What it doesn’t gauge, of course, is the actual outcome.
It’s nowhere close to being as reliable as telephone polling. It’s not even a poll. It’s not a survey of public opinion and the sample is totally self-selected and non-representative.
I have predicted a Kerry win, and I am literally praying he wins, but I am curious as to how you see Bush getting fewer than 200 E.V.'s. He’s got more than 200 more or less sewn up.
I’m likely to be working all day Tuesday, so can somebody else start the Pit thread? Thanks much.
Haven’t seen this one here yet… Indian astrologers weigh in on the election:
And a blast from the present:
And let’s look at their actual numbers, shall we?
Florida (27)
(LV) Bush 46, Kerry 49
(RV) Bush 45, Kerry 49
Iowa (7)
(LV) Bush 48, Kerry 46
(RV) Bush 47, Kerry 46
Minnesota (10)
(LV) Bush 44, Kerry 52
(RV) Bush 43, Kerry 51
Ohio (20)
(LV) Bush 46, Kerry 50
(RV) Bush 44, Kerry 51
Pennsylvania (21)
(LV) Bush 50, Kerry 46
(RV) Bush 47, Kerry 49
Wisconsin (10)
(LV) Bush 52, Kerry 44
(RV) Bush 49, Kerry 46
I believe in registered voters, not likely voters, especially in a high-turnout election like this one already is. (11% of the voters have already voted, based on the WaPo’s sampling.) But looking at the likelies, even, what do we have?
We’ve got Kerry winning Florida and Ohio, that’s what. Just the two biggest battlegrounds of the election. Ho-hum.
We’ve got Kerry winning FL by 3, OH by 4, and MN by 8; losing PA by 4 (does anyone believe that?), WI by 8 (possible), and IA by 2. So Kerry wins these six states, 57-38 EVs.
Given that Kerry’s gonna take the West Coast and HI, and the northeast (excluding PA for sake of this discussion), he’s got 268 right there. Bush has to run the table to win.
But if we look at the registered voters, we’ve got Kerry by 7 in OH, Kerry by 4 in FL, Kerry by 2 in PA, Kerry by 8 in MN, and Bush by 1 and 3 in IA and WI, respectively.
I think high turnout and good GOTV will put Kerry over the top in all 6 of these states. I think that when they project Wisconsin for Kerry, we can all go to bed, unless we want to stay up for the Senate races in SD, OK, and CO.
Forgot the CNN link. Not that you couldn’t have found it on your own.
Where are you getting the 11% from?
Because polling suggests that they are tied in Nevada, things have been close in Virginia and Missouri, and I am not counting out Arkansas and Arizona.
I was also swayed by my experiences over the weekend.
I was at an Indian Guides campout over the weekend. I was speaking with another dad who was a veteran of the first Gulf War and who was trying to get himself on IRR status now, so that he could keep someone else from having to take a spot. He said that his wife scuttled his efforts, though. He also believed that the present war in Iraq was good and justified. Nevertheless, he said that he cannot bring himself to vote for Bush. If Bush can’t get the vote of a guy like this, he’s in trouble. I think this country is full of people of all kinds with integrity and honor, and who cannot support Bush even if they typically see themselves as Republican.
Further, James Carville once described Pennsylvania as "Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with Alabama in between. Well, the campout took me out of Pittsburgh and into “Alabama,” and I’ll be damned if I didn’t see Kerry sign after Kerry sign. I was shocked and thrilled.
And finally, the Washington Redskins lost.
Kerry in a walk.
I don’t doubt that things are close but I think Kerry supporters are inclined towards exaggerating the impact of things like cell phone users and young voters. (Basing your hopes on the votes of the demographic groups that don’t like voting is not a good sign.) Lots of indications are good for Kerry, but there are negative indicators and polls suggesting a Bush swing that, due to some optimism and wishful thinking, are being totally ignored in this thread. It’s as if they did not exist.
I stick by my prediction, based on my intensive state-by-state analysis: **Kerry 272, Bush 266. ** There’s too many undecideds for Bush to win, but he’ll get Florida one way or another and hold his constituent states.
I’ve got Pennsylvania going Kerry, so that’s no surprise. I’m not sure signage is a good clue though.
A Bush swing? Even Gallup has the race tied up, where they had Bush up by 8 in their most recent poll. Again, I refer you to www.mydd.com and to www.emergingdemocraticmajority.com for a less biased (than mine and than the mainstream media) review of polling efforts. I happily admit that my feelings about Arizona, Virginia, Arkansas and Missouri contain a large dose of wishful thinking - as well as close polling margins, new registrants and the historic trend of voters breaking towards the challenger.
Well, that’s nice. Living here, however, I’ll take my estimation of the overwhelmingly larger number of Kerry signs than I have ever seen for prior democratic candidates as an indicator of a much larger and more motivated voting group. People who are motivated to put a sign in their yard when they haven’t before mean something. Take it for what you will.
The popular support for Kerry is going to utterly surprise the news media and catch Tim “I am my blackboard” Russert with his belt keeping his ankles warm. Why? Turnout. Turnout will be overwhelming on our side for two reasons.
Number one is GOTV efforts by interfering, though goodwilled, outsiders. Speaking for myself, I’m driving canvassers for ACT. You don’t need to know where but tomorrow from nine until polls close we are going to be invading neighborhoods rich in newly-registered voters and 1) telling them to vote, 2) telling them exactly where to vote and 3) counter any disinformation from certain uber-American jerkweeds telling them that they’re not allowed to vote. There are going to be thousands of us in all the important swing states doing this. And here’s the really interesting part: WE’RE JUST ONE OF MANY ORGANIZATIONS DOING THIS KINDA STUFF. :eek:
But there’s another, even more important reason why turnout is going to be tremendous on our side: The powerful motivating force that is intelligent insanity.
There are four things that, when synergetically combined are guaranteed to make someone justifiably nuts. They are 1) being cheated, 2) being lied to 3) being lied about and 4) being shamed and ridiculed for being angry about the first three.
I’d say the Republicans have about covered that for the Democrats, wouldn’t you? They cheated us out of Florida by illegally disqualifying 90,000 mostly Democratic voters in the 2000 election and then stopping a state-wide recount dead in it’s tracks thanks to the intervention of such luminaries as Antonin “Benito” Saclia. As far as being lied to, do I really have to explain that one? In regards to being lied about see my response to SimonX over his unfortunate remark about my being an anti-Republican bigot. As for being shamed and ridiculed, there are a wealth of examples but my favorite is Dr. Charles “Strangelove” Krauthammer using his expertise as a psychiatrist (and, really, could there ever be a harder science more free of prejudice and political influence than the august field of psychiatry?) to declare people who don’t like Bush mentally ill in his Washington Post column.
Bonus link for fun: http://laweekly.blogs.com/joshuah_bearman/2004/10/how_they_do_par_1.html
The point is, all this stuff makes people batshit. And when people are being driven batshit the one thing they want in this world is for it to stop. That is a powerful motivating force, Bunky. That’s what we’ve got on our side and that’s what’s going to put us comfortably over the top.
And, if I’m wrong and Bush wins, I’m putting all my money in forign banks (New Zealand CDs have 6.2% interest) so my fortune will be safe while waiting for the inevitable financial crisis to happen that will guarantee Democratic hegemony til the end of my days.
That’s something else Republicans ought to consider: if you don’t want to be Hooverized all over again, vote for Kerry.
A sampling of six of the latest polls is in the article and summarized to the right at the linked site.
From The New York Times –
Note this is a popular vote survey of the whole nation. Bush could very well win the popular vote, but lose the EC. The EC is all that really counts.
I’m going way out on a limb and making thorough predictions on, well… everything!
http://www.geocities.com/nuclearfurniture/election2004.html
Well, almost everything. Just the Electoral College, the Senate and the gubernatorial elections. I’m not touching the House. I’m just one man, dammit!
Anyway, it’s all there for you to see and to take me to task with after the votes are (hopefully) all counted. It ain’t much on graphics, but I hope you like it.
Well, it was a less-than-satisfactory result when Bush sort-of-won the election but lost in the popular vote. I’d expect an equally unsatisfying sentiment on the part of some (including myself) if Kerry squeaked in on the EC, but lost the PV.
Take a look at the lastest (Nov.1) data here:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Let’s for the sake of argument count as “in the bag” for Bush every state he is ahead in the polls, and also New Mexico and New Hampshire which are dead even. What this means is that to win the EC Bush MUST win at least 2 of the states FL, OH, and PA. He might, but things are looking rosier for Kerry at the moment.
And note that if Bush takes OH and PA, but loses FL, then he MUST take all the tied and Barely Bush states. That poll having HI being Barely Bush seems dubious to me. HI is more Dem than that. If HI goes Kerry instead of Bush, even if Bush wins OH and PA, but loses FL, he loses the EC.
Also, anyone know what Bush did to piss off CO and NM? Given ALL the surrounding states have Bush way ahead, it seems odd to me CO and NM are toss-ups at this point.
Here’s another reason why I believe that Kerry will win big - even in the most recent poll by Gallup in which they show Kerry and Bush even among registered voters and Bush up by 2 among likely voters, they have still oversampled Republicans, which they have been doing throughout.
From www.mydd.com:
Yucca Mountain seems to be the problem – or one of them – in New Mexico. Bush promised not to put the nuclear waste repository there during his 2000 campaign, then
The state’s inhabitants are not happy about this flip-flop.
Don’t know about CO, but NM has a high percentage of hispanics (and native Americans)…and traditionally hispanics vote Democrat. Certainly AZ and TX also have high percentages of hispanics, but there have been a lot of movement into those states by whites from out east and from CA…and I think this tends to dilute the hispanic vote.
I could, of course, be completely wrong…I’m reading this AS a hispanic and thats my WAG on it.
I was also going over EV-predictor today and saw that Kerry now has a commanding lead in the EC. FL and OH though are pretty much tied up I’d say and could swing either way…Kerry has a VERY slight margin TODAY…but its within the MoE so I don’t think you can read too much there. PA though looks pretty much to be in the Kerry camp. I think you can pretty much bet NM will go Kerry too…the state usually goes Democrat, though it was pretty close with Gore…it will probably be pretty close again this time, but I think Kerry will take the state.
I’m still predicting a very narrow Kerry victory tomorrow. I think a lot of this cell phone poll and the youth vote, as well as the huge turnout, will be a lot of wishful thinking, as I think either the numbers won’t be anything near what Democrats are hoping (in the case of the cell phone polling or lack there of and the youth vote), or it will pretty much balance out with similar Republican drives. From my own perspective here in New Mexico I’ve received as many Republican automated ‘get out and vote’ calls as Democrat, and its been the Republicans (twice) that have come by my house urging me to get out and vote, where voting places are, am I registered, etc…and Democrats only once. If this is similar in other parts of the country I think it will pretty much balance out in the end and it will still be VERY close.
-XT