The 2004 and the 2008 races both start our with long leads (a nice sine wave). It will be interesting if we see a chaotic lead change in the last 40 days that we say in 2004.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html
That comment spurred me to do something that I've been meaning to do for a while, namely chart the 2004 polls:
There are a couple things to note in that chart. First, Bush was actually ahead for the majority of the final two months of the campaign, though it did swing back and forth a bit. Second, while Kerry had slightly deeper support than Bush did overall, it was no where near as strong as Obama's is. In fact if you compare Bush's >10% numbers to Kerry's, Kerry was actually much weaker overall. Granted, McCain's Post Convention surge was larger than Bush's, but that was almost entirely because of Palin. Her charm seems to have mostly worn off to all but their base, and with comments like her bizarre assertion that a foreign leader flying over her state somehow gives her foreign relations credibility, I doubt that that will change.
On top of that, I think McCain's stunt over the last two days will have a huge negative effect on him in the polls (and it's important to note that all of the swing state polls reflected in todays numbers were completed before this escapade started). McCain was gambling that the MSM would go along with his stunt and that he would come off as some kind of a hero, but the media treated it like exactly what it was-- a stunt. It seems like even most Republicans see right through him on this one, so I suspect that this was a huge tactical screw up that could end up being the last nail in his campaign's coffin.
Now don't get me wrong. It's WAY to early for anyone to get complacent. McCain might have a strong performance in the debate tonight, and if Palin can manage to do the same, they could come back quickly (and remember, actual performance is irrelavent, only the way the media spins their performance. Considering that the McCain campaign started running ads proclaiming that McCain won the debate before the debate even happened, we know that spin is far more important than reality). I'm optimistic that Sarah Palin is really as bad at these things as she seems, but keeping her away from the media could also have been a really brilliant tactic. They've certainly managed to lower her expectations, so now if she manages to even speak English at the debate, the media will probably spin it as a victory.
2 comments:
Note that the method used in 2008 is different from 2004:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Info/polling-faq.html#algorithm
In 2004, we ran three different algorithms. The main page just used the most recent poll. The second algorithm averaged three days' worth of polls using only the nonpartisan pollsters. The third one included a mathematical formula for predicting how undecided voters would break based on historical data. The second one was most stable and gave the best final result, so this time a slightly variation of it is used: The most recent poll is always used, and if any other polls were taken within a week of it, they are all averaged together. This method tends to give a more stable result, so the colors don't jump all over the place due to one unusual poll.
Therefore we may see different behavior, such as smoother and less chaotic curves, this time. Or did you process the 2004 data with the 2008 method?
I don't process that dat at all... I'm not a statistician, so I wouldn't trust any processing that I did to be unbiased or even accurate. :-) It's not clear whether the 2004 data has been re-processed using the new algorithm or not, but it should still be relevant as a guideline.
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