- Reading – U.N. Proposals To Regulate Internet Are 'Troubling,' Leaked Documents Reveal (Carl Franzen) http://t.co/usflsuay #
- Reading – The Vulnerabilities Market and the Future of Security (Bruce Schneier) http://t.co/8JoheeDs #
- Reading – There’s a new winner of the Iowa Caucus and it’s Ron Paul (Doug Wead) http://t.co/ffrKvyGw #
- Reading – Obama energizes Latino vote (Edward-Isaac Dovere and Darren Samuelsohn) http://t.co/JGDc5Ue4 #
- Reading – Researchers Whose Work Was Cited to Justify Bloomberg’s Large Soda Ban Explain Why it Won’t Work (Ilya Somin) http://t.co/qxk4esBA #
- Reading – U.N. Suspends Syria Mission, Citing Increase in Violence (David D. Kirkpatrick and David E. Sanger) http://t.co/J8krQwNC #
- Reading – Train Engineer Adopts Owl from Track (Neatorama) http://t.co/XvdbcUZy #
- Reading – Watergate at 40: So many 'what ifs' (Mark S. Smith) http://t.co/j0mp4Tpn #
- Reading – Health reform without a mandate: Lessons from Washington state (Sarah Kliff) http://t.co/POhHbttv #
- Reading – Inside Google's Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever (Alexis Madrigal) http://t.co/q5KUoF16 #
- Reading – Is the secret war in Yemen and Somalia secret no longer? (Chris Woods) http://t.co/LYFDYW0M #
- Reading – Romney: Being Vague About My Plans Helps Me Get Elected (Charles Johnson) http://t.co/xdVkVVrt #
- Reading – Obama on the Economy (Matthew Yglesias) http://t.co/pVslQaRr #
- Reading – Al Qaeda’s best friend (Glenn Greenwald) http://t.co/52e9jXIj #
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Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. The first chart is the % of delegates the candidate has collected, the second is the number of delegates. These numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. Not that it matters at this point, but as the final results from Iowa came in this weekend, the results for Ron Paul were more favorable than the original estimates, so he gained delegates in my count, and the others lost delegates. The result is that Ron Paul has now passed Newt Gingrich for third place. (I use the Green Papers Soft Count, plus the DCW super delegate count in places where Green Papers hasn’t included them). This of course doesn’t change the end results here at all. Romney is the nominee. It does however show once again how the final results in caucus states can be dramatically different from the “estimated” results based on the popular vote in caucus states. In the case of Iowa, the initial estimate was Romney 6, Santorum 6, Paul 6, Gingrich 4. As of right now we have Paul 21, TBD 7. Quite a bit different. There are a lot of people who argue that because of these sorts of things, one should only look at the “hard” count of delegates actually already fully allocated and bound rather than trying to estimate caucus states at all in the early stages or the way some officially uncommitted delegates will go. I still think there is some value in doing those estimates, but one must be very aware of the limits of those estimates. For reference, my current overall count is this: Romney 1459, Santorum 257, Paul 152, Gingrich 142, Bachmann 1, TBD 275 Green Papers “Hard” Count has the following: Romney 1329, Santorum 251, Gingrich 143, Paul 98, Huntsman 2, Bachmann 1, TBD 462 A little different. Either way though, Romney wins. :-) Update 2012 Jun 17 23:36 UTC: Made my format for delegate counts consistant. Update 2012 Jun 18 18:38 UTC: Minor wording fix.
Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate. Both show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney. So, um, the change from yesterday, I guess, well, never mind:
So, yesterday a new poll pulled Obama’s lead in the five poll average in Michigan under 5%. Today another new poll pulls that lead back up over 5% again. Easy come, easy go I guess. This takes Michigan once again out of the set of states we consider going both ways in our models.
So, we can, for the moment anyway, just take everything I said yesterday about momentum in Romney’s direction, and say “OK, maybe not so much after all”. Romney’s best case is now back in the range it has been ever since the end of February, with relatively narrow paths to victory. Maybe we’ll see a more permanent move in that direction soon… but not yet. Meanwhile, one final correction due to the data from a spreadsheet provided by Darryl at HorsesAss. With more precise information from a poll back in February, one of Wisconsin’s transitions, from Weak Obama to Strong Obama, moves from March 30th to March 31st. The rest of Wisconsin’s history stays the same (it has moved around several times), as does the current situation as a “Weak Obama” state where Obama leads by between 5% and 10%. This only affects the older part of the historical chart. That chart is adjusted starting with today’s update.
Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate. Both show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney. One state changing status today, and it is a big one heading in Romney’s direction…
So Michigan, where as recently as the end of May, Obama’s lead in the five poll average had been more than 10%, is now too close to call as Obama’s lead falls below 5%. The state is still leaning Obama, but with the five poll average at an Obama lead of only 4.8%, that lead could disappear overnight with the right combination of events. This change in Michigan has been very dramatic. In fact, the rapidity with which Obama’s lead in Michigan collapsed should be a reminder than things can and do sometimes change quickly. It is tempting to say in retrospect that the two polls in February showing Obama with 15%+ leads in February may have been outliers… without them the drop would look less dramatic, but still… with sparse polling it is hard to distinguish outlier polls from actual movements in opinion. And there were two of them, not just one. These could have been outliers, but in February Romney was getting beaten up in Michigan by Santorum, so a decline in his support at that time also seems reasonable. In either case, the most recent five polls show a close race, slightly in Obama’s favor, so Michigan is once again a swing state in our model. This improves Romney’s “best case” where we have him winning all of the states that are currently “close”:
At this point Romney’s best case gives him 28 more electoral votes than is needed to tie. This makes Florida the only “must win” state. Romney can now afford to lose any one of the other close states, or multiple of the smaller close states. He has many more paths to victory than he had a few weeks ago. Romney’s “Best Case” line is now better than it has been since February. It finally looks like Romney may have put most of the damage caused by the primary season behind him, and is now pulling things his direction… moving this in the direction of actually becoming a competitive race. Romney’s best case still isn’t back where it was in January, but it it certainly looks a lot better for him than it did in April and May, at least in terms of his best case. Now, the “everybody wins every state they are even slightly ahead in” line still shows a pretty clear Obama victory. But in order to bring states onto your side of that line, you first have to bring down Obama’s lead in those states… and that is exactly what has been happening. Romney is pulling states that looked pretty safe for Obama and starting to make them competitive. If the trend continues, he will start to pull into the lead in some of those… and maybe take some that look competitive now and make them start looking like safe Romney states. It has also been a bad couple weeks for Obama in the news cycle of course. It is also possible recent events will blow over and Obama will pull some of these states back in his direction. Stay tuned.
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