I haven’t seen a poll here for a while so I’ll take the plunge. Please keep any partisan discussion in their proper forum. This is about who you think will win. If you want to start a thread asking people who they want to win go ahead and start one.
Most of the polls I see show the race as being too close to call and within the margin of error. Look beyond your own hopes, dreams and prejudices and tell me:
Who do you think will win the election?
Is it going to be a long dragged out affair or will we know the winner on election night?
My answers: I think Kerry will win in a squeeker and we will know on election night but it will be deep into the night.
I predict FL will be a problem again, this place is kind of a cluster F* when it comes to any “organized”. Kind of unrelated, but representative of how things work down here: There are two long bridges being built within 20 miles of where I live. Both of them have had sections collapse, both of them have failed inspection after they were built and parts of them need to be torn down and re-engineered.
It may not matter though, depending on the outcome of some big swing-states up north (OH and PA).
I think it will be tight in virtually all the battle-ground states, but I think that (thankfully!) this election will not need to enter a court room. It may take a day or two if certain states need re-counts due to very close results, but I doubt it. I really think we will hear a concession speech within 24 hours of the polls opening. I think it comes down to who wins 2 of the “big 3” (Florida, Ohio, Penn.)
Here is my prediction: Kerry wins Penn. with no problem. Bush wins Florida by more than people expect, and Ohio becomes the center of attention. When the dust clears and the votes are counted I think Bush wins by a hair.
Judging by the Republican’s apparent willingness to muck with the elections this time around, I think this sounds right, other than the “tenuous” part.
As long as Kerry is not farther behind than the % of undecideds, and as long as Bush is under 50% in those states, you don’t really need to see what Kerry has in those states because history tells us that the undecideds almost always break for the challenger by a wide margin (somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1).
So even in Ohio where it’s Bush 47%, Kerry 45% and Nader 3%, we’re left with 5% undecided. If history follows through and the indecided vote breaks 3:1 for Kerry, that gives us:
Kerry: 48.3%
Bush: 48.6%
Nader: 3%
If the undecideds break 4:1 for Kerry:
Kerry: 48.75%
Bush: 48.25%
Nader: 3%
That assumes the Nader vote stays at 3% which I think is way too high. In 2000 Nader got 2.5%. I am thinking Nader gets around 1% this time and the balance breaks according to the 3:1 or 4:1 margin as previously explained.
Got that?
Who do you think will win the election?
Kerry wins the EC vote by a squeaker, Bush may very well win the popular vote.
Is it going to be a long dragged out affair or will we know the winner on election night?
Even with an undecided 4:1 break for the challenger, Kerry takes Ohio by less than 1%. I see recounts going on for several days after the eldection. If history turns out to be wrong and Bush wins, he’ll probably win by a large enough margin that recounts won’t be necessary.
And that will be the last time I ever trust history.
My one and only prediction for this election is that it will be a record breaker in terms of the amount of young people who vote. It seems like Bush and Kerry are appearing on TV and in The Popular Media a lot more than I can remember for any other election year (but then again, maybe I’m just noticing it more.) There are a lot of people these days (MTV, for instance) actively encouraging young people to vote, too. I predict that a lot of 18-25 year old voters will come out of the woodwork on election day and take people off guard, because those people are probably nowhere to be seen when you look at the pre-election polls. I guess it’s not what the OP was asking, but what I do know is that I’m voting this year (just turned 19, first time I can vote) and all my friends are voting, so this is the main prediction that I’ve made. I’d put money on this being a historical election for young voters.
But right now, I think you’ve got to say that there’s at least a 40% chance that Kerry will win. I were taking bets, that’s about the line I’d be offering. Not surprisingly, that’s where Tradesports and the Iowa Electronic Markets are sitting. It doesn’t mean Kerry is 20% behind - it means that there’s only a 40% chance that he’ll overcome his 2-4 point deficit. But it looks to me that Kerry is on a bit of an upward trend at the moment, so things could look very different after the weekend.
Paddy Power is currently offering 8-15 (1.875) on Bush and 11-8 (0.727) on Kerry (odds in link subject to change), meaning they think Kerry’s got it in the bag. However, since this is an Irish bookmaker, the odds aren’t fully indicative of a US perspective.
