left on the issue has been fairly impressive, and is potentially fairly consequential.
By GottaLaff
This would be the suh-weetest ever. Nate the Great:
Although Ted Stevens currently holds a lead of approximately 3,200 votes in ballots counted to date in Alaska's senate contest, there is good reason to believe that the ballots yet to be counted -- the vast majority of which are early and absentee ballots -- will allow Mark Begich to mitigate his disadvantage with Stevens and quite possibly pull ahead of him.Nate knows his stuff. Fingers crossed...
The reasoning behind this is simple: some early ballots have been processed, and among those ballots Begich substantially leads Stevens. A tally of Alaska's 40 house districts as taken from Alaska's Division of Elections webpage suggests that Begich has won about 61% of the early ballots counted so far, as compared with 48% of ballots cast on Election Day itself. [...]
There are currently at least 9,500 early votes remaining to be counted in Alaska. In addition, there are more than 50,000 absentee votes, which are essentially early votes conducted by mail. Lastly, there are at least 18,000 "question" or "questioned" ballots, which consist principally of voters who may have cast ballots away from their home precincts. [...]
Combining the already-counted votes with our allocation of early, absentee and questioned ballots produces a projected total of 142,174 votes for Mark Begich and 139,258 for Ted Stevens -- a win for the Democrat by approximately 3,000 ballots. [...]
Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty in this estimate, particularly regarding the nature of absentee ballots. If absentee ballots behave like in-person early ballots, which gave a substantial advantage to Mark Begich, then Begich will defeat Stevens, perhaps by some decent margin. If they behave more like regular, election-day ballots, then Stevens will hold on to a narrow victory. If they are somewhere in between, as we have assumed, then Begich is the favorite to win, although the outcome will be close.
With so few early and absentee ballots counted to date, Ted Stevens' lead is not nearly so robust as it appears. Until we get better information about the nature of the absentee vote in Alaska, the race should probably be regarded as a toss-up.
By GottaLaff
UPDATE: We will be livestreaming MSNBC later today.
By GottaLaff
Nate:
Barack Obama's position has become somewhat stronger since our update this afternoon. We now have him with a 5.8 point lead in the national popular vote, and winning the election 96.3 percent of the time. Earlier today, those figures were 5.4 and 93.7, respectively.
I continue to find a hair's worth of tightening on balance in the state-by-state polls -- even as Obama's position in the national trackers seems to be roughly as strong as it has ever been. [...]
Secondly, McCain's clock has simply run out. While there is arguable evidence of a small tightening, there is no evidence of a dramatic tightening of the sort he would need to make Tuesday night interesting. [...]
--> Don't worry too much about that SurveyUSA result in Minnesota, which shows Obama just 3 points ahead. SurveyUSA's polling in Minnesota has been very, very weird all year; they've never shown Obama with larger than a 6 point lead in their likely voter model, and had McCain ahead in the state as recently as October 1st. SurveyUSA does not have a Republican lean in general, but in Minnesota, it has consistently had a huge one.
--> A couple of the national polls have now started to predict how undecided voters will behave and allocate them between the two major-party candidates. I use the versions of these surveys before any such allocations are made, as from my point of view it isn't the pollster's job to get into the prediction business (our model has its own ideas about how to handle undecideds).
By GottaLaff
Nate is on MSNBC as I type this. Jinx! There are more details than I'm posting here, but you'll get the idea:
This is beginning to look like a five-state election. Those states are Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada. Essentially all relevant electoral scenarios involve some combination of these five states.
I should caution that by far the most likely scenario is that Obama wins some relatively decisive victory of anywhere from 3-12 points in the popular vote. If Obama wins the popular vote by anything in this range, he will find plenty of blue territory, accumulating somewhere between 300-400 electoral votes. The electoral math will matter very little.
We can probably assume, however, that IF the national polls tighten significantly (and to reiterate, the likelihood is that they will NOT), McCain will edge out a victory in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Georgia, and Missouri; put those states in the McCain column for the time being. Likewise, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa all appear safe for Obama, even in the case of significant tightening. Put those in the Obama column.
That leaves our five states in play. The victory conditions for Obama involving these five states proceed something as follows:
1. Win Pennsylvania and ANY ONE of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, or Nevada*
2. Win Ohio and EITHER Colorado OR Virginia.
3. Win Colorado AND Virginia AND Nevada.
(* Nevada produces a 269-269 tie, which would probably be resolved for Obama in the House of Represenatives.)
Now, suppose you think that Colorado is already in the bag for Obama because of his large edge in early voting there. We can then simplify the victory conditions as follows:
1. Win Pennsylvania
2. Win Ohio
3. Win Virginia AND Nevada [...]
As a final word of warning, proceed cautiously with any polls that were in the field last night. Friday nights are difficult enough to poll, and holidays are difficult enough to poll, but when a Friday night coincides with a holiday (in this case, Halloween), getting an appropriate sample is all but impossible.
By GottaLaff
Say the rhyme with me: I lerve Nate at FiveThirtyEight!
With fewer than ten days to go until the election, John McCain is another day older and deeper in the polls.:
It is hard to find any trend at all at the national level, although Barack Obama's position improved has incrementally in a couple of the national trackers. Indeed, our model now perceives that the popular vote has been flat for roughly the past two weeks. It seems almost as though voters made their collective decision after the second presidential debate on October 7 -- perhaps Obama's clearest win of the series -- and decided on behalf of the Democrat. [...]Older and deeper.
Obama, at least, does not look to be competitive in South Dakota or Arkansas. It will be very difficult for Obama to win more than about 397 electoral votes, which is where he'd end up if he wins all the states where we currently have him favored, plus North Dakota, Montana, Georgia, and Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Obama would have to win West Virginia to break the 400 barrier, and I don't see that happening; the other long shot is Arizona, which hasn't been polled in some time.
John McCain's win percentage is now 4.3 percent, down from 5.1 percent yesterday.
By GottaLaff
Via FiveThirtyEight:
While there are plenty of individual results for Matt Drudge to get excited about (or for that matter the Huffington Post), the fact is that the overall trend in this election is roughly flat, and has been for about a week or so. That is bad news for the candidate trailing in the race, which in this case is John McCain.
By GottaLaff
Nate is wise. Very wise. We lerve Nate:
The Bradley effect emerges when voters tell pollsters one thing and then do another at the ballot booth. [...] My conclusion?::stifling giggle:: Did Nate just say Gramm-pa will have to win fair and square? Actually, that's not funny at all. In fact, that is my biggest concern. The good news is that finally, the media are reporting a lot of election glitch news. It's out there in plain sight, and it's out there early.With so many "X factors" like race, cell phones and turnout, there is probably an extra margin of error this year. And polls aren't terrifically accurate to begin with. But there is no reason to conclude that the polls are systematically overestimating Obama's support; the reverse is at least as likely to be true. McCain, in all likelihood, will need to win this election fair and square—which means that he has his work cut out for him.
Nate Silver evaluates each of the eight daily national tracking polls currently available.Rasmusssen:
"In summation, none of these tracking polls are perfect, although Rasmussen -- with its large sample size and high pollster rating -- would probably be the one I'd want with me on a desert island. Conversely, the only one of the trackers that I consider obviously dubious is Zogby."
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows Barack Obama attracting 50% of the vote while John McCain earns 46%. The race has remained very stable over the past month and Obama’s support has not dipped below 50% in nearly a month (see trends).Meantime, on Thom Hartmann right now is Ellen Ratner reporting that we better not get too complacent. She's very concerned. She was in New York and discovered a lot of McCain supporters, even though the state is expected to go for Obama. I haven't heard her sound like this, well, ever.
By GottaLaff
Via FiveThirtyEight. It's most of Nate's post and I didn't want to cut too much, to avoid messing up his analysis:
However, looking at things even more precisely, it appears that the movement may have preceded the debate by a day or two, and that the debate itself was something of a wash.The "external contingencies" are the ones that concern me the most. And by "external" I mean Rovian.
It is also not clear whether Colin Powell's endorsement has had any effect. [...]
The central point is this: if McCain has gained ground -- and most likely he has -- then what he's done is reset the race to roughly where it was two weeks ago, when Obama also had roughly a 6-point national lead. Except, the two positions aren't entirely equal, since two weeks have run off McCain's clock. Roughly speaking -- and accounting for his inferior position in the electoral college -- McCain needs to gain about half a point per day every day between now and November 4 to become a favorite in the electoral college. That is not an easy task; from the nadir of Obama's numbers, which we put at 9/12, to his peak, which we put at 10/11, Obama was gaining about a quarter of a point per day on average. That is, by the standards of a presidential campaign, very rapid movement. But McCain needs to get those numbers down about twice as quickly as Obama got them up, and he does not have any debates or other major public events to assist him.
McCain also has significant problems with his electoral map, particularly in Virginia and Colorado, which continue to project about a point or so ahead of Obama's national numbers. While McCain appears to have stopped the bleeding in Florida and perhaps Ohio, that is not the case in Missouri, Nevada, and North Carolina, which have drifted closer to the national averages.
If McCain were to make a kamikaze play for Pennsylvania -- as John King seems to imply -- while conceding Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico, this wouldn't seem to make his task much easier. The Kerry states less PA, but plus CO, IA, and NM equal 252 electoral votes, leaving Obama just 18 votes short. Obama could pick up those votes in one fell swoop by winning Florida or Ohio -- or, more plausibly, by winning Virginia plus any one of North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana or Nevada.
It is unlikely that McCain can accomplish this all of this organically, by winning garden-variety news cycles or even by claiming the lion's share of undecideds. Rather, he likely needs some kind of unknown, external contingency to place himself back in the thick of the race.
One of the best things about this really long campaign is that Nate of 538 is now a ROCKSTAR!!!
SurveyUSA has a lot of good habits as a pollster, and one of them is breaking out the results of early and absentee voting in states where such things are allowed. So far, SurveyUSA has conducted polling in five states where some form of early voting was underway. In each one, Barack Obama is doing profoundly better among early voters than among the state's electorate as a whole:
(click here to see graph)(and snip)
We should caveat that these are not hard-and-fast numbers. Estimates of early voting results are subject to the same statistical vagaries as any other sort of subgroup analysis, such as response bias and small sample sizes.
Nevertheless, Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.
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