The Liberal Crab’s Poll of “Poll of Polls” – 03 November 2008

Popular Vote

Obama – 51.5% +6.8%

McCain – 44.7%

Electoral College

Obama – 347

McCain – 191

 

Well here we are, the eve of the election and the final Poll of “Poll of Polls”.  The final popular vote total is 51.5% for Obama and 44.7% for McCain, giving Obama a 6.8% poll lead going into the election tomorrow. Oddly, after analyzing the remaining undecideds and adding the Barr/Nadar/Paul third party factor, my final prediction is – 51.5% Obama, 44.6% McCain, 3.9% third parties.  Am I saying the remaining ‘undecideds’ in my poll are actually voting third party?  No.  I actually gave McCain 62% of the 3.9% of undecideds, based on his performance with them in recent days.  However, he is impacted by about 1% more by the third party candidates based on my analysis of 2-way and 3-way polls.  As a result, the final prediction matches the final Poll of “Poll of Polls”.

There was some odd things going on with the national tracking polls.  Despite the pretty radical differences in each of them over the last few days, they all ended up centering between 5-9 points.  There are some games the pollsters can play to make the results trend to the mean such as changing party ID.  However, the important point is that the pollsters who have a stronger reputation – Rasmussen and Gallup, utilizing their ‘traditional’ belief in who makes up a likey voter still has Obama with a comfortable 5-6 point lead (and some even larger).

As the National vote was tightening, the state polls were increasing their margin for Obama.  Now that the national polls have been increasing their advantage for Obama, ironically we see a tightening at the state level.  While the idea of a lag has been widely discounted, even here, since the polls are coming out more frequently, the fact is that poll trends (which is what the other aggregators use) are based on the current polls as well as some of the older polls.  In effect, there is still some lag.  Since the national polls have only helped increase Obama’s lead over the last three or four days, it’s conceivable the minor tightening is a result of the slight lag.  What would that mean for Election Day?  It probably means Obama’s state leads are a bit larger than being projected.  The aggregators have a mean in their evaluation of 347 Electoral Votes.  Based on the latest national polls, I suspect their adjusted estimate (if given 2-3 more days) would be back in the 355-360 range.  Based on the latest polls and my analysis, my final prediction is Obama 302 and McCain 236.  My map is as follows:

My analysis was based on several factors.  First, the latest polling trends.  Second, only including pollsters with good reputations.  Third, past voting trends in the state.  Fourth, level of support for the candidate above/below 50%.  Fifth, a general thought on the GOTV efforts in the state.  Florida has been trending back to McCain.  Ohio was on the edge.  It’s been trending back, slightly to Obama.  It’s close enough that if there is any impact from Palin’s ‘coal’ comments today, I could see that pushing it over to McCain.  Regardless, it’s within the margin of error and a state the Democrats have previously lost twice.  Missouri is close, but the GOTV efforts by Obama, I think, will make a considerable difference for Obama.  Colorado and Nevada show strong trends toward Obama.  Virginia appears to have stabilized out at about 4-5 points. Obama should be able to hold that lead.

More to come about what to look for tomorrow, as well as additional analysis.

My analysis looked at se

Wow – Am I a Seer? (tooting my own horn part II)

I wrote an article on 13 September that was representative of an article that would be written after the election – November 5th.  I knew the article was holding strong, but I didn’t realize how accurate it still was. Here are some points from the article (written when Obama was down in the polls and sniping had begun):

1) Obama would not get in the mud with McCain, he’d continue to stay on message

2) Focus would be soley on the economy (this was before the collapse)

3) Palin’s star would fall but the GOP would continue to focus on her as the hope

4) Collin Powell would be a supporter of Obama

5) Obama stayed cool and collected and didn’t rush to being ‘erratic’ when things weren’t looking so good

6) Palin would hold her own in the VP debate

The only thing I was really off was maybe Obama was a little stronger in the debates and I mentioned one Palin gaffe – rather than a whole host of them.

Anyway, interesting read:

https://theliberalcrab.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/obama-wins-looking-into-the-future-at-an-article-from-november-5th-2008/

I also predicted the election wouldn’t be as close as initially expected.  Who knows if that will be true. But six weeks ago, I didn’t hear anyone saying that and today, Obama stands with a 7-10% lead and potentially up to 400 Electoral Votes.  Hmm, I may be right again.