Larvatus Prodeo

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.