If Pollster.com deserves the 2006 award for the Best Polling Website of the year, the 2008 award has to go to Poblano's FiveThirtyEight.com. This is by far the most interesting website for us statistics and polling wonks.
Poblano, a frequent Daily Kos contributor, is predicting the state-by-state primary results for Clinton and Obama based only on demographics and regressions...Look ma! No opinion polls. Given the long primary season, this is giving us wonks an unparalleled in-depth look at who makes up the Democratic voting populace, and how they are voting in the primaries.
Today's 538 prediction: Obama wins North Carolina by 17 points, resulting in a district-by-district delegate count of 66-49 Obama over Clinton. This compares with Chris Bowers' 7 point Obama margin and 62-53 Delegate count based on polling averages. Five districts are close to delegate thresholds. Why does poblano think the pollsters are wrong? It's mostly about their inability to predict the African American primary turnout:
By the way -- I think I know what the pollsters are doing wrong too. They're calibrating black turnout to a proportion of the population, but not to a proportion of the Kerry vote. This is a significant mistake, because in some states, the vast majority of the available white voters will vote as Republicans -- meaning that black voters make up a larger share of what remains in the Democratic electorate. I noticed for instance that SurveyUSA underestimated black turnout in Republican-leaning South Carolina (55% against their estimate of 41%) but overestimated it in Democrat-leaning New York (16% against their estimate of 21%), which would be consistent with this sort of error.
538 also keeps a running tally of the General Election matchup predictions on the front page. This requires an explanation, because the state-to-state results are displayed as probabilities. So, Massachussetts at Obama 88% and Clinton 99% shows the likelihood of winning the state, not the voting percentage.
What else makes 538 so cool? Let me count the ways:
It's very odd, but I find myself so ridiculously confused about my support almost every day. As it is, I won't be 18 until March, 16, so I sadly won't be able to be a part of California's Super Tuesday Primary. None the less, I am active in my local party, and would like to be able to help campaign for a candidate. The problem is, things are just so fucked with all the candidates.
The results of the exit polls tell us about the impact that "crossover" voters had on the Republican primary, and give us a hint about what the Democratic race might have been like had the other candidates not been taken off the ballot. Check below the fold for a few quick notes from this Michigan native.
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