I’ll be updating this post as we get closer to Wednesday, but it’s worth making a few points at the outset:
Exit Polls: Take these with a grain of salt. In the states which allow early voting, almost 30 million have already turned out – with big advantages in many states in terms of the proportion of registered Democrats and independents voting over registered Republicans. Obama has “banked”, if you like, a lot of the support he had at the top of the range of his poll results. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he won’t get a lot of support on election day – the number of genuine undecideds would be very low at this point. The race is basically frozen – there hasn’t been much “tightening” and McCain has run out of time. The early voting advantage also means a smoother turnout the vote operation on the day itself, and all the evidence is that the Republicans’ much touted turnout advantage has been completely reversed. In fact, if you put together a lot of what we know about the lack of volunteers and enthusiasm in the GOP camp, this could be quite important.
In addition, the chance of dirty dealing on the results is lessened because a lot of the African-American vote has deliberately turned out early to minimise shenanigans and maximise the chance of votes being counted. So… that takes us to…
Why people are still saying the race could go either way… It’s partly the meejah trying to maintain interest, and partly both campaigns have an interest in making sure their voters think it’s important to turn out. And then there’s Republican denialism and their well known habit of assuming that you can create your own reality. And Democratic nerves.
States in play: Here’s the Kerry/Bush map from 2004 (courtesy of Wikipedia):
The latest polls have Obama ahead in all the Kerry states, and leading in the following Bush states – New Mexico, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Iowa. Outside chances are Georgia, North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia and McCain’s home state of Arizona. McCain appears to have a lot of eggs in the Pennsylvania basket, but it doesn’t look likely. The invaluable Nate Silver discusses possible McCain electoral math scenarios here, and the key states to watch here.
Update: Nate Silver sums up where the latest polling leaves the race:
Far more important, of course, is the race for 270 electors. It appears almost certain that Obama will capture all of the states won by John Kerry in 2008. Pennsylvania, while certainly having tightened somewhat over the course of the past two weeks, appears to be holding at a margin of about +8 for Obama, with very few remaining undecideds. Obama also appears almost certain to capture Iowa and New Mexico, which were won by Al Gore in 2000. Collectively, these states total 264 electoral votes, leaving Obama just 5 votes shy of a tie and 6 of a win.
Obama has any number of states to collect those 5 or 6 votes. In inverse order of difficulty, these include Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana. Obama is the signficant favorite in several of these states; winning any one of them may be fairly difficult for John McCain, but winning all of them at once, as John McCain probably must do, is nearly impossible.
Robert Corr has tweaked a map of poll closing times in the various states, adding Australian times to it as a guide for tomorrow, and Nate Silver has prepared an hour by hour guide of what to look for as the results come in.
Update: Related post: Election eve links.
Update: Howard Dean’s pollster at Salon on how to read the numbers.
Update: Related post: What to watch for in the Senate races.
Update: Nate Silver on ten reasons why you should ignore exit polls.
Just chiming in to say I’ve been following fivethirty eight and as a politics and maths nerd, I approve wholeheartedly.
As I understand it, if Obama loses Chicago wil be burnt to the ground. And if Obama wins, pretty much the same result again for Chicago.
My head is about to drown in electoral college maths. Every election of any kind I think I am over this election addiction I have, but it appears not. I think the current map on http://www.realclearpolitics.com is a good summation of the situation. Obama on 278 with all the tossup states taken out of the equation. That is 278 without Florida or Ohio. That is a pretty bloody strong base to be working off as this point.
I would definitely have the fivethirtyeight.com RSS feed set up for Wednesday!
Can you actually get CNN live on the ‘Net, I can’t seem to work it out. I may go spare if I don’t have some live feed! Would even take Fox News!
I think that Obama is building up a good base on which to be a two-term President. The Electoral College math is starting to work in the Democrats favour in a big way, as they have 89 votes in the bag (California and New York) while the only large state that is guaranteed Republican is Texas.
Moreover, this election is seeing the South start to swing in a big way as well as all of the Western states, making the Democrats less reliant upon the deindustrialising mid-west (Ohio and Pennsylvania) and the perennially difficult Florida. When I was in the US in April-June, the “50 state strategy” was bing derided as self indulgent, but there seems to have been something in it.
What is more, if the Republican respond by trying to shore up the small-town base, they risk a landslide in 2012 with population shifts to the large urban/suburban centres, as is happening in Virginia. Which way the Republican big-wigs go on the Sarah Palin question will strongly shape what happens in 2012.
And there’s the Senate races where the Dems are shooting for an unlikely but procedurally imporant goal of 60 seats. If the Presidential election turns into an East Coast blow out, you might want to get your fix of electoral suspense from some of these states: Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nth Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and Georgia. Georgia could get quite insane because if no one gets 50%, the top two got to a run-off in five(?) weeks, which could possibly be the battle for the 60th seat.
d
The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do state-by-state, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes– 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
What else to watch?
Results in so-called bellether counties: psephologically dubious, but a bit of fun. Vigo county in Indiana is the county that since 1960 has voted for every winner by the closest margin to the final national result.
Ballot measures: some more attempts by cultural coservatives to restricyt access to abortion and ban gay marriage in sevral states (some progressive measures up as well). Particularly significant measures in California which have the advantage of not being decided until hours after the presidential race will be called.
I’ve updated a map showing the poll closing times so that it will be useful for Aussie poll-watchers.
Poll junkies you can use my Delicious polls bookmarks if you wish.
It’s no longer a case of will Obama win but by how many EVs. Even Zogby has the battleground States Obama’s way today with a comfortable lead in the national vote.
Does anyone want to hazard a prediction of the popular vote? I predicted a DEM landslide (= 53%+) back in May 2008. That looks conservative now.
Most interesting is whether the DEM congressional vote will fall below the Obama presidential vote. THis has been my feeling ever since Oby got the DEM nomination.
I have always argued that OBama’s race is a net positive for him, as against the so-called “Bradley effect”. THere are more middle class white Americans attracted to his gentlemanly black persona than there are working class white Americans repelled by his radical black identity.
So there will be a strong “Sydney Poitier/Harry Belafonte/Morgan Freeman” vote for Obama come Wednesday.
Possibly reinforcing the Obama>DEM margin will be a slight countervailing tendency amongst electors to vote against the party of the President in the congressional elections. This so-called “see-saw effect” may slightly depress the DEM congressional vote. (One can perhaps see this see-saw effect in the tendency for AUS voters to vote against the HoR govt party in the SENATE and STATE elections.)
I predict (totally off the top of my head and on the basis of no research) that this moderating tactical voting tendency will be most evident in Purple (swing) and Red States.
Please, lets have some psephological predictions put out there for testing. Preferably quantitative or at least with a clearly defined sign.
Update: Nate Silver sums up where the latest polling leaves the race:
Robert Corr has tweaked a map of poll closing times in the various states, adding Australian times to it as a guide for tomorrow, and Nate Silver has prepared an hour by hour guide of what to look for as the results come in.
Update: Related post: Election eve links.
Thanks Robert for that map – and thanks all for your posts.
This election has me and the missus buzzed like no other! We’ll be at the ANU bar for the call – SBS is doing it from 2pm, but of course we’re hoping that the eastern states have already secured an Obama presidency and some Democratic senators by then.
Incidentally, I’ll have a post up tonight about the Senate.
Thank you.
jack strocchi wrote:
I predict Samuel L. Jackson will get the MELONFARMING SNAKES OFF THIS PLANE!
That is all.
Obama will win the presidency with the largest landslide in history. Then what does he do? Take the US off its perpetual war, imperial conquest, trajectory? I doubt it.
Set up the conditions for a 1934 style coup by the Military Industrial Complex if he attempts even modest reforms? Most likely.
The citizens of the US are addicted to imperial plunder. They know no other way.
Huggy
Look, I really want Obama to win for all sorts of reasons. But he will be constrained by what he can do. And he has said some very odd things about Russia and invading across other countries’ borders to get Ben Laden. So I do have some reservations. Not being an American.
Obama will win the presidency with the largest landslide in history.
No.
No? – Oh yes, forgot about Nixon in 1972 – hard to beat that record.
Huggy.
Also Roosevelt in 32 and 36 and Johnson in 68. Obama probably won’t get as many electoral votes as Eisenhower in 52 or 56. It’ll be more substantial victory territory than landslide. The last two elections were uncommonly close by normal US standards.
See also: Reagan 84
Obama’s ceiling kicks in at 390~ EV
If Obama does end up in the high 300s, it’ll prove a point about the cellphone effect on polling, and a few other “effects”!
Update: Howard Dean’s pollster at Salon on how to read the numbers.
Huggy,
was there a coup in the US in 1934? I don’t recall it. Expunged from the history books?? Shame!
Final Gallup poll has Obama leading 55:45.
Final Quinn-something state polls has Obama way ahead in Pennsylvania and Ohio but only just (2%) in Florida.
My prediction: huge Obama national vote combined with overwhelming but not as huge electoral college vote. Obama will crush McCain in the big population states like California, New York and Illinois, but that only gets you so many electoral votes.
It’s sometimes the case that Republicans win virtually every state. But that is never true for the Democrats. Even Johnson in ‘64 who got 61% of the national vote, lost 5 or 6 states in the south.
It did not eventuate but was reported in 1934 to US Congress by Gen. Smedley Butler who claimed that he had been approached to lead a coup against the government by a group of wealthy and influential individuals.
It’s hard to beat the landslide vistories of the 1st or 5th POTII but I guess you’re talking more recently than that.
Spiros, it used to be possible for the Democrats to win big all over the map when the Solid South was still solid – before civil rights became an issue, in other words.
As in FDR’s second landslide in 36 – 46 states to 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1936
What’s interesting in this race, of course, is that states in the South are in play again (as they were with Clinton). And the GOP will, of course, retain territory outside the South.
I think!
Update: Related post: What to watch for in the Senate races.
“What’s interesting in this race, of course, is that states in the South are in play again”
Actually, surprisingly few are in play.
Obama may well win Virginia (thanks to newcomers who work in Washinhton DC settling in northern Virginia), Florida and maybe but probably not North Carolina.
On the other hand, Obama will come nowhere near winning Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, all states won by Clinton.
And then there’s West Virginia, which is culturally if not geographically part of the South. Evem Michael Dukakis won West Virginia, but Obama will not.
The Deep South of course is a lost cause. Alabama and Mississippi haven’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election, other than Carter in 1976, since Roosevelt.
I wouldn’t count Georgia out.
And no one really knows how an increased turnout will play out in some of the Southern states.
Update: Some interesting links from Xeni at Boing Boing, including an election FAQ.
James Ridgeway at Comment is Free looks at the structural barriers to change Obama will face (including those within the Democratic party).
Ambigulous
Try:http://american_almanac.tripod.com/morgan4.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
A General called Smedley Butler was supposed to lead the army in revolt against FDR.
Instead he blew the whistle. Took much effort to cover it all up.
Huggy
Chris Mayer – try http://www.freeetv.com for CNN streaming.
Kim – forgive if you’ve discussed this already this time round- but why the hell isn’t there a popular revolt over the voting queues? It’s a worse joke than I had imagined.
Ambigulous; From http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2004/04/ftr-448-coup-attempt-of-1934.html
A rather neat summary of the events around 1934.
You only get one guess at the name of one conspirator; his name began with B – rhymes with push.
In observation of the 70th anniversary of the event, this program recounts the 1934 fascist coup attempt in the United States. Appalled at President Roosevelt’s New Deal, powerful industrialists and financiers grouped around the Morgan industrial and financial interests attempted to recruit World War I veterans into an army of insurrection. The goal of the conspirators was the overthrow of American democracy and the institution of a fascist government. Because they selected Marine Corps general Smedley Buter to lead the coup, the attempt was foiled. Although a critic of Roosevelt, Butler (a two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor) betrayed the coup plotters to the President. Following a badly attenuated Congressional investigation by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, the matter was laid to rest. It is worth noting that proof of the plot was concrete and well-documented, but none of the plotters was imprisoned, because the conspirators were among the most powerful and prestigious industrial and financial magnates in the country.
Have you been watching the 04 doc on SBS, wbb?
Yes, it’s a disgrace. Particularly the difference in resources in many places between upscale and downscale precincts (others might say white and black). In a way, the 30% early voting speaks volumes about what people think. But this is one of the big things about US politics generally – it’s freaking unresponsive to popular opinion. That’s one of the reasons why the Obama change message has been so powerful, because a lot of people really are fed up.
Update: Nate Silver on ten reasons why you should ignore exit polls.
I suppose we could add Ford and Rouge river, the “Dust Bowl”, the “Strange Fruit” dangling enmasse of trees and lamposts in the Deep South and remark that today’s “reaction”
is but a pale imitation of a horribly violent and subsequently botoxed historical period.
America learned to offshore its poverty to the third world, so in the significant sense nothing has changed, of course, except that America ( Australia included )has become a giant middle class suburb ( compared to the Third World ) and the violence happens elsewhere.
Bin watching so much USA TV lately that I probably have. I’ts all bit of a blur round about now though.
NYT has a go at a solution above. Not one that might come to mind in this country however.
Still, it’s the thought that counts.