Note that he still has at least a 5% lead in every state that tightened today, other than Kentucky which he had no chance of winning, anyway. The only thing that concerns me at all there is Ohio, which dropped below the 50% threshold.
On the other hand, the big prize actually moved in Obama's favor:
If Obama can take FL, it's pretty much over. His lead there is small, but the trend is in the right direction.
Obama's EV count in states where he's polling over 50%: 287 EVs.
| If the election were held today and... | Obama | McCain |
| ...all McCain <5% went to Obama | 406 | 132 |
| ...all Obama <5% went to McCain | 311 | 227 |
| Shift since yesterday: | +0 | -0 |
| Shift this week: | +0 | -5 |
(See this post for an explanation of these numbers.)
For the raw poll data and more details, see this day's page on Electoral-Vote.com:
7 comments:
Answer me this, o' math whizzes. If 40% of the voters in certain districts stood in 5-hour lines spread out over two weeks of early voting, how will the remaining 60% of the voters be able to vote in one day? Won't the lines be 50 hours long, or were they hiding machines during early voting?
Most areas only have a few early voting locations for the entire city or county. For example, in Seattle, there's only one Early voting location for all of King County (Population nearly 2 million). Come election day, our normal polling places will be open in every neighborhood, so the lines should be much shorter.
Exactly. In my county (population156,287) there are quite a few polling places on election day, but only one for early voting. All the same, I've been warning people to allot plenty of time for waiting in line, because looking at the lines today and Saturday (3.5 hours and 5 hours, respectively), I'm pretty sure there's going to be a wait tomorrow.
On a related note, if the lines for early voting in my county are anything to go by, this election is going to be the end of that whole "the youth don't vote" thing. In my county, people under the age of 35 represent about 29% of the total adult population. When I voted today, about a third of the people in line were in that age group. On Saturday, when my husband voted, they were about half. Last Thursday, when my mom voted, almost all of the people in line were under 35, and most of them were college-aged. I think a lot of us young people were pretty pissed at having to sit and watch as Bush stole two elections (I know I was!), and we're not willing to let it happen again now that we can do something about it.
Early voting doesn't seem to have fully entered the awareness of the pundits and poll aggregators. For example, Sam Wang had 363 EVs in his estimator and 12 hours later it was 352, Intrade went from 353 to 364, 538 went from 340,2 to 346.5, etc.
That seems odd since jacking up the influence of the latest polls seems to be exactly the opposite of what you should be doing; polls are less and less important as more people have voted, and after every vote has been cast, the post-election polls will have zero effect on the voting. Subconsciously, people are thinking as if everyone voted on Tuesday.
It seems like the projected EV numbers should be settling down more, not jumping around more.
In this situation, the stablest measure, Gott and Colley, taking the median of all state polls over one month, may be the most accurate, although it is the most conservative and time-lagged. Recently, it also happens to be the most optimistic, at 367 and flirting with 378. Add MT, IN, and GA and it would get to 396.
In a sense, what your chart shows today is not as relevant as what it shows for the past 3-6(?) weeks when early voting has been possible.
I'm also a little confused about early voting since according to this early voting page at CNN, WA doesn't seem to have it. OR is not listed because it's all mail-in, I suppose. Basically, almost every state west of the Missouri river except Missouri has it, plus the IA to WV via OH states and TN+NC & GA+FL. It's amazing --but wrong if WA also has it.
BTW, CNN also has a voting irregularities page. It's interesting to compare to the "election equipment", but not an exact match.
I heard there are "comfort helpers" or something like that, volunteers who will bring food and drink to people waiting in voting lines. Wow. You might want to take a folding chair, lunch, water, other camping gear.
Interesting point, blues tea-cha. I'm not really sure whether the recent polls should count less, though. Sure, the polls aren't able to influence people who have already voted, but that doesn't mean they aren't accurately measuring how those people voted, and that's what counts when they're making projections based on the polls. It seems like having the most recent polls have more influence makes sense to me, but I do wish they would separate out the numbers for the people who have already voted.
As far as the "comfort teams" go, we had them here. They passed out water, crackers and chairs (and those chairs got at least two votes for Obama). I would definitely recommend bringing your own supplies, as well as some form of entertainment (I was able to read 75 pages and finish two moderately complex origami projects while I was waiting). If possible, I would also recommend voting in a group (or at least a pair) so that if you have to leave the line for some reason, there's somebody to save your place (people in my line were decent about doing that for strangers, but I don't know if you'd want to depend on that if there's a really long wait.)
news 1
At election-projection.net, PA is no longer the top BattleRank(tm). The focus has moved to FL and OH. It's a little disturbing to see those two states as the strongest determinants of the election. VA is at the 270 tipping point now.
news 2
Nevada: 71% of pollees report having already voted!
"In fact you can almost put Obama's likely Nevada victory in past tense. 71% of the state's likely voters say they have already cast their ballots and with those folks Obama has a much broader 57-43 lead. McCain's bringing the race to within four points is predicated on winning election day voters by a margin of 57-38."
pdf
news 3 ( you may have seen it but i hadn't seen it)
Exasperated Olbermann on Palin figurin' out the VP job
¿Q?:
Are you making any predictions, Poll Junkie? I'm saying 381 but admit it's mostly wishful thinking, not math. Come'on, go out on a limb!
Ok, I am shedding my pessimism. 538 for Obama. I am ordering my Obama 44th president shirt now. Seriously: 385 for Obama.
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