The Breakdown for Oct. 31-- It's scary!

Ok, it's not really that scary, but in honor of Halloween, I had to do something.
It might be a little scary if you're really on the concerned side, though.

McCain had his best day in the polls since Oct. 23. The good news for Obama is the WI has moved back into the Strong Obama after one day in the Weak column. The bad news is that two states moved the other way. Both IN and MT are now in the Barely McCain column, MT moving from tied and IN from Barely Obama. Neither of these states are overly critical to an Obama win, however, so don't be too frightened.

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to update the site tomorrow morning, and may not be able to get it updated tomorrow at all. In the meantime, here are a few things to help you pass the time:

To get an idea how difficult McCain's quest for PA is, check out this widget. McCain has only lead in a few polls in PA all year, so switching it now will be no easy task.

This widget will let you see the chart, as well as a few other useful visualizations. I especially like the pie chart that beter shows just how big of a lead Obama has. I would be more annoyed that the developer of this widget stole my chart design if he hadn't apparently designed it more than a month before I designed mine.

Finally, the simulator at Election-Projection.net is great for all of us wannabe Nate Silvers. The rest of the site is great also. Should be plenty to keep you busy until I update the site on Sunday.

Thanks to Blues Tea-Cha for all these links.


Obama's EV count in states where he's polling over 50%: 307 EVs.

If the election were held today and...	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama	396	142
...all Obama <5% went to McCain	311	227
Shift since yesterday:	-0	-0
Shift this week:	+15	-+6

(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:

Colorado Voter Purge Stopped

Big news in the fight against voter suppression just came in from CO. In a monumentally rational move, it was decided that votes should be counted unless they are known to be bad, instead of being assumed to be bad from the outset:

Under the agreement, voters removed from the rolls will be permitted to cast provisional ballots, and those ballots will be counted unless election officials can prove the voters were not eligible. To strike such ballots, county election officials must conduct an extensive records review on each one, a decision that must then be reviewed by Mr. Coffman’s office.

If ALL provisional ballots were treated this way, they wouldn't be nicknamed "placebo ballots". No one wants anyone to vote illegally, but the notion that we should disenfranchise tens of thousands in an effort to prevent a few hundred (or less) people from casting illegal ballots is absurd.

The Breakdown for Oct. 30

In spite of 29 new polls in 24 states, not a lot of movement today. WI tightened up a bit, moving it (just barely) into the Weak Obama category, while MO went the other way, moving from tied to (just barely) barely Obama.

UPDATE: As noted by Blues Tea-Cha in the comments, WI tightened up today, not MN. The error has been corrected.

Obama's EV count in states where he's polling over 50%: 307 EVs.

If the election were held today and...	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama	396	142
...all Obama <5% went to McCain	311	227
Shift since yesterday:	-0	-0
Shift this week:	+15	-25

(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:

Reasons for optimism

I talked to my friend Jen today, and she was quite concerned about the possibility of the election being stolen. I sent her a list of several reasons why I didn't think it was likely. Some of it has been mentioned here before, but I thought it contained enough new material that I'd post it here as well.

* Obama currently is polling at a 5% or more lead in 311EV worth of states (270 needed to win). That means that in order to win, McCain will need to switch at least three states that are currently polling at better than 5% for Obama (See the map at Electoral-Vote.com), and he has to do that without losing a single state that is polling at a closer margin. This late in the game, that big of a lead is very unlikely to switch.

* McCain is making a big play for PA, but I just don't see it switching. Obama has lead decisively in the polls all month, with an average lead of 11.43%. The media claims things are tightening, but only if you cherry pick in the polls. The average lead for this week alone is still 11% in ten polls. Only one poll out of 23 in the last month has showed Obama under 50 percent in PA, and his average in the last week has been 52%.

* PA, VA, and OH are the states most talked about as "swing states", and all three currently have Democratic Governors and Secretaries of State. It's much harder to steal the election if you don't control the election. McCain absolutely must win both PA and OH if he wants to have even a slight chance of winning. Obama can safely lose any one, and most likely he would still win even if he lost two of the three.

* For McCain, FL is an absolute must-win state. If he loses FL, he has no realistic chance of winning. To give you an idea of how crucial FL is if McCain somehow won CA, Obama would still have a 97% chance of winning if he wins FL (assuming all other swing states are unallocated-- see 270towin.com). As far as Obama is concerned, FL would be great to win, but it really doesn't matter if he loses it, so long as he doesn't lose all 8 other competitive states (NV, CO, MT, ND, MO, IN, OH, and NC), plus either PA or VA. If Obama wins even one of those states, he wins regardless of what happens in FL. Of those eight competitive states, three are tied, Obama has a lead under 5% in two and a lead of 6 or 7% in the remaining three (and he's currently ahead in FL by 3% as well). McCain doesn't lead in any of the states that are generally considered competitive, though some states that he was expected to win easily (GA and AZ) have recently moved to within Obama's grasp.

* There is lot's of talk about "the Bradley Effect", but there is absolutely no evidence of such a thing happening this year. In fact, all evidence suggests that Obama is actually doing -better- than the polls suggest. There are a number of reasons that this would be true, but a couple of the main ones is that most pollsters don't poll people who don't have land-lines, a group that largely includes young people who live in cities, college students, etc-- groups that largely support Obama. When those people are polled, Obama's numbers go up dramatically (See this post at FiveThirtyEight.com -- tons of other great stuff on this site also. It's the single best polling site on the net). Pollsters also use a likely voter model that takes into account whether people have voted in previous elections. Obama has registered more new voters this cycle than ever before, so those people are under-represented in the polls.

Ok... That's enough for now... Hopefully you'll be a little less scared now. FYI, here are the biggest things that I'll be watching for on Tuesday are:

1) Will we get a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate? Not looking like we'll make it (57-58 is probable, though) but if Obama's coattails are big enough it could happen.

2) Will McCain be able to hold his home state of Arizona? Right now it's looking like he will, but things are a lot closer than he would like.

The Breakdown for Oct. 29

After a brief flirtation with good news yesterday, things continue to go downhill for McCain today. NH has moved back into the Strong Obama column, and NV has moved from Barely Obama to Weak Obama. At the same time, McCain lost ground in MS which has is down to a 8 point McCain lead, so it is in the Weak McCain category today.

The McCain campaign lately is focusing nearly all it's resources on the state of PA. I've commented a couple of times on the apparent futility of that course, though I'll admit I really don't see any other course for them to take. But looking back over this months polls, suddenly that course seems even less likely to work then it did before. PA is currently polling with an 11 point lead for Obama, but even more importantly Obama is the choice of 52% of the people in the 10 polls that EV.com uses for their number. In fact, looking back over all the polling data that FiveThirtyEight.com shows, Obama has only polled under 50% in PA in one poll all month. With Obama polling above 50%, McCain can't just swing undecideds, he must actively steal people who say that they intend to vote for Obama. That's not impossible, but it's much harder to do.

Obama's EV count in states where he's polling over 50%: 307 EVs.

If the election were held today and...	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama	396	142
...all Obama <5% went to McCain	311	227
Shift since yesterday:	-0	-5
Shift this week:	+15	-25

(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:

The Breakdown for Oct. 28

For the first time in a while, McCain had a good day in the polls that doesn't also include some big loss to counteract the good news. That said, the movement is only in two states, one of which never should have been in play to begin with. McCain just can't catch a break. MO moves from Barely Obama to tied, and AZ moves from Barely McCain to Weak McCain.

Obama's EV count in states where he's polling over 50%: 302 EVs.

If the election were held today and...	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama	396	142
...all Obama <5% went to McCain	306	232
Shift since yesterday:	-10	+0
Shift this week:	+10	-20

(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:

The Breakdown for Oct. 27

Minor movement on both sides today, with Indiana moving from the +5 column to the Barely column for Obama. More importantly, AZ has moved from strong McCain to Barely McCain, with McCain only holding a two-point lead. AZ is McCain's home state, so a loss there would be embarrassing. The last AZ Senator to run for President was Barry Goldwater, and even he managed to win his state in the otherwise-Democratic landslide. Even if we know the winner of the election early, AZ will be one to stay up late for on Election night

Obama's EV count in states where he's polling over 50%: 302 EVs.

If the election were held today and...	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama	406	132
...all Obama <5% went to McCain	306	232
Shift since yesterday:	+10	+11
Shift this week:	+20	-20

(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: