What are the Key Factors for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election?

[turbo]

Does anyone think Obama gets 500+ electoral votes like Nixon did in 1972 and Reagan in 1984?

I'm thinking between 350 and 400

 

[LowlyPion]

Does anyone think Obama gets 500+ electoral votes like Nixon did in 1972 and Reagan in 1984?

Calm down.

Let's be happy with 270.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Calm down.

Let's be happy with 270.

No kidding. Though I must admit that my best guesses leave Obama with 353, IIRC. But there is no way to know the proportions of new voters, hidden bias, undecided swings... I tend to think it will be a wash and that the polls will be representitive of the final vote. And we do know that half of the undecided voters never vote. That leaves about 3%, which seem to be splitting about 60/40 in McCain's favor, and not enough to offset the long-term trends.

Missouri was one of the toughest calls for me to make for our contest. The black vote could make for a significant upset, but the polls show it a dead heat. Many people are looking at Indiana as well, but I don't see the demographics for a significant shift. So at the least I would expect it to be very tight. Florida looks good but is far too close for comfort. Penn looks good but the trends over the last few days have favored McCain.

I agree with Evo - the suspense is killing me!

 

[LowlyPion]

No kidding. Though I must admit that my best guesses leave Obama with 353, IIRC.

I think I heard earlier that Karl Rove is predicting 338 for Obama.

I think at this point he could care less about McCain. He'd probably rather build his electoral cred for 2012 than pump McCain any more at this point.

 

[Gokul43201]

I think I heard earlier that Karl Rove is predicting 338 for Obama.

Correct. That's roughly what I expect too.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/rovefinal.jpg​

D=338, R=200

 

[LowlyPion]

I agree with Evo - the suspense is killing me!

I am about to finish the left over Halloween candy. My dietary discipline is shot in nervous anticipation.

Maybe I'll go make a loaf of bread. I can call it Obama Bread.

Maybe by the time it's done so will the threat of McCain Palin setting back the country any further.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

♪ You got to know when to hold em'
Know when to fold em'
Know when to walk away
Know when to run

You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin' done ♫​

⚛​

 

[LowlyPion]

Correct. That's roughly what I expect too.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/rovefinal.jpg​

D=338, R=200

That about looks like my map for the Election Game. I did have Missouri Democratic (different) is all that I notice off the top of my head. (I'm counting on EVO to swing the state my way.)

 

[Gokul43201]

LINKS FOR RESULTS:

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/

GOOGLE: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/elections/index.html#2008_election

AND OF COURSE...https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=238958&page=75

 

[LowlyPion]

What a great and prophetic post popped up when I clicked the last link:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1757422&postcount=15

Prescient.

 

[LightbulbSun]

Based upon my election game predictions I have D= 402 R= 136.

 

[LightbulbSun]

Why is Pat Buchanan so vehemently against Obama?

 

[LowlyPion]

Why is Pat Buchanan so vehemently against Obama?

Makes you wonder doesn't it?

I think he's somewhere to the right of Fascism and there's little else to his right but the edge of the Universe.

 

[LightbulbSun]

Makes you wonder doesn't it?

I think he's somewhere to the right of Fascism and there's little else to his right but the edge of the Universe.

He's so bad.

"Congress has a 10% approval rating, so what are the voters exactly voting for?"

They're voting for competence maybe Pat?

 

[LightbulbSun]

McCain just took the lead in Indiana.

 

[LightbulbSun]

MSNBC projecting McCain as the winner in Kentucky, and Obama as the winner in Vermont. McCain with the early lead 8-3.

 

[Gokul43201]

McCain just took the lead in Indiana.

But it's more or less tied (only 4% reporting) with no precincts reporting from Gary, Indianapolis or Evansville areas. That should be encouraging news for Obama.

 

[turbo]

But it's more or less tied (only 4% reporting) with no precincts reporting from Gary, Indianapolis or Evansville areas. That should be encouraging news for Obama.

Really! I've never been to Gary or Evansville, but there are a LOT of black faces in Indianapolis, and if those folks turned out in force, the early-closing small rural polling places can be swamped very easily.

 

[turbo]

Remember that small-town precincts are tallied quickly and report early. Results from urban districts can wipe out such early "leads".

 

[Gokul43201]

The numbers out of FL are going big for Obama!

Also, even in IN, McCain is way underperforming compared to Bush in the precincts that have come through so far.

 

[LowlyPion]

Fox/NBC declared NH for Obama

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

We're having an election pary
https://www.physicsforums.com/chat/flashchat.php

 

[LowlyPion]

The numbers out of FL are going big for Obama!

Also, even in IN, McCain is way underperforming compared to Bush in the precincts that have come through so far.

FL panhandle is just closing. It closes an hour later than the rest of the state. The key to Florida is the Obama advantage coming out of South Florida. If it's just 300,000 it will be a long night. 400,000 and up and it will be time for McCain to come down from his suite in the Biltmore in AZ and congratulate President Obama on a hard fought fairly won victory.

 

[Gokul43201]

MSNBC has called PA for Obama based entirely on Exit Polls!

CNN exit polls for PA give Obama a 15% lead. I guess MSNBC decided that was big enough to call that.

If you accept that call THE RACE IS OVER for all practical purposes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/individual/#mapPPA

 

[russ_watters]

I found it interesting that when MSNBC called PA, they did not mention the exit polls at all. They gave no data to support their decision.

 

[Gokul43201]

CNN has now called PA as well. Some early numbers from deep red precincts in PA are coming out purple.

McCain will now need to win all tossups + CO + NV + NM + VA.

 

[Gokul43201]

NOTE: To reduce scatter, all subsequent discussion of the Presidential results will happen in the "Today's the Day" thread.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

At last we have a reason to be grateful to GW.

 

[Gokul43201]

How good were the polls? Here's a comparison of the polling averages in some key states against the actual margins there.

Statewise Margins (Obama - McCain):

               AGGREGATES OF CURRENT POLLS                
                                                                 
State     RCP   Elec-Vote  USAtlas-A   Pollster   |   Actual
                                                  |
  IN     -1.4       -2         -3        -1.2     |     +01            
  FL     +4.4       +1         +1        +1.6     |     +02            
  GA     -4.0       -3         -3        -2.9     |     -05
  VA     +4.4       +4         +6        +5.6     |     +06
  NC     -0.4       +1         00        +0.4     |      00
  OH     +2.5       +3         +3        +3.1     |     +04
  MO     -0.7       00         00        +1.1     |      00
  PA     +7.3       +8         +9        +7.2     |     +11
  MT     -3.8       -4         -2        -2.2     |     -03
  CO     +5.5       +6         +7        +7.6     |     +08        
  AZ     -3.5       -4         -4        -4.9     |     -09
  NV     +6.8       +6         +6        +7.1     |     +12

Looks like the polling was fairly good in the really close states (more polling there?) but tended to underestimate the margins in more strongly polarized states.

More here, on the performance of pollster.com:

 

[Gokul43201]

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

Thanks to LP for the link.

Lots of interesting stuff in the voting shifts maps.

McCain bettered Bush04's margin in only 2 states (and AZ wasn't one of them!): AR (by 10%) & LA (by 4%). The Palin factor in LA? The Clinton loss in AR?

 

[Gokul43201]

Some post analysis from the WSJ polling guru.

Barack Obama won the election Tuesday night. So did some pollsters and the number crunchers who used their numbers to forecast the race. But for them, as for the next president, pulling off a repeat in 2012 will require overcoming a new set of challenges.
...
However, as Americans watched the news networks call states one by one for Mr. Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, Tuesday night, pollsters could breathe a sigh of relief. There wasn't a single big miss in the presidential race. Most polls showed virtual ties in Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina, and none of those states was decided by more than a point. "Pollsters generally did very well," says Mark Blumenthal, a former Democratic pollster and co-founder of Pollster.com.

Zogby International polled in eight states in the last week, including six of the closest races, and missed the final margin by an average of less than two points -- as accurate as the poll aggregators such as Pollster.com.
...
Some of the concerns about polling numbers proved unfounded. The so-called Bradley Effect -- in which Mr. Obama's support would be overstated because poll respondents uneasy about his race would lie about their intentions -- didn't materialize. Several analyses suggest the effect hasn't materialized to undermine a black candidate in over a decade.

Another potential pitfall: Most of the state polls didn't dial cellphones, meaning they were missing many young voters. But weighting their results to account for this appears to have helped minimize error, though not avoid it entirely. Several national polls that included cellphones tended to overestimate Mr. Obama's popular-vote victory margin; those that excluded cellphones underestimated it.
...
The biggest winners may have been poll aggregators, who were combining disparate polls as far back as 2002, but gained new members and reached a new level of national prominence this time around. Their advantage is twofold: Their composite results may dilute the effect of any error in one poll, and their results are more expansive, including regions that no one pollster can typically afford to cover. A dozen or so Web sites combined polls to forecast the election, and just about all of them put Mr. Obama's electoral-vote total at between 338 and 393; he likely will finish with 364 or 375. (Those that also forecast congressional races generally foresaw Democratic gains.)

At least two sites -- Pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com -- also estimated the winning margin for each state, using poll data and their own formulas. They typically missed the margin by just 2.4 and 2.3 percentage points, respectively. Each site beat each of the 10 pollsters active in at least eight states, head to head, except for Zogby.
...
The American migration to cellphones is a big hurdle. "Although I don't think the cellphone issue presented a big hazard this year," says Tom Jensen, communications director of Public Policy Polling, "it's still only going to get worse, and pollsters are going to have to account for that moving forward."

As of last December, 14.5% of American adults had only cellphones, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If current trends hold, that proportion will more than double by 2012.
...
Jay Leve, president of SurveyUSA, predicts, "2008 is to telephone polling what 1948 was to passenger rail: The end of the line."

Full article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122...umbers#project=PREZPOLL08&articleTabs=article

 

[Gokul43201]

Exit polling data, with comparisons to previous elections. Very neat!

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html

"Trend" among young voters in recent years:

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oregon is Blue, but we live in a very red part of the State. An acquaintance was giving directions to his house: "Turn right on [roadname] and follow the McCain-Palin signs. When you get to the Obama-Biden sign, that's our place."

 

[phoenixy]

Reality

http://kingdomobama.com/?p=57

Consider Obama’s response to a private national security briefing he received from the CIA during the campaign. Told of the multiple dangers around the world, he reputedly shook his head and asked: “Why would anyone want this job?”

VS

Fantasy

 

[WarPhalange]

I also hear that Obama wears underwear that say "I hate the USA" on them.

It's true, my friend has an uncle who used to work for a guy who knew Obama's half-uncle.