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Poll Analysis: Interesting polls, no movement

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Obama Romney
98.3% probability of winning 1.7% probability of winning
Mean of 309 electoral votes Mean of 229 electoral votes

Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

My analysis yesterday showed President Barack Obama leading Governor Mitt Romney by a mean of 309 to 229 electoral votes. Obama would be expected to win an election now with an 98.9% probability and Romney, 1.1%.

Today I found a pack of 29 polls that cover 17 states. The polls have something to celebrate for the Romney camp—ties in a New Hampshire and a Pennsylvania poll, a small lead in a Michigan poll, and a lead in the only Florida poll. But the Obama camp has some celebrating of their own, including leads in three Ohio polls, leads in three of four Pennsylvania polls and, perhaps most importantly, solidifying his formerly tenuous lead in Virginia with two more leads in VA polls.

Altogether…it’s a wash. The expected electoral votes are split identically. Romney’s probability of winning an election goes up ever so slightly, however.

Here are the polls:

start end sample % % %
st poll date date size MOE O R diff
AZ PPP 02-Nov 03-Nov 1080 3.0 46 53 R+7
FL Pulse 29-Oct 29-Oct 1000 3.0 48 50 R+2
IN Rasmussen 01-Nov 01-Nov 600 4.0 43 52 R+9
IA PPP 03-Nov 04-Nov 1122 2.9 50 48 O+2
ME Critical Insights 30-Oct 31-Oct 613 4.0 49 42 O+7
MA UMass 31-Oct 03-Nov 800 4.1 57 37 O+20
MA WNEU 26-Oct 01-Nov 525 4.2 58 38 O+20
MI PPP 01-Nov 03-Nov 700 3.7 52 46 O+6
MI Baydoun 02-Nov 02-Nov 1913 2.2 46.2 46.9 R+0.7
MN SurveyUSA 01-Nov 03-Nov 556 4.2 52 41 O+11
MO PPP 02-Nov 03-Nov 835 3.4 45 53 R+8
MT PPP 02-Nov 03-Nov 836 3.4 45 52 R+7
MT Mason-Dixon 29-Oct 31-Oct 625 4.0 43 53 R+10
MT Rasmussen 29-Oct 29-Oct 500 4.5 43 53 R+10
NH PPP 03-Nov 04-Nov 1550 2.5 50 48 O+2
NH U NH 31-Oct 02-Nov 502 4.4 48 48 tie
OH Ohio Poll 25-Oct 30-Oct 1182 2.9 48 46 O+2
OH Pulse 29-Oct 29-Oct 1000 3.0 48 46 O+2
OH PPP 03-Nov 04-Nov 1000 3.1 52 47 O+5
PA PPP 02-Nov 03-Nov 790 3.5 52 46 O+6
PA Muhlenberg 01-Nov 03-Nov 430 5.0 49 46 O+3
PA Susquehanna 29-Oct 31-Oct 800 3.5 47 47 tie
PA Pulse 30-Oct 30-Oct 1000 3.0 49 46 O+3
UT Mason-Dixon 29-Oct 31-Oct 625 4.0 25 70 R+45
VA Pulse 30-Oct 30-Oct 1000 3.0 49 48 O+1
VA PPP 03-Nov 04-Nov 975 3.1 51 47 O+4
WA PPP 01-Nov 03-Nov 932 3.2 53 46 O+7
WI PPP 02-Nov 03-Nov 1256 2.8 51 48 O+3
WI Pulse 29-Oct 29-Oct 1000 3.0 49 48 O+1

The only Florida poll puts Romney over Obama by +2%. Romney now has four of the five current polls, and an estimated 74% probability of taking the state in an election held tonight.

Iowa has Obama up by +2% in a new poll. This state is looking like a lock for Obama. He has led in seven of the eight current polls. Even if the margins are small, the simulation gives Obama a 97% probability that his overall +3% lead is real.

In Michigan, Obama leads Romney by +6% in one new poll, and Romney leads Obama by +0.7% in the other. And that second poll is a monster, with over 1,900 respondents. Putting the five current polls together, Obama is down to a +2.8% lead and a 90% probability of taking the state now.

A new Minnesota poll has Obama leading by a comfortable +11%, a margin that when combined with two more modest margins in the current polls suggests an almost certain win. I might not have even mentioned this poll, except that, in the previous presidential poll analysis thread, Serial Conservative pointed out a Minnesota poll that had Romney up by +1% in the state! He did add the point: “Not sure whether this meets the qualifications for inclusion in Darryl’s analyses.”

So, I dutifully investigated (were it a weekday, I would have called the pollster). This poll was done for American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization that has a long track record of producing and airing factually challenged anti-Obama ads. That isn’t a good start. But what I found is a record of candidate polls being released. That makes it pretty certain that the MN poll was released selectively.

Why does it matter? Consider this. Suppose some 501(c)(4) hit machine hires Mr. P to do 20 polls over several months in a race between Ms. D and Mr. R. And Mr. P is a scrupulous pollster. As it happens, the first 19 polls showed Ms. D leading by margins of +6 to +11. But, just because of the sampling variability in polling that 20th poll comes in with Ms. D up by only +1%. Mr. P’s client releases the poll to show how competitive the race is—good strategy, bad statistics. Of course, the race isn’t close. The client got one of those one-in-twenty results for a race that is really about Ms. D+8%. Mr. P hasn’t done anything wrong. But the released poll suffers from selectivity bias because the other 19 polls were not also released. Releasing only the Ms. D+1% poll is completely misleading as to the actual state of the race.

So…where were we?

Oh…yes, New Hampshire gives us two new polls. One has Obama up by +2% and the other is a tie. Obama takes the other three current polls by mostly narrow margins. Obama would win the state with an 88% probability in a race this evening.

Another day, another sprinkling of Ohio polls. All three go to Obama by smallish margins. Obama leads in seven of nine current polls, and there is one tie. The evidence is overwhelming, suggesting Obama would win an election now by a 98% probability.

Suddenly there is interest in Pennsylvania! Of the four new polls, Obama leads in three, and one is a tie. The four current polls (all added today) combine to give Obama an 89% probability of winning the election now.

The big surprise is the new set of polls from Virginia. One gives Obama a +1% lead, and the other a +4% edge. This solidifies the slight lead in the state that Obama took yesterday. The three current polls now have Obama’s chances at a 77% probability of taking the state.

Obama just squeaks by in two new Wisconsin polls (+1% and +3%). The collection of six current polls (one tie and five Obama leads) have Obama with a 97% probability of winning the state now.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 98,318 times and Romney wins 1,682 times (including the 144 ties). Obama received (on average) 309 to Romney’s 229 electoral votes. In an election held now, Obama would have a 98.3% (-0.6%) probability of winning and Romney would have a 1.7% (+0.6%) probability of winning.

The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 04 Nov 2011 to 04 Nov 2012, and including polls from the preceding seven days (FAQ).

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:

Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Obama (full distribution here):

  • 303 electoral votes with a 6.81% probability
  • 318 electoral votes with a 6.60% probability
  • 290 electoral votes with a 2.94% probability
  • 319 electoral votes with a 2.88% probability
  • 305 electoral votes with a 2.63% probability
  • 312 electoral votes with a 2.57% probability
  • 304 electoral votes with a 2.52% probability
  • 332 electoral votes with a 2.35% probability
  • 302 electoral votes with a 2.31% probability
  • 306 electoral votes with a 2.21% probability

After 100,000 simulations:

  • Obama wins 98.3%, Romney wins 1.7%.
  • Average (SE) EC votes for Obama: 308.8 (19.4)
  • Average (SE) EC votes for Romney: 229.2 (19.4)
  • Median (95% CI) EC votes for Obama: 306 (272, 347)
  • Median (95% CI) EC votes for Romney: 232 (191, 266)

Each column of this table shows the electoral vote total aggregated by different criteria for the probability of winning a state (Safe=100%, Strong=90%+, Leans=60%+, Weak=50%+):

Threshold Safe + Strong + Leans + Weak
Safe Obama 159
Strong Obama 91 250
Leans Obama 53 53 303
Weak Obama 0 0 0 303
Weak Romney 15 15 15 235
Leans Romney 31 31 220
Strong Romney 93 189
Safe Romney 96

This table summarizes results by state. Click on the poll count to see the individual polls included for the state.

0 0 EC # Total % % Obama Romney
8 4 Votes polls Votes Obama Romney % wins % wins
AL 9 1* 404 39.6 60.4 0.1 99.9
AK 3 0* (0) (100)
AZ 11 1 1069 46.5 53.5 5.9 94.1
AR 6 1* 571 34.9 65.1 0.0 100.0
CA 55 3* 2986 57.3 42.7 100.0 0.0
CO 9 5 4114 51.0 49.0 81.0 19.0
CT 7 1 1183 56.7 43.3 99.9 0.1
DE 3 0 (100) (0)
DC 3 1* 1173 91.6 8.4 100.0 0.0
FL 29 5 4894 49.3 50.7 26.1 73.9
GA 16 1 1276 46.4 53.6 3.5 96.5
HI 4 1* 1157 64.2 35.8 100.0 0.0
ID 4 1* 563 30.0 70.0 0.0 100.0
IL 20 1 1174 58.2 41.8 100.0 0.0
IN 11 2 1306 44.9 55.1 0.5 99.5
IA 6 8 6481 51.6 48.4 96.6 3.4
KS 6 2* 1143 39.4 60.6 0.0 100.0
KY 8 1* 557 42.4 57.6 0.4 99.6
LA 8 1* 2548 37.9 62.1 0.0 100.0
ME 2 2 2141 56.0 44.0 100.0 0.0
ME1 1 1 801 60.2 39.8 100.0 0.0
ME2 1 2 1284 52.2 47.8 86.3 13.7
MD 10 2* 1538 61.6 38.4 100.0 0.0
MA 11 4 3060 58.6 41.4 100.0 0.0
MI 16 5 4210 51.4 48.6 90.0 10.0
MN 10 3 1952 54.4 45.6 99.8 0.2
MS 6 2* 1420 43.2 56.8 0.0 100.0
MO 10 2 1988 44.8 55.2 0.0 100.0
MT 3 3 1891 45.5 54.5 0.4 99.6
NE 2 2 2287 41.1 58.9 0.0 100.0
NE1 1 1* 389 45.5 54.5 10.6 89.4
NE2 1 1* 646 47.4 52.6 17.2 82.8
NE3 1 1* 284 35.9 64.1 0.0 100.0
NV 6 1 564 53.2 46.8 85.7 14.3
NH 4 5 4420 51.2 48.8 87.6 12.4
NJ 14 5* 3773 55.6 44.4 100.0 0.0
NM 5 2* 1307 54.8 45.2 99.3 0.7
NY 29 3* 1770 63.8 36.2 100.0 0.0
NC 15 1 716 50.0 50.0 49.7 50.3
ND 3 4* 2563 42.6 57.4 0.0 100.0
OH 18 9 8728 51.5 48.5 97.7 2.3
OK 7 1* 279 35.8 64.2 0.0 100.0
OR 7 1 903 53.0 47.0 90.0 10.0
PA 20 4 2885 51.6 48.4 89.2 10.8
RI 4 1* 523 62.1 37.9 100.0 0.0
SC 9 3* 4199 48.2 51.8 5.1 94.9
SD 3 1 583 45.6 54.4 6.6 93.4
TN 11 1* 566 36.6 63.4 0.0 100.0
TX 38 1* 752 41.5 58.5 0.0 100.0
UT 6 2 1420 26.9 73.1 0.0 100.0
VT 3 1* 415 71.3 28.7 100.0 0.0
VA 13 3 2952 51.0 49.0 77.4 22.6
WA 12 2 1445 54.9 45.1 99.8 0.2
WV 5 1* 361 42.1 57.9 1.5 98.5
WI 10 6 5928 51.7 48.3 96.9 3.1
WY 3 0 (0) (100)

* An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).

Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.

The most recent analysis in this match-up can be found from this page.

Comments

  1. 1

    On an earlier thread, Cap’n Crunch was braying about a Romney rally in Pennsylvania…exhorting us to watch live.

    Glad I didn’t…apparently Romney staff wouldn’t let people leave early, despite freezing kids.

    NYT and USAToday reporters tweeting about it in real time…will be interesting to read stories in the morning.

    Lord of the Flies? Walls closing in? Desperation? Flop sweat?

    “You will adore Dear Leader until told to disperse…”

    What sick fucks we’re dealing with.

  5. 5

    What sick fucks we’re dealing with.

    11/04/2012 AT 11:40 PM

    Hmm, surely you are referring to people who shout “Mormons are Nazis!”, right?

  6. 6

    Once again, it looks like Eyemans 2/3 majority to raise taxes initiative is going to pass…even after being heavily outspent by the other side.

  7. 7

    You know, the Rmoney campaign did do a better job than McCain keeping their right-wing nutbag (Palin then, Ryan now) under wraps. No embarrassing rallies with people yelling “Kill!” or “MOOSLIM!!” or “Terrorist!!”…no, but don’t be fooled.

    At a townhall organized by religionist grifter Ralph Reed there was plenty of red meat for the culture warriors…

    Ryan added that Obama’s vision was “a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values — those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us a great and exceptional nation in the first place.”

    And they’re on the air with this…

    “President Obama used his health care plan to declare war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith,” said the narrator in a Romney campaign ad in August. “Mitt Romney believes that’s wrong.”

    I’m surprised they didn’t use the construction “rammed down our throats” – Republicans complain about that often, and seem rather….fascinated with the whole notion.

    Like I said, returning to the base, and getting them fired up with just whom they should fear and hate. Fear and hate…the Republican currency.

  9. 9

    The ‘monster’ MI poll that found for Romney did so by

    http://horsesass.org/?p=47522#comment-1198052

    way, way, way undersampling the youth vote and way, way oversampling senior vote.

    It was a private poll that was reported by a Fox affiliate in MI that skewed the results way to the right by doing things that could not (in my opinion) have been natural variation. Blatant idiocy.

    I think stuff like that deserves mention, especially if it’s a poll with a large enough sample size to potentially affect the overall analysis, which this one fortunately did not.

  10. 10

    @4 It’s legal, but destroying ballots isn’t. It’s a short step from collecting ballots to asking people who they voted for and then selectively discarding the other side’s votes. That gets you a jail term. The $10-an-hour temps the GOP hired might not comprehend that.

  11. 11

    Although the polls indicate Obama will win this election, it will be close in numerous states, which opens the door for all kinds of GOP mischief — vote suppression, tabulation tampering, etc.

    But I think the chaos may come in January, not tomorrow night. Close outcomes in several key states will open the door to dispute the results.

    What I’m nervous about is the GOP will manufacture controversies so they can challenge the result in enough states to change the outcome, and then the GOP-controlled House will selectively refuse to accept Obama electoral votes from key states and throw the election into the House, with backing from the Partisan Court.

  12. 12

    @11
    And a communist will burn down the Reichstag

  14. 14

    @9 “which this one fortunately did not”

    What’s fortunate or unfortunate about a poll? Polls don’t count. They’re for entertainment only. If they’re wrong, it doesn’t matter.

  15. 15

    Wall Streeters, most of whom want Romney to win, don’t believe the Romney Momentum spin.

    “In the U.S. election, markets are pricing in the status quo — victory for President Barack Obama in enough swing states to return him to the presidency ….”

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/49687769

  16. 16

    I wonder if we’ll be re-defining ‘independent voter’ after the election.

    jasondpeery
    ‏@jasondpeery
    Indys swinging back to Romney: Rasmussen (+17), CNN (+22), Monmouth (+16), ARG (+12). @keder @kesgardner, @KarlRove, @DavidLimbaugh @NolteNC

  17. 17

    PPP calls NV and CO for The One:

    November 05, 2012

    Obama leads in CO, NV

    PPP’s final polls in Colorado and Nevada find Barack Obama leading by margins of 52/46 and 51/47 respectively. PPP has conducted 4 polls in Colorado since the first Presidential debate and found Obama leading by an average of 4.25 points. PPP has conducted 3 polls in Nevada since the first debate and found Obama ahead by a 4 point margin every time.

    In Colorado Obama is winning thanks to a huge advantage among independent voters, 59/34. He’s down 57/41 among seniors but leads 58/39 among voters under 45, a huge generational split that suggests the state may be voting Democratic for a long time to come. Obama’s actually running slightly ahead with white voters (50/49) and when you combine that with his big advantage among Hispanics it fuels his overall 6 point lead.

    http://www.publicpolicypolling.....co-nv.html

  18. 18

    PPP final prediction:

    PublicPolicyPolling ‏@ppppolls
    Based on our final polls we expect Barack Obama to win 303 electoral votes and Mitt Romney to win 191 with 44 up for grabs in FL and NC

  19. 19

    Anyway, the state-by-state polling averages and the national polling averages have pretty much converged on this last day before the election.

    If you take Darryl’s weighted state percentages, and apply them to the 2008 turnout in each state, Obama beats Romney in the two candidate vote by 50.87% to 49.13%.

    If you take the eight recent polls used in the RCP average, and weight them by sample size (like Darryl does), Obama beats Romney in the two candidate vote by 50.28% to 49.72%.

    This is less than a one percentage gap between the two measures on each candidate’s absolute support. In the past, Romney was a little over two percent higher in absolute support nationwide, versus the sum of state-by-state polls, now that difference in absolute support is only 0.59%.

    So I see Obama getting between 50% and 51% of the two-candidate vote tomorrow — beating Romney by 0% to 2% of the national popular vote. I will go with Darryl’s 303 to 235 prediction on EV’s, based on safe and leaning states.

    I am pretty sure Romney can rely on North Carolina, in spite of the too-close-to-call poll numbers, given McCain’s extremely narrow loss there. Florida seems like a safer bet for Romney. As for Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan — all of them fairly close, but looks like Obama will prevail in them.

    We are going to see the House and Senate look pretty much like they do today, with a few changes for each party in each chamber. Republicans will especially be mourning the loss of otherwise sure Republican seats in Missouri and Indiana, due to outrageous statements by Akin and Mourdock.

  21. 21

    @19 “So I see Obama getting between 50% and 51% of the two-candidate vote tomorrow — beating Romney by 0% to 2% of the national popular vote. I will go with Darryl’s 303 to 235 prediction on EV’s, based on safe and leaning states.”

    Unless the pollsters are wrong, a chastened Barack Obama will return to the White House with a knuckle-rapping from the voters and the same Congress he had before. Republicans, if they have any sense of self-preservation, will become slightly more tractable and work out a compromise with Democrats on the “fiscal cliff,” which is likely to consist of simply extending the status quo and postponing major decisions on taxing and spending policy for another year or two.

    This will likely go down in history as a status quo election that doesn’t change our government but sends a message that voters want Obama to work harder on the economy and Congress to do some actual work.

  22. 22

    Richard,
    Thanks for your analysis…very interesting. (And sorry I haven’t responded to your emails—still in email triage mode at this point).

    The disparity you were noting between the national polls and an artificial national vote based on weighted state polls is an interesting paradox.

    I’ve not come across any obvious explanation.

  23. 23

    Checking Stefan’s little blog, I see that one day before a presidential election, the only thing our friends at (u)SP can find to write about is a Metro employee getting caught stealing McKenna yard signs.

    Kinda looks like (u)SP’s writers don’t expect to have anything cheerful (from their viewpoint) to write about tomorrow night.

  24. 24

    “Unless the pollsters are wrong, a chastened Barack Obama will return to the White House with a knuckle-rapping from the voters and the same Congress he had before.”

    Wait, what?!? In 2004, Shrub got only 286 electoral votes and a +2.5% margin in the popular vote:

    …when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that’s what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President…
    […]

    Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.

    Obama will likely beat 286 and, perhaps, +2.5%. So when does it go from “knuckle-rapping” to a full on political capital-infused mandate?

  25. 25

    @ 19, @ 22

    “If you take the eight recent polls used in the RCP average, and weight them by sample size (like Darryl does), Obama beats Romney in the two candidate vote by 50.28% to 49.72%.”

    I’m curious, if this were repeated, say, tomorrow morning, after all the ‘final’ polls are in, and no pollster is duplicated in the analysis, would this still hold?

    I’m reading that Obama had a small but noticeable bump immediately post-Sandy, but that this may have receded as the challenges being experienced in NY and NJ have been reported.

    Got time to do it once more, Mr. Pope?

    I realize that we’re not electing based on the popular vote, but since it was brought up…..

  26. 26

    @ 24

    So when does it go from “knuckle-rapping” to a full on political capital-infused mandate?

    Er, when he writes his next memoir?

    Seriously, unless the Senate flips, if Obama’s re-elected, we see more Congressional crapola and an awful lot of edicts from the Executive Branch – more than we have seen thus far – enacting policies he can’t get through Congress.

    ‘Knuckle-rapping’ is not an accurate description unless Obama is re-elected while losing the national popular vote, IMO.

  27. 27

    NYT:

    DULLES, Va. — Mitt Romney, who had no plans to campaign on Election Day, has now decided to travel to the swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio on Tuesday.

    Why not? People standing in line have smart phones.

  28. 28

    Richard and Bob,

    “Got time to do it once more, Mr. Pope?”

    I’ll have a new analysis this evening, and then the final analysis tomorrow early afternoon.

  29. 29

    Bob and Darryl,

    Only takes me a couple of minutes, since I already have the template, and all I have to do is cut-and-paste and a few simple edits with Darryl’s state-by-state data and RCP’s national polls.

    So we will see. But I would say a re-elected Obama would likely be chastened, since the Republicans will control the House by a decent margin, and his re-election margin will be much smaller than 2008.

    Bush in 2004 actually won the popular vote by 2.4% (improvement over -0.5%), a somewhat larger EV margin, no genuine questions of actually winning, and had increased margins in Congress in both Houses over 2000 (whereas he basically lost the Senate in 2000). We aren’t going to see the equivalent of Bush’s re-election tomorrow for sure, at least not in most respects.

  30. 30

    Okay, RCP updated a couple more of their polls today, with mostly slight improvements for Obama. The weighted two-candidate RCP average is now 50.46% Obama and 49.54% Romney. Almost identical to the state-by-state Darryl weighted averages resulting in 50.87% to 49.13% nationwide.

    So I make the same prediction again for tomorrow.

  33. 33

    Greg — you can make money by buying Obama on InTrade, and then placing a bet on Romney with an British or Irish bookie. For a guaranteed return of $100.00, you buy Obama future on InTrade for $68.30, and then bet $23.08 on Romney with an offshore bookie. It costs you $91.38, and you get $100.00.

    I think there are a lot of Americans willing to bet on Romney — perhaps more than justified by his actual chances of winning, while Europeans are perhaps more dismissive of Romney’s chances than they should be. Or at least folks on InTrade are too willing to “invest” in Romney, because it looks like a stock market …

  34. 34

    Darryl @ 24

    So when does it go from “knuckle-rapping” to a full on political capital-infused mandate?

    When Pres. Obama gets a majority of the white, middle-class, male vote, ’cause, you know, no one else’s votes really count.

  35. 35

    Richard, I look at the Intrade and oddschecker numbers as more of an instant polling system. Gambling might be a good way to create some jobs in Hawaii with our influx of tourists from Asia and Canada on the increase this year. Honolulu could be the Lost Wages of the Pacific someday.

  36. 36

    @24, @26 – I anticipate this will be a squeaker compared to 2008; while it now appears Romney will turn only 2 or 3 of Obama’s 2008 states, it will be close in several more.

    Voters clearly are unhappy and while they are prepared to re-elect Obama they are doing so without enthusiasm. In fact, it is my opinion this election was Romney’s to lose and Mitt succeeded in losing it by making one blunder after another.

    So, yes, Obama is getting taken to the woodpile. He would be out of a job if Romney wasn’t inept. Perhaps it’s not even too much to argue that Sandy saved him by stopping Romney’s momentum and creating Obama’s “Christie moment.” In which case Mitt should think about this: Perhaps God doesn’t want him to be president.

  37. 37

    @36

    In fact, it is my opinion this election was Romney’s to lose.

    It might be your opinion now. When, prior to, say, October 3rd, was this previously your opinion, historical revisionist?

  38. 38

    Let’s do a memory check about Intrade, Nate Silver, and how the 2010 NV Senate race went, shall we?

    Nate Silver gave a 75% likelihood of Angle winning. I linked on today’s open thread.

    Intrade, the day of election, had Angle at 70.6%.

    http://www.businessinsider.com.....de-2010-11

    My point? Polls can be wrong, for whatever reason. The NV Senate vote wasn’t close.

    If OH polls are incorrect, it’s likely that Romney’s a winner and Obama’s a loser.

  39. 39

    Wasnt that the only one of those races Silver called incorrectly though? And the problem was under counting Latino votes? Not exactly a place I’d go to for comfort in this race….

  40. 40

    @ 39

    If there was a specific reason, great, maybe someone learned not to do it again, but a mistake resulting in an incorrect call is still a mistake.

    If everyone is lining up around OH deciding the presidency, and the polls are within a couple of points…

    We’ll find out in 24 hours. Or 48. Or 72…….

  41. 41

    @40 et al.: If Silver has called only one race wrong, that sounds like a recommendation, not a diss, to me.

  42. 42

    @37 First, why would I have shared that with you? And second, you’re forgetting what my role here is: I’m a Democratic Party hack and liberal propagandist. You seem to understand the role of being a cheerleader for your side; so why do you have so much difficulty applying that concept to me?

  43. 43

    @38 “If OH polls are wrong, it’s likely Romney’s a winner and Obama’s a loser,”

    Uh no, not unless all the other polls are wrong too, because for Romney, Ohio’s 18 EVs aren’t enough. (Even if he wins Florida.)

  44. 44

    @38 “If OH polls are wrong, it’s likely Romney’s a winner and Obama’s a loser,”

    Uh no, not unless all the other polls are wrong too, because for Romney, Ohio’s 18 EVs aren’t enough. (Even if he wins Florida.)

  45. 45

    Damn. This is the first time I’ve used a laptop, and I’m not used to all this touchpad stuff.

  46. 46

    @40 well, my point is one wrong call out of, what was it? 50? Isn’t bad, and the mistake actually benefits democrats for specific weird reasons.

    Silver now has Obama above 80% in enough races that even if he’s wrong in one of them, even Ohio, he still wins the Electoral College.

    That wouldn’t comfort me tonight if I was a Republican… Nor would the fact that Nate Silver, Sam Wang and our host have all converged on similar chances on an Obama victory through 3 different but tested statistical models.

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