We're in the home stretch: Election predictions

Great Debates
121

And the Rassmussen Tracking Report for Florida, which tries to do a moving average of the trends, has Bush up by 3%.

But even a tie in Florida is just status quo - If Kerry loses any of his other battleground states that are in danger, he can win Florida and still lose the election.

No way around it, Kerry has a bit of a hill to climb to win. Again, he can still win, but Bush is clearly the favored choice based on today’s numbers.

The best news for Kerry is that Florida and Ohio are essentially toss-ups right now, with the leads within the margin of error. If he can take both of those, he will win the election. But I think he’ll have to take both of them, or else he has to get a significant break in the other battlegrounds.

122

Going by that map at electoral-vote.com, either one taking Florida puts them over the top.
But I really can’t figure out how Ohio could be expected to go to Bush. While Ohio is shaded light red on the map, a look at the actual page for Ohio shows 2 pollsters have Bush ahead, 2 have Kerry ahead, and one has it as a tie. Like I said before, given the jobs situation in Ohio, I have a tough time seeing it in the red column.
Problem for Bush is this, if we take this map as the base: if Ohio swings to Kerry, then Bush would need a combination of Florida and Iowa to win, because that swing would take 20 EC votes from Bush and give them to Kerry, a swing of 40 altogether, and would all by itself take the EC vote from Bush 257 / Kerry 243 to Kerry 263 / Bush 237. Kerry would just need Iowa after that among the tied states, whereas Bush would need both Florida and Iowa.
Also, the trend here shows a distinct shift to Kerry post the third debate: look at their EC graph..
Point being, one doesn’t need to be in an alternate universe to favor a Kerry victory at this point, even if Bush is still leading in the national polls.
And Chance, take note: the verdict is pretty unanimous that New Jersey is close; the only pollster that would give you a good chance of getting that gin is Eagleton-Rutgers. Heh.

123

Hey, suppose the result is the reverse of 2000? Kerry wins the electoral vote, but Bush wins the popular vote! How would the Pubs react to that? :smiley:

124

I am optomistic, but Rove has already promised that he has some stuff still in store. Given that Rove has pulled stuff like this before, and given what the latest turn in attacking Kerry has been, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries the gambit of attacking Bush in a really disgusting way and then framing the Kerry campaign for it. We’ll see.

Personally, I think Kerry can be down, at the most, 2 to 3 percent in the polls right before election day and still win by a fairly comfortable margin. One thing you have to remember is that for all the talk of a huge grassroots campaign, the reality is that the Republicans are basically doing what they’ve always done: they have to buy most of their volunteers and callers and canvassers. Kerry’s mostly work for free. The Pubs have to some extent been bluffing about their field operations: while they are clearly better than they have been, they haven’t been all that impressive in action, and most of their numbers are puffery, and simply cannot compare to the work that the Kerry field staff and the 527s and the unions have all each done separately. That’s three different major nets all targeting the same pools of Democratic voters. The only advantage they have is, as always, money for the direct partisan promotion of candidates.

I’d say that the really good signs of a Kerry win are:

  1. the K-Street pork lobby, which had thrown most of its chits in with Republicans when they came to dominate both Congress and the White House is scared shitless that the gravy train might be coming to an end and they’ve poured all their money into a guy who won’t be in office to serve them
  2. the Bush campaign, internally, is pretty flustered. There have been a series of screwups and embarrasing infiltrations that are sapping morale, and Bush basically losing all three debates has sapped their morale as far as dominating Kerry like they thought they’d be able to. They’re losing influential moderate supporters and endorsements from sincere and just flat out disappointed conservatives.
  3. the argument that “if Kerry wins, then the Democrats and even some of the left will have to take ownership of the war on terror” is gaining ground among some of the major neoconservatives who actually care more about America than Bush. A Kerry win is looking a lot less scary to Republicans than a Bush win is to Democrats.

I’d say that, to win, Kerry just has to:

  1. In terms of media politics weather whatever smear campaigns Rove has cooked up for the final days
  2. In terms of field operations, overcome whatever voter suppression techniques will deployed to deal with what is probably going to be one of the biggest turnouts we’ve seen since 1992.

The idea that Democrats are pre-emptively deploying complaints about voter suppression whether it’s there or not is just laughable. It’s there EVERY IMPORTANT YEAR and has been since the end of the solid south. It’s already started, both the quasi-legal (poll challengers, trying to confuse BOEs with contradictory instructions, etc.) and the illegal ends all across the country. This is not some conspiracy: it’s an open secret among everyone that’s ever been involved in elections in targeted races.

125

Eh, it goes back aways. The worst job I ever had was as a college student in the late 80’s, working part-time for a company that did push-polling and fund-raising for various Democrat candidates around the country ( in particular I remember shilling for Ben Nighthorse-Campbell when he was still a Democrat ). I quit in disgust after a few months ( though admittedly only after I had secured a better-paying job :wink: ). Frankly the fund-raising was more distressing for me personally - nothing makes you feel more vile than trying to weedle $5 out of some old lady on a fixed income because your supervisor is also on the line as well and staring you down. But it all sucked.

  • Tamerlane
126

Sure they haven’t already tried that? :wink:

127

The thing that amazes me most is that I have yet to see ANYONE jump to Karl Rove’s defense. I have yet to see a conservative say, “all that stuff about Rove bugging his own office, smearing veterans’ loyalty to the USA, and launching anonymous attacks on his own candidates in order to pin the blame on the opposition is BS; Rove is a decent man and would never need to stoop to such tactics.”

The man in charge of the GOP election campaign has an open history of lying and using morally repugnant tactics … and everyone thinks it’s A-OK–or, at the least “just the way things are done.”

128

I wouldn’t exactly defend Karl Rove, other than to say he’s no different than the guys on the other side. The other defense is simply to say that you guys have taken a typical, hardball-playing political operative and turned him into a monster. Your criticisms are just way over the top.

James Carville and Bob Shrum are not exactly choir boys, you know? Karl Rove’s biggest ‘crime’ is simply that he’s really good at his job.

129

My father is a professional market researcher. Former president of Bruskin-Goldring, etc. Before he ‘retired’ to do what he currently does, he was in demand as a man to turn screwed up market research companies around, because he was just that good, both as a businessman, and as a visionary with statistics. He can and does find new ways to get the numbers you want, as well as new ways to make them tell you things.

That said, I mentioned Strategic Vision to him. He laughed, and said they offered him the job as CEO back in the 90s. He wouldn’t take it. They have a strong reputation of finding out what the people paying for their polls want to hear. They have no idea how to norm things, they just can’t get a statistically accurate sample.

130

I’ve just been polled. After submitting the results, I was directed to Zogby’s latest:

The challenger restores his lead heading into the last month

131

If that job involves trying to make people think a child-advocate is a pedophile, that McCain is an insane adulterer, and so on.

How does this compare to Carville and Shrum again?

I love how the only defense is just to throw up hands and say “well, they’re all equally bad.” Are they? Is there simply nothing Bush or Rove or anyone can do that makes them stand out as particularly nasty or dishonest? No lengths they can go to?

132

Kerry supporter here. My predictions.

Bush wins, between 290 and 310 in the EC, don’t know about the popular vote but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Bush win here too. Kerry concedes by late election night.

Senate and House stay Republican. Senate at 48/52 D/R including Jeffords in the 48.

Some of the swing states are close and there are many reports of voter fraud. But these are doomed by lack of evidence. After a few weeks of battle back and forth, Kerry makes a statement about putting the whole mess behind the country.

I think the modern Democratic party will be shattered by this. It is apparent that most of the country supports much of the Democratic platform, but their inability to field viable candidates and muster the message discipline of the other side causes some deep soul-searching. Expect to see major party structural changes by the 2006 mid-cycle elections.

A few possibilities of the future after this. Out of the ashes of the old Democrats, a new party will arise and practice the brutal and nonbending message discipline and party conformity of the Republicans, only with a more populist message. Every dirty trick of the Rove et al. will be copied and magnified. People’s complaints of “each side is equally bad” will be borne out, as American politics loses any contact with the worlds of objective evidence and reality. The success of the GOP could be equally disasterous for them: scandals, ethics violations, divisiveness, and continued deterioration of the country will eventually catch up to them. They will have become the 1994 Democrats and will be ripe for a routing. A dangerous point, though, is that they will realize this, and they will seek any excuse for turning a War on Terror into an excuse for a permanent Republican majority. Little by little, incumbents will become harder to unseat; campaign funding, media concentration, and suppression of dissent will be left unchecked. Even the New Evil Democrats will be unable to unseat them, with redistricting and structural changes leaving them more immune to challenges to incumbency.

I do think that this opens the door for the rise of a Moderate Party. Libertarianism Light, perhaps – socially liberal, economically conservative, balanced-budget Democrats and Republicans who have defected from the cognitive dissonance of the Democrats and Republicans. Libertarianism with a lot of realpolitik like public ownership of the roads and the army and continuance of a few, basic (but expensive) social programs like Social Security, some welfare, and some health insurance.

I do see more terrorism and more regional MENA instability. Bush will not be able to clean up his messes, but blame for this will continue to be defered on any convenient targets and the majority of Americans will still be unaware, as long as there is a bare minimum of bread and circuses still flowing to them.

133

Are you a…betting man, Mr Stone?

134

BTW, The New York Times also has a very nice electoral votes page which, far as I know, hasn’t been cited yet. Apologies if it has.

135

I certainly am. I’ll put $50 on Bush to win, even money. Or just to avoid ambiguity, let’s use a spread of 1%. If Bush winds by 1%, you owe me. If Kerry wins by 1%, I owe you. One of those statical tie thingamabobs, and the bet’s off.

I’ve already got this same bet down at 3% either way in another forum. This would be a nice hedge for me.

136

Nah, how 'bout one of our new peach colored twenties for those new cool Canadian notes? Make it interesting.

I rarely bet for money without odds.

Seriously, I’ll take the wager (either one). I’ve always thought this is too close to call. In a few states which cities get bad weather will turn the tide. Here in Ohio if Cincinnati gets rain or something we’re likely to go Kerry. If it’s Cleveland it’ll go the other way.

And if it stands on end…

137

Sounds fine. I just got some of our new $20’s a couple of days ago. Pretty snazzy bill.

138

It strikes me that the eventual tally of votes is unimportant. The Republicans have already won in every important respect.

In their strategic offices and quiet moments the mood is a mixture of amazement and rejoicing. How is it, they wonder, that a President of Bush’s proven and evident record of dishonesty and failure is even in the running? Moreover the challenger is plainly a man of sound capabilities and a record of public service.

However it has come about, the simple possibility of a second term confirms that the GOP has a lock on American political culture. Rewind 4 years. Who could have imagined that a presidency could survive the Iraq debacle: the lies and fraud; the orders to torture; the slo-mo collapse of any positive outcome? Let alone the poor domestic economy, Enron etc?

Yet the incumbent’s tenure survives in rude health. Who could have imagined?

139

It’s because:

  1. Bush is a “wartime president.” Rally 'round the flag, yadda yadda yadda.

  2. The American conservative movement, is very, very well-organized. It’s a very broad movement, assembled from diverse elements, and there are signs of an impending crack-up – a split between the social-religious conservatives, the isolationist paleoconservatives, the imperialist neoconservatives, the small-l libertarians, and the business-interest conservatives. But, for now, it’s holding, and strong enough to weather the storm of a disastrous Republican presidency.

The best and most comprehensive account I’ve yet read of the rise of conservatism in America is The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004). The authors are British, and have the advantage of looking at the whole thing with an outsider’s detachment. Their thesis is that the late conservative ascendancy results partly from America’s uniquely conservative political culture, and partly from a process of conservative organizing, and alliances and synergies between different conservative factions, which has been going on steadily since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

Yet, the authors are at pains to point out, modern American “conservatism” means something rather different than what earlier generations understood the word to mean. From their introduction:

(Bolding added.) IOW, it’s conservatism American-style, adapted to American culture. That gives it a powerful appeal.

140

Latest CNN/Gallup poll:

Likely Voters:

Bush 52%
Kerry 44%
Nader 1%

Bush has opened an 8-point spread among likely voters.

Registered voters:

Bush 49%
Kerry 46%
Nader 1%

Much closer, but Bush still has a 3% lead.

And in other news, the Chicago Tribune has (surprisingly) endorsed Bush for President.

Not looking good for Kerry. Also, weekend polls normally favor Democrats. If next week’s early polls show the same trend, then Kerry’s going to need a hail mary to pull this out.

I suspect both camps have an ‘October Surprise’ waiting, however. The dynamics could still change.