Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Trending

I guess I can't hold off any longer. Though I am still sick to high heaven of all forms of politics, even those conducted by the humane and svelte Martin Sheen, this race has been getting very interesting the last couple of days. By couple I mean since whenever that large group of Americans who treated the RNC like the Sermon on the Mount came to their senses.

Once again I've been referencing the very good electoral-vote.com for my bi-daily dose of electoral what-nots. The work and analysis is fastidious and consistently impressive. The site is even-handed, but does seem to trend a little Bush-heavy compared with other sites I've seen. This only makes what I'm seeing all the more interesting.

Disregard the bold numbers up top, they swing more wildly than the mood of an abusive John Travolta in Urban Cowboy. Those "barely" states are essentially dead heats. If a candidate has a lead that is smaller than the statistical margin of error, it's no kind of lead at all. Flip through a few days and you'll see this. Wisconsin went from barely Kerry to weak Bush between Saturday and Monday. Useless really.

What is interesting, though, is the post-debate bible-belt trending. Some of the states that have, for months, shown a fondness for our Lay Preacher in Chief are slipping further into the undecided realm. Here are some examples from the month: Oct 12th, 16th, 18th, and yesterday.

Suddenly that swath of red from Georgia to Idaho isn't looking as much like a united heartland as as it is mottled and conflicted. Between the 12th an 19th, The number of electoral votes for which Bush held a 10 point or greater lead slipped from 148 to 138, which might not be a good sign for a campaign that is focusing on its base to drive voter turnout. These have been very solid states for Bush.

In the last four days (16th-19th), the number of votes Bush holds by a greater than 5% but less than 10% margin has fallen from 84 to 45.

That's beginning to feel significant.

Moreso when you compare it to Kerry-friendly states over the same period. States in which he enjoys a greater than 10% lead have leapt from 88 to 103 in the last four days. "Weak" Kerry states have increased from 91 to 125 electoral votes since the 12th.

This might be the payoff of that play-from-behind strategy Kerry has done well in the past. It may simply be an insignificant correction in what has been a steady decline for Kerry since his July and August highs.

However, with the day of days approaching--and in a race this tight--an insignificant correction might be enough to carry the White House.

There's another interesting tidbit I heard for the first time last night, and actually on a variety of channels. Traditionally, and this goes not just for presidential races, but for senatorial and state-level races as well, whatever numbers the incumbent has in the day leading up to the election are the numbers he/she will end with. "Overwhelmingly" was a word used. To within 1%.

That means, if history bears out, as it almost always occassionally does, those still undecided by November 1st will turn out for Kerry if they turn out at all.

Bush's nation-wide numbers right now are around 45-47%, Nader has around 1%. If things stay this way through the 1st, Kerry has to like his chances.

There was also an article in Slate (which I've lost, sorry) that showed a majority of those polled could not differentiate, didn't know or just flat out got wrong both candidate's stances on pretty much everything. They expect Bush to tax the wealthy and Kerry to support faith-based schools, proving once again the only thing anyone can say for certainty about the outcome of this election cycle: no matter who wins, we're still a country of uninformed morons.

4 Comments:

At 12:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

we're still a country of uninformed moronsYou've got that right. I know that I read a similar article on Slate quite a while back. I don't know the link for that, but yesterday, the electoral-vote.com guy linked to a survey by Middle Tennesse State University that basically confirmed that that shows Tennesseans don't know shit about the candidates.

Anyway, part of the swing-y-ness of electoral-vote.com is the fact that there is polling data from multiple different sources. One day, the Florida data is from polling institute x and three days later its from polling institute y. Know, if their polling was any good, they should have pretty close results, but that's obviously not the case. I think the states would swing a little bit less wildly if the data was (you hear, that? Don't even dream of me thinking of data as a plural) always updated from the same sources. Of course, then the site would be forever between updates.

--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance

 
At 1:53 PM, Blogger Don Sheffler said...

I think of Data as a crewmate.

 
At 2:33 PM, Blogger Don Sheffler said...

The other day I was telling my youngest brother - he's the only one who cares to listen - that there are two election season mainstays that I really think are meaningless, polls and debates.

Polls because of their notoriously fluctuating data. As you point out, Luke, the polls the day immediately preceeding the election are as close as you'll get. Obviously the only poll that tells you definitively who is going to win is the election itself. And in 'o4 even that was iffy.

On the debates, I can hardly restrain my comments but I promise to try... promise like a politician. Does anyone believe that anybody is really going to withhold his or her voting "decision" until they've fully and painstakingly open-mindedly weighed ... THE DEBATES?!

I am astounded and wickedly amused when people get interviewed by the 11:00 news after the debate and feign impartial analysis of the candidates and say that NOW, finally, they're leaning one way or the other. Please. The candidates say NOTHING in the debates that they didn't say at their conventions, which is EVERYTHING everyone already knew.

Whoop, there's that red light on my podium again...

Don

 
At 7:15 PM, Blogger Don Sheffler said...

Me: "...And in 'o4 even that was iffy."

Me (if I pay attention to my own comment): "...And in 2000 even that was iffy."

 

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