Hell, I didn’t even know Andy Griffith was still alive. Damn.
I was just thinking the same thing.
The grandchildren of Barry “Mr. Conservative” Goldwater, along with several Goldwater cousins, are voting for Barack Obama
Forked.
Nate Silver looked at the demographic breakdown of this poll and found that it has McCain winning the 18-24 year olds by a 74-22 margin. No, that is NOT a typo. That is what you get using their “likely” voter model. Who knew that McCain was riding such a wave of young voter support?
Yeah, I was playing around with that, too… It looks like they probably had either 23 or 27 folks in that demographic who responded to the survey-- Any other number that could lead to those percentages would have been too high to lead to that much of a statistical fluke. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would even publish numbers from a sample that small-- Just leave that line blank, and put in a footnote that there’s not enough data.
Hmm. ABC sez Palin is pretty comfortable about Pennsylvania, for some reason. A conservative commenting on it says that “If they do they win it all, and pretty comfortably. Those internals must be looking pretty good. Likewise, the frenzy in the press makes it pretty clear Obama is beginning to sweat.”
The part that interests me most in that comment is the first sentence. What is the logic behind such a statement?
Bear in mind that Mr. Silver’s “winning percentage” estimate is based on simulations run according to the most recent polls. He is not saying Obama is 96%likely to win the election. He is saying that he would be 96% likely to win if the election were held today.
Obviously, a horrible gaffe or something could change that.
He’s right. If McCain and Palin win Pennsylvania, they will of necessity have generated a huge swing, and that’s going to make itself felt elsewhere also. Of course, they don’t have a chance in hell of winning there, so it’s ultimately based on insanity and denial.
No.
538 runs a projection, not an “if the election was held today” exercise. Trendlines and all.
Now I know that I am obsessive about this but still, the longshot of Texas fascinates me.
Early voting in Texas is breaking records.
And the majority are apparently voting Democrat. In that link the Democrat representative claims a 3 to 1 margin, but even if the GOP representatives figures are right, the margin is still solidly Dem by over 30%. At least so far. In any case the overall turnout is expected to exceed historic norms significantly.
Traditional likely voter screens need not apply under those conditions.
Hopefully that’ll help Noriega. I doubt Obama can overcome a 10-point lead by McCain, but he also doesn’t need to; a Dem from Texas, though, would bring us that much closer to 60, or even better, 61.
Neither did he.
I know that I’m a broken record but those ten points are traditional “likely voter” ten points. Using Gallup’s national figures in which they simultaneously apply a traditional (count those who have voted in a past Presidential election) likely voter screen, and an expanded (count by intention to vote more) likely voter screen, which may be more accurate this cycle, we see that the difference is averaging about 4 or 5 points. Nationally. Texas in particular has a large group of Hispanics who have not voted before but who are both newly registered and newly engaged. Hispanics are leaning Obama heavily. And many of them are not counted as “likely voters”. Remember that Hispanics came out in the primary to the tune of 900K when in the 2004 primary only 200K came out.
Play it out this way:
Hispanics have traditionally been 21% of Texas RVs. Now likely more but use that. Blacks 12%. Non-Hispanic White most of the rest. Assume all groups have the same percent turnout. Hispanics go a mere 60/40 Obama; Blacks 90/10 Obama; non-Hispanic Whites 60/40 McCain. That’s .6 x 21=12.6 and .9 x 12=10.8 and .4 x 67=26.8 for Obama and the rest for McCain. That results in a narrow Obama win of 50.2 to 49.8. More if the Hispanic margin is higher or if recent registration drives have indeed driven the Hispanic percent of all RV up at all. And more if the McCain margin among non-Hispanic Whites is less.
Turn-out on election day and before is key, but Texas going Blue would be awesome icing on the cake.
I couldn’t tell you about the party internals but I was curious enough to look at what Pennsylvania did last election. It spent the month wavering between a Bush/Kerry tie and barely Kerry. Never went above Kerry +4, was at Kerry +1 on election day and Kerry won it by 2 points.
Comparing that to Obama’s current double digit lead in the state, I have to wonder where this optimism is coming from that McCain can take the state.
Woohoo! I have a poorly thought out 20$ bet riding on TX going for Obama. (Hey, without risk, how’s it a bet?) This is the first glimmer of hope I’ve had in awhile of seeing my 20 again, accompanied by a friend. Not to mention, it would be nice for both my state and vote to simultaneously go for the winning presidential candidate just once in my life.
Campaign rhetoric, man. Imagine a speech where a politician goes to a key state where he or she is obviously trailing by a significant amount, and tells supporters, “Your support is insufficient, so we don’t have a prayer in this state.”
The McCain campaign does apparently believe they aren’t as far behind in Pennsylvania as everybody else thinks and may be getting closer, but Palin is trying to pump up her base and they are probably assuming a good deal of “if these trends continue…”
Texas going blue would definitely make me smile, but tell me you got odds man!
True dat. Even I’d only take that bet with at least 5 to 1! It is true that Obama does not need Texas and should invest only in so far as it builds infrastructure for the future and helps downticket. But what a message it would send to win it!
Turns out my numbers above are not quite right. They underestimate the Hispanic potential in Texas. Hispanics were a larger share of Texas RVs in 2004 and 2006. Between 22 and 23%. Before recent registration drives. They are over 25% of Texas’s citizen voting age population. Their influence is decreased because they have historically not come out as much as non-Hispanic Whites.
Little Mac wasn’t bad looking, but are you sure you want to see Winfield Scott naked?
