Obama at 338 minimum: Obama wins the Kerry states plus Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia.
Three toss-ups: Missouri, North Carolina and North Dakota are the only remaining toss-ups, in that polls yet to be released could still flip those states.
Four close states for McCain: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Montana are projected for McCain, even though there is still a small chance for Obama to win one or more of those four states.
This projection comes from looking at the simple mean of polling conducted during the final week of the campaign. I stand by this methodology despite it's simplicity, and even to a certain extent because of it's simplicity. I have come to believe that forecasting close (within single digits), statewide, general elections accurately is not the sole province of statistical wizards and those who wish to argue with polls. Instead, I believe it is something anyone can do as long as they have an Internet connection, and are willing to not argue with the polls they don't like. As long as you have the courage to look at all of the recent polls and avoid adding any special sauce of your own, then you can project close (within single digits), statewide, general elections as accurately as any "professional" forecaster around.
On November 5th, we will know if I am correct. However, if I turn out to be wrong, and Obama scores a larger than expected victory of around 400 electoral votes, the reason will be due to cell-phone only households. Within the last twenty-four hours, both fivethirtyeight.com and Pollster.com have released studies indicating that Obama leads by about 4% more in polls that include cell-phone only households, than he does in polls that do not. A shift of that magnitude has the potential not only to push all three of the toss-up states to Obama, but also all four of the narrow McCain states. This could give Obama up to 406 electoral votes, and a national popular vote victory of 9-10%.
Now, I'm sticking with the "use all polls" and "don't argue with polls" philosophy, and instead projecting Obama to win by around 7% nationally and to pull in between 340-360 electoral votes. With only one day left, I will not abandon my old mantra, "the truth is always in between." However, this cell-phone only discrepancy should still give hope to those of you working in those four "Lean McCain" states. Keep in mind that there could also be a discrepancy in the other direction due to a lingering "Bradley effect," that might push Obama's victory down to around 5% or so, and which could still tip Florida and / or Ohio toward McCain. There is no circumstance I can forsee where Obama drops below 291 electoral votes, meaning the Kerry states plus Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia.
I am forecasting 7% and 340-360, but I can see reasonable people pegging the range anywhere from 4% to 10%, with electoral votes ranging from 291-406 (or even 407, with Nebraska-02). What is your final prediction? Let's lay it on the line in the comments.
Update 3:00 p.m.: New Rasmussen swing state polls added. New Strategic Vision Pennsylvania added. New PPP Missouri added. Links can be found in quick hits.
Update 6:00 p.m.: Survey USA North Carolina, along with PPP Indiana and Nevada.
Update 8:00 p.m.: Strategic Vision Florida, Georgia and Ohio included.
Update 9:00 p.m.: New Florida, Georgia, Maine and Washington polls added.
Update 1:00 a.m.: New Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia polls added.
Update 10:00 a.m. Tuesday: Final update completed. North Carolina flips to McCain.
Dark Blue (273): Obama +6.0% or more
Lean Blue (18): Obama +2.3%-+5.9%
White / Toss-up (87): Obama +2.2% to McCain +2.2%
Lean Red (28): McCain +2.3%-+5.9%
Dark Red (132): McCain +6.0% or more
Relevant States Chart
Polls 10/28-11/02 States not shown are further either direction
Dark Blue (252): Obama +6.0% or more
Lean Blue (66): Obama +2.3%-+5.9%
White / Toss-up (60): Obama +2.2% to McCain +2.2%
Lean Red (29): McCain +2.3%-+5.9%
Dark Red (131): McCain +6.0% or more
Relevant States Chart
Polls 10/26-11/01 States not shown are further either direction
When I tell people how well Obama is doing in the polls, here are three of the most common responses I receive:
"Yeah, but Kerry was winning at the end of the campaign, too."
"Yeah, but Kerry was way ahead among early voters, too."
"Yeah, but Republicans always do better in the final results than in the final polls." (GOTV and / or machine fraud are often cited as reasons for this one.)
All of these responses irritate me, both because they are all demonstrably false and because they are often accompanied by excess worrying. In the extended entry, I attempt to wipe away this worrying by actually showing how all three of those myths are false.
Obama has inched up in the tracking polls for the third straight day, and he now leads by 6% according to Pollster.com with less than 77 hours before the polls close in all swing states. (Iowa is the last "swing state" to close, if you can call Iowa a swing state, anyway. Part of Montana closes at 11:00 p.m. eastern). So, McCain has to gain a full 1% on Obama every thirteen hours between now and then in order to win. That means that McCain has to flip about 100,000 voters every hour, or three every second, in order to tie Obama. Best of all, he can only target 70% of the electorate for these votes, because 30% is already spoken for.
Barack Obama has won the 2008 Presidential Election.
Yes, you read that right. And no, I am not joking.
People will probably say that I am calling the election too early, which could depress turnout. People might say that I am taking too much for granted, which is especially bad for a committeeperson in West Philadelphia. People might say that I am simply being foolish, because there is time left and a lot can change in four days. For these people, I have five quick points (more in the extended entry).
In terms of polling analysis, I feel as though I have morphed into one of the bi-partisan pundit concern trolls that dominate the big media commentariat whenever Democrats have gained the upper hand in our political discourse (calls for bipartisanship were far less common, of course, during the Republican trifecta). Pretty much no matter what the polling situation is, I stick to my constant refrain "the truth is in between."
Well, I am about to start that refrain again, this time when it comes to the dueling likely voter models floating around the polling universe. Nowhere is the discrepancy between likely voter models more pronounced than in the Gallup tracking poll, which publishes two separate likely voter models every day. One likely voter model, the "traditional" model, includes questions about past voting behavior and assumes 60% turnout of the voting age population. The other, "expanded" model does not ask about past voting behavior, and makes no assumptions about national turnout.
Most Democratic-leaning election websites have decided to use the "expanded" model as the daily Gallup tracking poll number, rather than the "traditional" model. This is the case at TPM, Pollster.com, and fivethirtyeight and, it would appear, among most of the commenters I read on Open Left. I haven't taken sides in this argument before, but I actually think it is a mistake to use only the "expanded" likely voter model and discard the traditional one entirely. As I always say, the truth is in between.
Dark Blue (291): Obama +6.0% or more
Lean Blue (62): Obama +2.3%-+5.9%
White / Toss-up (25): Obama +2.2% to McCain +2.2%
Lean Red (29): McCain +2.3%-+5.9%
Dark Red (131): McCain +6.0% or more
Swing State Chart
Polls 10/23-10/29 States not shown are further either direction
Update 7:45: Sorry for the delay in the update. New polls for Indiana, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin added. Next update at 3:00 a.m.
Update 1:30 p.m.: New polls from Colorado (2), Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia (2) added. Also, in order to avoid a lag between state and national polls, I have only included polls taken entirely from October 23-29. Also in an attempt to reduce lag time, I have allowed for only one poll to be included in the averages.
As with yesterday, I will update the forecast twice during the day as new state polls come in. Methodology and analysis in the extended entry.
Current Forecaster Consensus: Obama 353, McCain 157, Toss-up 28
With six days and a couple hours before the polls start to close, I thought it would be helpful to put together a consensus of the six "small media" polling aggregation sites I frequent the most: Electoral-Vote.com, fivethirtyeight.com, Pollster.com, Open Left (of course), Real Clear Politics, and TPM Election Central. There is a consensus around the current status of 46 states, plus D.C. Here are the only four states where these six websites do not agree with each other:
Indiana: 538, Pollster, Open Left and TPM show McCain slightly ahead in Indiana, but Real Clear Politics and Electoral-Vote show Obama slightly ahead.
Missouri: 538, Pollster and RCP all have Obama slightly ahead in Missouri, Electoral-Vote and Open Left show an exact tie, TPM shows McCain slightly ahead.
Montana: 538, Pollster, RCP and TPM show McCain ahead in Montana, but Electoral-Vote and Open Left show an exact tie.
North Dakota: Open Left, Pollster and TPM show Obama slightly ahead. Electoral-Vote shows an exact tie. 538 and RCP show McCain ahead.
That's it. These six forecasters agree on every other state. North Carolina is on the edge, and losing it would knock Obama down to 338 electoral votes. In the next closest blue state, Florida, Obama leads by 2.7% to 3.4% in according to every forecaster. After that, in the remaining 311 blue electoral votes, Obama leads by at least 5.8% in every state according to every forecaster. This is what I meant earlier today about all forecasters showing a state by state Obama lead that is both deep and broad.
So, no matter which forecaster you choose, Obama has 311 solid electoral votes with only six days remaining. Is it closer? Sure, a little bit. Is Obama still solidly ahead? Yep.
There is no question that the tracking polls have tightened compared to where they were from October 21st through October 27th (though not from where they were from October 15th through October 20th). However, I just did the 2:00 p.m. update to the Presidential Forecast, and state polling has pushed Obama out to his most secure lead of the entire campaign. And I added a lot of polls:
Five new Pennsylvania polls, four new Ohio polls, two new Florida polls, plus one new poll each from Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin added. Obama drops slightly in Florida, holds steady in Ohio, and improves everywhere else.
Obama's state by state situation is improving, even as the Pollster.com national tracker has dropped from Obama +8.8% on Saturday (his all-time peak) to Obama +5.8% today. However, according to my forecast, Obama now reaches 273 electoral votes in states where he leads by 8.3% or more, and hits 311 electoral in states where he leads by 6.5% or more. As I will discuss later in the day, I'm not alone in showing this vast Obama statewide lead, either. No doubt, on the surface it appears difficult to reconcile the tracking polls over the last couple of days with the state polling released over the same time period.
A partial explanation comes from the 2004 election, which Kerry lost nationally by 2.5%. Given 2004 results in the three most heavily polled swing states, Florida (Bush +5.0%), Ohio (Bush +2.1%) and Pennsylvania (Kerry +2.5%), and given an 8.3% national swing, those states are almost exactly where they should be right now. In my forecast, I have Obama +3.3% in Florida, which is 0.0% away from the expected result. In Ohio, I have Obama at +6.5%, only 0.3% away from the expected result. In Pennsylvania, I have Obama at +11.2%, only 0.4% away from the expected result. So, a partial answer is that there is no discrepancy between state polls and national polls, at least in the largest swing states. Earlier state and national polling diverged from one another in these states, but current state and national polling does not. This explanation also works for Wisconsin, where Obama is within 0.2% of his expected result given the national swing from 2004, and Missouri, where he is within 0.8%.
Still, that leaves a bunch of state polling in conflict with national polls. This week's polls from Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina are all 2-4% more favorable to Obama than a simple 8.3% swing from 2004 can explain. In these cases, it can probably be chalked to a combination of several factors, including polling error, changing demographics, and improved Democratic campaign organization in these states. While 2-4% is a bit of a shift, it is not so large that a combination of such factors fail to provide a complete explanation.
This leaves Indiana, Montana, North Dakota and Virginia, where Obama is running between 7% and 12% of where he should be. However, Obama is equally under-performing relative to 2004 in a different handful of states, including Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Rather than a broad difference, it seems to simply be a regional shift.
So, there is your explanation for the state poll and national poll discrepancy: there isn't much of one at all.
Dark Blue (311): Obama +6.0% or more
Lean Blue (27): Obama +2.3%-+5.9%
White / Toss-up (43): Obama +2.2% to McCain +2.2%
Lean Red (26): McCain +2.3%-+5.9%
Dark Red (131): McCain +6.0% or more
Targeting and Swing State Chart States not shown are 12.0% or more in either direction
Update (2:00 p.m.): Five new Pennsylvania polls, four new Ohio polls, two new Florida polls, plus one new poll each from Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin added. Obama drops slightly in Florida, holds steady in Ohio, and improves everywhere else.
As with yesterday, I am posting the Presidential forecast early in the morning, and I will update during the day as new polls come in. Right now, except where you see asterisks, it only includes polls taken entirely after October 21st. I have to say, I have never seen a campaign that has ben tightening for so long that makes me so damn confident of victory.
National tracking polls are pointing down today. However, swing state polls are pointing up. Which is correct? My instinct tells me it is statistical noise in both directions, and that Obama's lead continues to hover around 7.0%. Obama never actually led by 8%, and even now his lead has not dropped to 6%. A look at swing state polls conducted entirely since October 23rd, which matches up very closely to the current tracking poll range, suggests that the 7.0% thesis is correct:
(Dark Blue (291): Obama +6.0% or more
Lean Blue (47): Obama +2.3%-+5.9%
White / Toss-up (43): Obama +2.2% to McCain +2.2%
Lean Red (26): McCain +2.3%-+5.9%
Dark Red (131): McCain +6.0% or more)
Targeting and Swing State Chart States not shown here are further in either direction
I am going to try something different today. This is what the polling picture looks like at 2:00 a.m. eastern, before any of today's polls come out. I will continue to update it during the day, as new polls come out. We'll see how this goes.
Analysis and methodology in the extended entry.
Update (12:30 p.m.): New Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania polls added.
Update 2 (2 p.m.): New Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin polls added.
STATE BLOGS
