What did I tell you about fighting through the finish line?
There are doomsayers today, including Larry Sabato, predicting an Obama win, and crediting in part Sandy and Chris. Certainly there are others predicting the same and the opposite.
I don’t know who is right and who wrong in these predictions and in the polling, but I do know that it doesn’t matter in terms of what we need to do.
Are you old enough to remember 1980? AP pre-election on 11/3/80 instagr.am/p/RNY7UOn6ap/ and then the NYT on 11/5/80nytimes.com/1980/11/05/pol…
— Sara (@SGLawrence) November 5, 2012
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Yeah, I remember November 1980. I voted for Reagan and said “Nuts to you, Jimmy Carter.”
My vote tomorrow will mean more to me than the one I cast in ’80. With regards to Carter, I can very well recall the open snickers in some of the hallways of D.C. Between this and the d*** “Down with the Shaw” marches, the place was turning into late-night comedy that wasn’t all that funny!
It was also true to some extent in 1984 and Reagan won in a massive blow out. Which is why we call them the lame stream media.
CNN Poll has Romney winning independents 59 – 35.
If that’s anywhere near how things stand, Romney wins.
It’s the electoral college votes that count
In 48 states the EVs are awarded state by state according to the popular vote within that state. There is no state wherein the independent vote is too small to matter if the spread is 59/35 pro-Romney.
I have the same feeling I did before the Reagan victory and 2010.
The election will be a powerful repudiation of the Obamic Decline.
The newspaper clipping is the single best piece of commentary on this election I’ve seen.
I certainly do remember the 1980 election of Reagan vs Obama-Lite.
I feel that this election will also bring up some new variables that the polsters will have to factor into their calculations.
Regan was my first presidential vote – I went on to serve in Regan’s 600 ship Navy. It was very satisfying to see the US prevail in its cold war efforts. I hope we see the same revitalization of this country under “President Romney.”
[…] the Professor says, today will be a day of mostly meaningless predictions as to Tuesday’s outcome. There is already a fun Hot Air Survey: Your Election […]
It’s not just Sabato. Look at Klein:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/prediction-obama-wins-narrow-electoral-college-victory/article/2512619#.UJgAF4WhA-M
yep. In fact, I wrote about this just yesterday:
“Its always fun to look back to another candidate the Left flat out dismissed completely as a non-threat because he was “extreme”, “unqualified”, “a loose cannon”, “a flip flopper” and on and on and on…
Three days before the 1980 election, in a 3 candidate race, the NYT poll showed a 44-43 “virtual tie” while the CSR literally had it tied at 42. The day before, the Washington Post had it at 39-43 Carter on top, as did the NYT poll the day prior to that. In every poll conducted that year, Reagan never received more then 46% support and only a handful ever left the margin of error indicating to everyone the race was “a dead heat” to the very end… Reagan, of course, won that election 51-41, taking all but one state.”
Btw, in response to all those “Nate Silver says…” trolls we keep seeing pop up on most Conservative sites; this is a little bit about Silver and his “Model”:
If you want to know how pitiful Nate Silver’s “Model” is, all you need to do is look at the states…
Take, for instance – Iowa:
48.6 D, 45.9 R – his real polling average
48.8 D, 45.8 R – his “adjusted” polling average (because polling is biased towards the GOP, obviously)
50.9 D, 48.0 R – his “projected vote”
So he is giving Obama a +2.3 over the “actual” polling average and a +2.1 over his “adjusted polling” average. (blatantly ignoring that no incumbent President has ever picked up undecideds at the polls outside Bush gaining about 1% of them in 2004 after his 9/11 response and his tax cuts just taking place)
2008 polling versus actual?
53.9 D, 44.4 R – Actual (+9.5 D)
………………………………………………
54.0 D, 38.7 R – RCP average (+15.3 D)
The polls:
54.0 D, 37.0 R – Des Moines Register (+17 D)
55.0 D, 40.0 R – Survey USA (+15 D)
53.0 D, 39.0 R – Research 2000 (+14 D)
51.0 D, 40.0 R – NBC/Mason-Dixon (+11 D)
54.0 D, 39.0 R – Quad City Times/R2000 (+15 D)
52.0 D, 39.0 R – Big 10 Battleground (+13 D)
52.0 D, 44.0 R – Rasmussen (+8 D) ~ the poll Silver calls “by far the most biased” was by far the most accurate of all the polls; a perfect match when you factor for undecideds having a 2.9 to 0.4 enthusiasm gap (Rasmussen claimed +7D enthusiasm, which 2.9/0.4 is 7.25)
…so, RCP average was 5.7% off on the Republican side of things (no bias there though, right?), while Obama stayed about where he was polling. And when the polling average has 48.6 D right now (with D turnout expectations even somehow matching 2008), its only logical we would just add an additional 2.3 points because, well, Nate Silver just wants it to be that way I guess…
Now we get to the other major issue in all of it, Iowa Registration changes:
-11.1% Democrat (roughly 70K voters)
+5.8 Republican (roughly 40K voters)
Yet despite these dramatic changes in Registration, which amounts to a 110K registration swing towards Romney in a state Obama won by just 140K, the actual polls which make up Silvers “average” are predicting the same 2008 turnout … why? And with those polls already showing the favorable 2008 Democrat turnout, Silver would increase that average even further by 2.3 because…?
The only way Silver is correct is if:
1) a now non-existent Democrat base still turns out in numbers matching 2008 to account for Romney winning Independents
2) Obama wins Independents at an even higher rate than 2008 to account for the lost Dem voters
Nate Silver is 81% confident one of those two things will happen though!
40% will vote for Obama no matter what. This includes all those who know who signs their paycheck so to speak. We can name them but the list is too long. This also includes the small special groups like gays and new immigrants. These people actually believe in “socialism”.
Another 3% to 5% will vote Obama because of ignorance.
Total 45%
To win will take voter fraud on a scale never seen before.
Will the DNC do it? Even if they know they will be caught?
I think, yes they will if it is only 1 or 2 states. If it is 5 or 7 or 9 states, then no they will not.
2% are going to vote for some other candidate for whatever reason.
53% are going to vote Romney.
It all boils down to how many votes the DNC can manufacture, without everyone knowing they cheated.
How many cities can they have a turn out of 105% before questions start being asked by normal everyday people, those who do not particularly pay attention to politics.
God Bless,
Snuph
Of course, a losing campaign has to pretend it’s going to be a close contest, but the media also has a vested, profit-motivated interest in the appearance of a close race because of the way it increases reader/viewership checking in more often to see where things stand. This is also why no media outlet ever lost money hyping an approaching weather situation as being worse than it is, whether it’s a hurricane or merely a question of will it rain tomorrow.
The polls have not accounted for the Evangelical vote which will be larger this election than it has been in a long time. Kind of a chick-fil-a Tuesday kind of day at the polls.
On the other hand, there is a group of evangelicals advocating and planning themselves to write in ‘Jesus’ for president. Can’t recall where I read that or I’d link it.
The scary thing about Sabato is his past track record. The man has always been right on trends and his accuracy on Senate and House races has been unbelievable. From Wiki: