This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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The pollsters are ramping up their activities. Since my update yesterday, there were new polls in 14 states. In several of those states there were multiple polls. I may have to reevaluate what time of day I usually do these updates to be sure I actually have time to do them each day. In any case…
Of those 14 states, only 2 states actually changed categories, and both showed movement toward McCain.
North Carolina (15 ev): North Carolina had been one of those states where Obama had been hoping to break into traditional “red” territory. Obama had never taken the lead in North Carolina, but at one point he had narrowed McCain’s lead to less than 1%. No more. Recent polls have shown large McCain leads. With three new polls today, and two earlier in the week, the five poll average now shows McCain leading by more than 5% (in fact, almost 10%). This takes North Carolina out of “Lean McCain” and into “Weak McCain” with momentum toward going even further. This takes North Carolina out of play for Obama and yet again diminishes his hopes for “expanding the Democratic map” and moves him more toward trying to hold Kerry states and battling in the “traditional” swing states like Ohio.
Georgia (15 ev): Georgia is another state that at one point Obama had hoped to flip, or at least force McCain into needing to expend resources there to hold it. Despite putting in a lot of resources here, he never really got very far. My five point average never showed McCain ahead by less than 5%. So Georgia has always been a “red state” and never slipped into being a swing state. But now McCain’s position has been consolidated. In today’s update, McCain’s lead in Georgia moves over 10%, moving Georgia from “Weak McCain” to “Strong McCain”. This is far enough away from being a swing state, that Obama probably shouldn’t even waste any more effort here.
New Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 324, Obama 214
Obama Best Case – Obama 366, McCain 172
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 273, McCain 265
So for now, McCain’s momentum continues.
If this happens, do you think it will be the same people complaining that complained in 2000 when it happened, or will everybody suddenly and magically have exactly the opposite positions that they had in 2000? Huh? I think you know the answer.
Today’s Polls: Palin’s A Hit Everywhere — But The Electoral College
(Nate Silver, The Plank, 11 Sep 2008)
An avalanche of polling today, but a consistent theme emerges:
And what is that theme? Well, it’s that the popular vote and the Electoral College are significantly diverging. Although the Republicans seem to be polling stronger than they were in the pre-convention period almost everywhere, the differences are much larger in traditionally red states, particularly in the South and the rural West (Colorado and Nevada, by the way, are not rural states). Basically, I think the Republicans are getting the evangelical vote, and a significant fraction of the Perot vote.
Unfortunately, these are not particularly useful votes for them to have in terms of the electoral math.
…
McCain’s gain in our popular vote projection has been 2.1 points. Note, however, that his gains have been less than that in essentially all of the most important swing states, including Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Only Virginia is on the other side of the line, and then only barely so.
As a result of all this, the Electoral College remains too close to call, even though McCain has a 1-2 point advantage in the popular vote. Obama now has an 8.4 percent chance of winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, which is far and away the highest that this number has been all year. And that number may get larger rather than smaller, once polling filters in from other red states like Texas, Nebraska and South Carolina. Palin may have been a brilliant VP selection — I think even Palinophobes like me have to concede that right now McCain’s looking pretty savvy — but some of that sheen is taken off by her somewhat lackluster effect on the Electoral College.
As for me, I am a strong supporter of the electoral college concept, think it is far superior for a popular vote based system, and will not bitch about about how the electoral college is bad if the candidate I support wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college. Because it is not about the popular vote, it has never been about the popular vote, and even more so, it SHOULD NOT be about the popular vote. And every candidate knows the rules going in.
I note that despite the above, my analysis does show a decent bounce for McCain, even in the state by state view. At least so far. But Silver’s analysis, which is presented in full at fivethirtyeight.com is considerably more detailed and involved than my own. I’m not entirely sure about some of the adjustments he makes in his models, and I think there is much to say for the simplicty of the way I map the race, but there is no question the 528 analysis is much more detailed and there is a lot more to dig into. And the section where he lays out odds for this sort of scenario are one of those benefits.
Another scary one of his stats… the odds of at least one decisive state being close enough that a recount would be required that would have the potential of changing the results of the election… 8%.
This is my two thousandth post on this blog. The first post was just an automated test post that was created when the blog was, but it was first damn it, so it counts. That post was at 00:23 UTC on 12 Jul 2003. I started this post at 03:37 UTC on 12 Sep 2008. The time between the two posts was 1889 days, 3 hours and 14 minutes. So my average time between posts has been… 22 hours, 40 minutes and 51 seconds.
When I reached 1000 Posts on 13 Jan 2007 my average had been one post every 30 hours, 46 minutes and 37 seconds. So, in addition to the fact that it took 1281 days for my first 1000 posts and only 608 for my second thousand, it looks pretty clear that I’ve sped up a bit. For this second thousand I’ve averaged more like a post every 14 hours and 36 minutes.
Go me!
I’ve been mostly ignoring Ike, but now that there is about a 40% chance of Hurricane force winds in Houston, and an over 90% chance of tropical storm force winds, guess it is time to pay a little more attention. It is due to come ashore in just about 24 hours.
The state by state polls continue to come in and as they do so they continue to confirm a big move in McCain’s direction over the last few weeks. Today there are three states full of bad news for Obama. Once again in order of electoral college strength:
Pennsylvania (21 ev): Obama’s lead falls to less than 5% moving the state from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama”. With a lead this small, Pennsylvania should now be considered too close to call. It is now a swing state, and is within possible reach for McCain. Given the 21 electoral votes in Pennsylvania, this is a big deal. The only swing state with more electoral votes is Florida.
New Mexico (5 ev): As in Pennsylvania, Obama’s lead falls to less than 5%, moving New Mexico into the swing state category. At only 5 electoral votes, this is less important than Pennsylvania, but given that Obama was hoping to make some inroads in the West, it shows problems in Obama’s hopes to make “map changing” happen this cycle.
Alaska (3 ev): The Palin effect continues. One week ago Alaska moved from “Lean McCain” to “Weak McCain”. Today the five poll average pushes McCain’s lead in Alaska over 10% and moves the state to “Strong McCain”. Before Palin, Obama had hoped to perhaps actually make Alaska competitive. When Palin was added, any hope of that essentially dissipated overnight. It has just taken a couple of weeks for new polls to push old pre-Palin polls out of the average and show this new dynamic.
New Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 324, Obama 214
Obama Best Case – Obama 381, McCain 157
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 273, McCain 265
The trend over the last week has been very strongly toward McCain. Obama is now in the weakest position he has been in since late May. And things seems to have returned to the mode of late July and early August, where McCain is defining the agenda and the debate, and the Obama campaign is simply reacting and defending instead of pushing their own vision and direction.
Is this just a convention bounce for McCain which was large enough to completely overwhelm Obama’s earlier bounce? Convention bounces usually last about two weeks in the national polls. It may take three weeks to see the effect in state polls. So it will take a few weeks yet to see if the gains of the last week are temporary due to the convention, or if they represent the true new state of the race. Of course, given how little time is left until the election, two or three weeks is forever.
For the moment though, while the overall situation still slightly favors Obama, all the momentum is in McCain’s direction. McCain just needs to flip one more of Obama’s leaning states (currently Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire) to take the lead in the “if everybody gets all states they are even slightly ahead in” count. At the moment, New Hampshire is the most vulnerable of that group, with Obama only having a 1.4% lead in the five poll average. An interesting note there. If New Hampshire flips and everything else stays the same, then McCain wouldn’t actually take the lead in that count. We’d have a 269-269 electoral tie. (If any of the others flipped, McCain would have a clear lead.)
To folks who schedule meetings for a time two hours before I normally come into the office, causing me to get up way early in the morning so I could finish my morning election updates in time to catch a really quick shower, then rush through traffic that is heavier than at the time of day I usually go to work, meaning I had less time than I thought I had, so that when I finally got to the parking garage I had to almost run the couple blocks to the building to try to be only a couple of minutes late, only to find out in the elevator on the way up when I checked my iPhone to be sure of the room, that the meeting had just minutes earlier been moved to Friday afternoon… to folks who do that… please don’t.
Oh well, I’m now at work two hours earlier than normal, so once I get myself from this building to the building I normally work in, I’ll have some extra time to catch up on things, which is always good.
But still…
Because there were almost new state polls during the two weeks of the conventions, it was not really possible to see separate bounces from the two conventions. Right before the conventions, Obama managed to reverse some of the momentum McCain had in late July and early August. Now that the conventions are over, we are getting bunches of state polls again, now looking at the state of the race after both VP choices and both conventions.
Today the news is all bad for Obama. In order of electoral college votes, here are the states that change category in today’s updates:
Ohio (20 ev): I am half tempted to not even report when “leaning” states flip from one side of the fence to the other. Either way, the real way to look at it is that the state is too close to call. The moving back and forth on who is slightly in the lead is probably just random. In this case, we go from Obama being ahead by 0.2% in my five poll average, to McCain being ahead by 0.2% in the five poll average. Either way, it is a tie race. But it gives McCain bragging rights to put Ohio in the “if everybody gets their leans” category.
Michigan (17 ev): Of the changes today, this is actually probably the most significant. Obama’s lead in Michigan drops (once again) to less than 5%, thus moving the state back from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama” and bringing the state into the inventory of swing states that could easily go either way. With McCain having a shot in Michigan, it opens up the range of possible ways for him to win significantly. Instead of having to sweep seven swing states to find a path to victory, if he can bring Michigan into play, he gets a situation where the only “Must Win” state is Florida.
Virginia (13 ev): This is another one where there really isn’t a significant change other than bragging rights to the current lead. Virginia goes from Obama being ahead by 0.2%, to McCain being ahead by 0.2%. In reality, this is just too close to call. As I keep saying, all of the swing states should really be considered too close to call… even the ones where one candidate is ahead by 4.9%. But in the cases of Ohio and Virginia, we really are just bouncing around the “completely dead even” line.
Washington (11 ev): As happened with several states in August, the five poll average in Washington now drops below a 10% lead for Obama. So the state moves from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”. Still quite a way from becoming a swing state, but it shows overall weakening, even in states that should be completely secure for Obama.
Given all of the above, the overall summary of the race changes a decent bit:
New Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 298, Obama 240
Obama Best Case – Obama 381, McCain 157
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 273, McCain 265
That last set of numbers, with everybody getting every state they are even slightly ahead in, is once again looking like an incredibly close race. One that could easily come down to very close results in one or two states.
I also note that although no category changes happened, new polls showed Obama weakening in Pennsylvania and Colorado as well. This was not a good poll day for Obama. The only bright spot for Obama was a very slight improvement in Florida.
Over all though, it looks like in the immediate aftermath of the conventions, McCain has undone Obama’s “pre-bounce bounce” and we’re in approximately the same place we were around August 22nd… which is an Obama advantage, with Obama only a couple of states away from the win when you give him all the states where he is ahead by more than 5%… but with McCain with the apparent edge in most of the swing states… enough to bring him right up to the edge of winning (but not quite) if he got all the states he is ahead in.
Wow. I just went to the Sitemeter Who’s On page for my site. It will be different by the time anybody seeing this post clicks on it, but it is now showing 25 visitors on right now. (Sitemeter defines “right now” as within the last 30 minutes.)
That is the highest I’ve ever seen it by far. Prior to this year I’d be lucky to see one or two people at a time on there, and there were often zero. Recently, having 5 to 10 has been common. But 25. Woo!
Almost all of that traffic has been going to the Electoral College Prediction page. Traffic to that page (and some excess which spills over to the rest of my site) has just been going up and up and up. I suppose there is a chance the trend will continue up until the election… then crash back down to zero. :-)
 Sam and Ivan talk about:
- Fannie and Freddie
- Here Comes Ike
- Misleading Rumors
- Governor Palin
- Bounces
- Convention Roundup
- Rove Strategy
- Small Expenses
- Jobs and Recession
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So, I took most of two weeks off. Well, sort of. I consider the two weeks to have been 23 Aug to 5 Sep. In a “normal” two weeks, for the sake of argument, I would have worked 80 hours. There was an actual national holiday during those two weeks, so lets call that 72. But I wasn’t really completely off. I went in a few times, I did some conference calls, I checked in on email a few times. Added up, those things end up being approximately 24 hours of work during that time. So really, I was sort of 2/3 on vacation. Out of 9 work days, I worked 3 and vacationed 6. They just were not actually divided up quite that cleanly.
So there were several purposes to the vacation. One was of course just relaxing. Did that. One was watching the conventions. I did a lot of that, but not as much as I wanted to or I should have. Also, I watched too much on news channels, and not enough on C-Span. Finally thought, I wanted to spend a lot of time on some of the personal projects I’ve let myself fall behind on over the last year. (I’ve allowed election stuff to occupy a large chunk of the time I would otherwise spend on such things.)
I had split those projects I wanted to spend time on into five categories: Quicken, Old Email, Genealogy, Reading, and “To Do”. To Do included a bunch of other projects of various sorts and sizes.
Over the course of my time off, whenever I was ready to sit down and work on stuff, I’d pick one of those five randomly (at first using random.org and later using MachDice on my iPhone). I did use the further restriction that I could not work on the same category twice in a row, so really each time I was choosing from four possibilities. Once the random item was selected I would set a timer and work on that item for one hour.
So, in the last two weeks, these are the totals:
- Quicken: 5 hours
- Old Email: 2 hours
- Genealogy: 4 hours
- Reading: 1 hour
- To Do: 7 hours
That gives a total of 19 hours.
So I still did more work for work than on my home stuff, even on the vacation intended to work on home stuff. Sigh. Next time I try this, it will have to really be a contiguous bit of time with no work, rather than no work interspersed with bits of work. That didn’t work too well, because it takes me awhile to switch mindsets.
Of course, I did do the other stuff. I relaxed, I went to Bumbershoot, I was there to take Amy to her first day of school and pick her up again, I watched a lot of political coverage, etc.
And yes, I did do a lot more of those other tasks than I would have otherwise. So that is all good I guess.
And I think I will keep the five categories and the dice roll to pick between them for awhile. And maybe try to make sure I do at least two of them per evening or something, and more on weekends.
Of course, my average for the two weeks I was “on vacation” was just 1.36 hours per day. So maybe targeting two hours a day when I’m not on vacation is overly ambitious. Maybe I should start with seeing if I can reliably do 1 hour a day.
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