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The Vote-Share at the Iowa Electronic Market for Election Day has tightened a wee bit

Obama 53.3
McCain 46.0

From what I understand about the history of the IEM, this is nothing unusual. As Election Day nears, the vote-share and national polling come closer together - the question is which damn national poll do you trust? ;)
 
50/50? Not seeing that at all. Obama's RCP average is still 5.9, and the latest state polling is dismal for Mccain:

Virginia:
Ohio: Obama up 7,9,4,9,4,5
Florida: Obama up 7,4,5,2,2, tie
Penn: Obama up 7,9,12,12,13
Virginia: Obama up 4,9,7,7,9,8

And that's the most recent numbers. Add to all the polling Obama's huge advantage in money, advertising, and GOTV operations.

If Mccain can't pick off Pennsylvania (which is looking like an impossibility), he can't afford to lose any of those. The RNC is advertising in Montana, of all places. 538 has Mccain's chances at less than 4%.
 
David Wong said:
I think it's now 50/50 that McCain will win this thing
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I think this is hysteria.

edit: McCain is playing defense everywhere. He's going on offense only in PA, where Obama has held a double-digit margin for most of October.

Obama's ground game, by all observers' accounts, is vastly superior. I give McCain a 10% chance at the most.
 
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Latest Bush State polls out over past three days ...

Colorado (9)
October 29 - Associated Press/GfK: Obama by 9 (50%-41%)
October 28 - Politico/InAdv: Obama by 8 (53%-45%)
October 27 - FOX News/Rasmussen: Obama by 4 (50%-46%)

Florida (27)
October 29 - Associated Press/GfK: Obama by 2 (45%-43%)
October 29 - Quinnipiac: Obama by 2 (47%-45%)
October 28 - LA Times/Bloomberg: Obama by 7 (50%-43%)
October 27 - FOX News/Rasmussen: Obama by 4 (51%-47%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: Tied (47%-47%)
October 27 - Suffolk: Obama by 5 (49%-44%)

Indiana (11)
October 28 - Research 2000: Obama by 1 (48%-47%)
October 28 - Howey-Gauge: McCain by 2 (47%-45%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: McCain by 6 (50%-44%)

Missouri (11)
October 27 - FOX News/Rasmussen: Obama by 1 (48%-47%)
October 27 - SurveyUSA: Tied (48%-48%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: Obama by 2 (48%-46%)

Montana (3)
October 28 - NBC/Mason-Dixon: McCain by 4 (48%-44%)

Nevada (5)
October 29 - Associated Press/GfK: Obama by 12 (52%-40%)
October 28 - Rasmussen: Obama by 4 (50%-46%)
October 28 - Suffolk: Obama by 10 (50%-40%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: Obama by 4 (48%-44%)

North Carolina (15)
October 29 - Associated Press/GfK: Obama by 2 (48%-46%)
October 27 - FOX News/Rasmussen: McCain by 1 (49%-48%)
October 27 - PPP (D): Obama by 1 (49%-48%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: Obama by 4 (50%-46%)

North Dakota (3)

Ohio (20)
October 29 - Associated Press/GfK: Obama by 7 (48%-41%)
October 29 - Quinnipiac: Obama by 9 (51%-42%)
October 29 - Marist: Obama by 3 (48%-45%)
October 28 - SurveyUSA: Obama by 4 (49%-45%)
October 28 - LA Times/Bloomberg: Obama by 9 (49%-40%)
October 27 - FOX News/Rasmussen: Obama by 4 (49%-45%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: Obama by 5 (50%-45%)

Virginia (13)
October 29 - Associated Press/GfK: Obama by 7 (49%-42%)
October 28 - Roanoke College: Obama by 9 (48%-39%)
October 27 - FOX News/Rasmussen: Obama by 4 (51%-47%)
October 27 - SurveyUSA: Obama by 9 (52%-43%)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: Obama by 7 (52%-45%)
October 27 - Washington Post: Obama by 8 (52%-44%)
October 27 - VCU: Obama by 11 (51%-40%)

West Virginia (5)
October 27 - Reuters/Zogby: McCain by 10 (50%-40%)


Obama still has a lock on the Kerry States giving him 252 electoral votes to start with. He has a lock on 2 Bush States (Iowa-7 and New Mexico-5) giving him a total of 264 votes. Obama only needs 5 more electoral votes from any of the Bush States listed above to reach 269 (an electoral tie which gives Obama the win).
 
varwoche said:
It's hard to square the state numbers with the narrowing national numbers. What, is McCain opening up an even more massive lead in Oklahoma or something? :)
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The scary thing is that the tracking polls are a little closer to real-time than the state polls. So they could, theoretically, be revealing a nationwide drift toward McCain that hasn't yet shown up in the state polls. At least that's what the McCain campaign is hoping for. If such a drift did occur, it could change a lot of what appeared to be solid blue states to light blue, light blue to pink, etc., en masse.

That said, it could also just be statistical noise. I'd still much rather be Obama today than McCain.
 
varwoche said:
It's hard to square the state numbers with the narrowing national numbers. What, is McCain opening up an even more massive lead in Oklahoma or something? :)
Click to expand...


I think the national polls have narrowed some as undecideds have made up their minds, but most of what we're seeing appears to be just noise.

The national tracking polls out in the past 24 hours ...

Rasmussen - Obama by 3
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby - Obama by 5
GWU/Battleground - Obama by 3
Gallup (Traditional) - Obama by 3
Gallup (Expanded) - Obama by 7
Diageo/Hotline - Obama by 7
ABC News/Wash Post - Obama by 7
IBD/TIPP - Obama by 4


A few other national polls out in the past 24 hours ...

Pew Research - Obama by 15
Ipsos/McClatchy - Obama by 5


What I see in the numbers is Obama with 49%-52% of the vote, and McCain with 44%-47%. I still see Obama leading by 4-5 points nationally just as I have for the past month. TIPP had the lead down to about 2 just a few days ago, and now it is back to 4 in their poll. This time, it happens to be Rasmussen that has it closer, but Obama is still at 50% even with their poll today. When a majority of these polls start showing 2-3 point leads for Obama, then I'll consider this race basically tied.

For now, overall it's basically the same results we've seen for some time now.

As for Pew's 15 point lead, I'm not sure what to make of it. They were one of the most accurate polling organizations at the wire in 2004. Rasmussen was the other.
 
There's a very interesting chart today on electoral-vote.com. ("Today" is October 29. If you're looking at it on any other day, you'll have to click on "previous report" until you get back to 10/29.)

About halfway down the page, under "Comparison of 2004 and 2008" it gives a state-by-state rundown of the polling seven days out from the '04 and '08 elections. Basically, very few states showed changes from the seven-day projections.

In 46 states plus D.C. the candidate leading in the polls a week before the election did, in fact, carry the state.
Click to expand...

And in most cases, the final percentages were pretty close to the seven-days-earlier polls.

The chart also gives a good look at how far we've come the relative strengths of the Democratic and Republican candidates for the two elections.
 
Youth vote coming in way under expectations so far:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/33494194.html

The polls that are discounting the youth vote were right all along. They're doing what they always do: talk very loudly about the change candidate, then stay home when it comes time to vote.

Don't know if that'll be enough to turn it to McCain or not. His problem is states like Virginia and Colorado that now seem too far out of reach even for a last-second surge.
 
Frankly, I think it is too soon to tell about the Youth vote. We have nearly a freaking week to go.
I really,really, think some journalist are streaching to find things to write about.
 
ABCNews reports:
The latest Quinnipiac University survey showed Obama with a nine-point point lead, 51-42, over his Republican rival nationally.
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That one hasn't made it to RCP yet.
 
David Wong said:
Youth vote coming in way under expectations so far:
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Lots of issues here:

A) It's one state - Nevada
B) It compares youth turnout to the state average, but does not compare it to youth turnout in previous elections, thus not actually answering the question of whether youth turnout is, in fact, at record levels.
C) There's is no comparison to polling models of "expected" youth turn-out, so there is no way to assess if expectations are not being met.
C) Turnout remains incomplete, as the election is ongoing.
 
One think I will be interesting in seeing after the election is what percentage of people in the states with early voting waited for election day to vote. I have no option, but I admit going to the polls on electioin day give me a sort of glow in having done my civic duty and I have a feeling I am not alone. I am not against early voting , but I prefer to get that glow.
 
David Wong said:
Youth vote coming in way under expectations so far:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/33494194.html

The polls that are discounting the youth vote were right all along. They're doing what they always do: talk very loudly about the change candidate, then stay home when it comes time to vote.

Don't know if that'll be enough to turn it to McCain or not. His problem is states like Virginia and Colorado that now seem too far out of reach even for a last-second surge.
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That's an article about Nevada. Anyway, you seemed to have missed this part:

In the urban counties, Democrats continue to turn out at higher rates than Republicans. In Clark County, 54 percent of those who voted through Monday were Democrats, 29 percent Republicans. In Washoe County, 51 percent of voters through Monday were Democrats, while 33 percent were Republicans.

That's devastating for McCain. Nevada is slowly becoming a lock for Obama.
aerosolben said:
Lots of issues here:

A) It's one state - Nevada
B) It compares youth turnout to the state average, but does not compare it to youth turnout in previous elections, thus not actually answering the question of whether youth turnout is, in fact, at record levels.
C) There's is no comparison to polling models of "expected" youth turn-out, so there is no way to assess if expectations are not being met.
C) Turnout remains incomplete, as the election is ongoing.
Click to expand...
What people also seem to forget is that Obama isn't trying to drive youth turnout up, he's trying to drive Democratic youth turnout up.

If the composition of the youth vote changes from 55%-45% for the Democrats, to 65%-35%, that's already huge.
 
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Question:
Are there people out there that know very closely how this election is going to go based on their knowledge of the polling data and their knowledge of past voting patterns?

Or, is this roughly a crap shoot for these people too and their best guess is only about as good as some of the betting pools?

Obama sits at about 85% on IEM right now as I write this.
 
Here are RealClearPolitics recent changes in state status:

10/29 Nevada Toss Up »»» Leaning Obama Obama 311 - McCain 142 Obama +6.0
10/29 Georgia Leaning McCain »»» Toss Up Obama 311 - McCain 142 Obama +6.0
10/28 New Hampshire Leaning Obama »»» Solid Obama Obama 306 - McCain 157 Obama +6.7
10/27 Arizona Solid McCain »»» Leaning McCain Obama 306 - McCain 157 Obama +7.0
10/27 New Hampshire Solid Obama »»» Leaning Obama Obama 306 - McCain 157 Obama +7.0

That's 3 states shifting towards Obama and one state (New Hampshire) shifting towards McCain for a day and now back as "solid Obama". This makes it hard to panic about the national tracking poll numbers.
 
Nevada has always been a bit of a maverick state. It is pretty much Red in Presidential races, but Sends a Democrat to Congress often enough to worry the State GOP.
The key is that Nevada is in a wierd situation because the primary industry of the state....the tourism bucks that Gambling sends in..is hated by a lot of the Religious Right which considers gambling to be a sin. So I really think Nevadans, in the back of their minds, like sending a message to the GOP that they are not to be taken for granted.
 
davefoc said:
Obama sits at about 85% on IEM right now as I write this.
Click to expand...

Please note this is the winner-take-all prediction. Obama's vote-share prediction is 54% on IEM, which by that market gives him an edge of 8% over McCain come Election Day.
 
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