Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

Moments after posting I saw this bit on the local newspaper website:

Reno is the “center of the political universe” and “the eyes of the world are on Reno” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said during a visit to the city Thursday, five days before Election Day.

“The way Washoe County goes is the way Nevada will go and the way Nevada goes is probably going to be the way this election goes,” Salazar said at the University of Nevada, Reno.

One of the nice things about being in NY is that the state is not really contested at all so I don't have to endure any political ads. At least I didn't until this week when the blitz started for two congressional races and the Connecticut Senate race. There is a Senate race in NJ too but I guess the challenger is too broke to go on the air. Linda McMahon on the other hand is everywhere.

The worst thing is living in a neighboring state-MD-to a swing state-VA. We have to watch all the ads aimed their way knowing both parties could care less about our state. And the ads are continous and pointless as they are back to back Demo and GOP. I don't see how they could influence any undecided voter at this point.

We get a lot of ads directed to NH here in southern Maine.

Speaking of NH: New Hampshire: Romney vs. Obama New England College Obama 50, Romney 44 Obama +6

Two point gain today for Obama in Rasmussen, they now have it 48-48% nationally.

JimHow wrote:Two point gain today for Obama in Rasmussen, they now have it 48-48% nationally.

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to find Rasmussen converging with other polls at the last moment...

Lol. Imagine that.

Sigh. Guys, it really doesn't work that way.

manton wrote:Sigh. Guys, it really doesn't work that way.

I am hardly the first person to notice that Ras has a consistent R+1-2 house effect bias up until the closing days of an election, when suddenly that house effect bias magically goes away. Compare that with a D-leaning house, like Quinnipiac, which has a D+2 house bias. Oddly, their house bias stays consistent right up until the election. Or Gallup, which has a R+1 house bias. Their final poll is even farther off than nearly everyone else since 2000. But Ras always seems to converge to the consensus, thereby validating their "accuracy". Maybe it's completely innocent, maybe it's all the other houses which are biased and Ras is somehow seeing the "truth". However, it does make one go: "hmmmm....".

You know, Rasmussen actually seems like a nice guy, he actually seems honest. Where he loses all credibility with me is when he cavorts with the likes of O'Reilly and Hannity. That Hannity is vile, he was actually trying to claim last ight that Sandy is Obama's Katrina. The guy is laughable. Almost as pathetic as those two clowns, Rove and Morris. Watching those two characters twist and mold negative polls for their team is a real treat. These pollster claims of "accuracy" are kind of sketchy, whether it is Rasmussen or Nate Silver. Silver says he got 49 out of 50 states right last time. Well, as of when? The night before the election? Big deal. I bet I'll be able to predict the individual states with 90+ percent accuracy come Monday night. (I realize Silver is not a "pollster" but he definitely fancies himself a numbers geek.) If there's a pollster who is "right" with regularity a week, two weeks, three weeks before the election, then that's accomplishing something!

That Rasmussen gain for Obama causes me to raise his JHEPI to 70.

Today's CNN poll in Ohio: Obama leads, 50-47%.

I don't know what you mean by "house." I assume you don't mean "House of Representatives" because Rasmussen called the 2010 House races closer than anyone.

What I have seen since the first debate is that Rasmusses was the first pick up the Romney surge then the other polls clustered around him. Now the race is tightening in the final weekend, which has happened in every race since 1992, except 2008. So they are all picking up on that.

JimHow wrote: If there's a pollster who is "right" with regularity a week, two weeks, three weeks before the election, then that's accomplishing something!

That's not a fair metric. Polls are snapshots of the electorate at a given time. With every cylce, opinion changes more and more rapidly. So a poll even one week out can be completely accurate for that week and still not predict the result on election day. When the news cycle was a lot slower, it could but it doesn't any more.

True.

The swing in the absentee votes in Ohio normalling favouring Dems if translated across the state could make it interesting...and we have the spectre of a repeat of 2000 when Romney could snatch victory ..after 10 days of legal fights

WPost/ABC had it tied yesterday, Romney +1 today.

manton wrote:I don't know what you mean by "house." I assume you don't mean "House of Representatives" because Rasmussen called the 2010 House races closer than anyone.

House means the poller. Rasmussen is a house. Qunnipiac is a house. Gallup is a house. Each house has it's own bias, some due to its methodology, some due to it's anticipated RV/LV screen. Rasmussen only uses robocall landlines, unlike other houses that use live interviews of either landlines or landlines plus cell phones. A house that only robocalls and uses landlines naturally skews R (due to people with cell phones only skewing younger) and is typically significantly less accurate than a house that uses live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones.

manton wrote:What I have seen since the first debate is that Rasmusses was the first pick up the Romney surge then the other polls clustered around him. Now the race is tightening in the final weekend, which has happened in every race since 1992, except 2008. So they are all picking up on that.

Rasmussen is a daily tracking poll with no look-behind. It would react quicker than Gallup (which does 5-day rolling averages) or other polls which are not daily tracking polls. And Rasmussen was a consistent outlier, being at least 2-3 points more R than the average. Gallup's numbers were nutty (as they have been for Presidential polls since 2000). I suspect that Gallup's LV screen excessively weights voter enthusiasm, which would explain its wild swings that no other pollster sees and has resulted in its missing the mark so widely since 2000.

Here we might refer to a polling firm or "house" as a polling "Chateau" for the sake of clarity. I wonder if the Bordelais would launch a protest.

What is the +/- on all of these polls, 3%? So 1-2% swings are literally, not just figuratively, meaningless. Polls: blah blah blah.

You know, the polls at the end of the Obama-McCain race generally had Obama winning by 5-6 percentage points, and he ended up winning 52-46%. The polls in this race have Obama generally ahead 2-4% in the swing states, a lead that seems to be holding as we enter the final weekend.

Watching Hannity right now.
He just had some absolute nut job from Ohio, some radio guy, predicting an "easy" Romney victory in Ohio.
Then Sarah just came on. Omg... The lame stream media this, the lame stream media that....
Even Sweet Sarah, with all her fight, looked defeated.
But, alas, Mr. Karl "The Architect" Rove coming up next after the commercial break....
This should be good.

Omg Sean is still harping about Obama's "Katrina", Hurricane Sandy.
This guy is a mad. He is a madman.
Karl is so full of shit that it's coming out of his ears.
Omg this show is so toxic.
Karl's a smart guy. Surely he knows that the campaign is now on auto-pilot.
The campaign has been decided by what happened this past mid-week going into the weekend.
Now he's attributing the Obama lead to the "goofy Quinnipiac polls."
These guys are insane.

Here is my prediction (subject to last minute adjustments) for the 2012 election.
I think Obama is going to hold those midwest states, although I'm a little nervous about Ohio because we know there is going to be massive voter suppression in Democratic counties, a la Bush v. Kerry 2004.
Clearly there is going to be major voter suppression in Florida, and for that reason it is hard to see how Obama wins Florida.

The two states that I see possibly changing in this list are Virginia and Colorado. Today, I have those states in Romney's column. I could change one or both of those states into the Obama column by Monday night.

The Next-To-Last Jim How Prediction of the 2012 U.S. Presidential Electoral College Vote:

Barack Hussein Obama: ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, MD, DE, DC, PA, OH, MI, WI, IA, IL, MN, NM, NV, WA, OR, CA, HI. Total Electoral College Votes: 281.

Willard Mitt Romney: AK, ID, UT, AZ, MT, WY, CO, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX, MO, AR, LA, IN, KY, TN, MS, AL, WV, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL. Total Electoral College Votes: 257.

As I write this, I predict that I will move either VA or CO or both into Obama's column by Monday night, which could increase Obama's Electoral College victory to as much as 303 to 235.

I also predict that Obama will win the popular vote in Florida, but that, due to voter suppression politics, the "victory" will go to Romney. If you put Florida, Colorado, and Virginia also into Obama's column, now it is a 332-206 Obama landslide victory for Obama.

But for tonight, on the Friday night before election day, I have it at a "conservative" Obama Electoral College victory of 281-257. Either or both Virginia and/or Colorado will likely move into the Obama column by Monday night. No matter how many polls show Obama winning in Florida, I remain convinced that that fucked-up state remains so fucked-up 12 years afrer Bush-Gore that the final tally will go to Romney. What a corrupt little state you have down there, Stuart!

Anyway.... Friday night before the election:

Projecting an Obama victory, 281-257!!

Take that Nate Silver!

I believe we will go romney jere in fla.....dramatically less obama signs than '08 and I do not see the same turnout this time around but could be wrong

Somehow I have to believe wisc. will go romster since scott walkers reelection was wom by a wider margin than his initial win..tells me the repubs r out in force...

We have a gay marriage initiative that looks like it is going to pass narrowly here in Maine.

If you guys want to see something really funny, check out this video going back to 1993, the first scene is a video of me from 19 years ago when I was mayor, conducting a meeting in front of 1000 people when we passed a local anti-discrimination ordinance. That was a wild night. A lot has changed in 20 years!

http://portland.wcsh6.com/news/news/163 ... -revisited

This election continues to be extremely interesting to follow. With due respect to the JHEPI (and I am on record saying it's my 'go to' predictor) it seems to me that both sides are extremely confident of victory at this point. I'm seeing predictions of comfortable wins from both camps. What this means is that someone's going to be very upset Wednesday morning (or later, if this goes to worse case scenario) and whomever loses is likely to blame it on rampant cheating, since they are expecting to win easily. One side is going to feel justified in claiming the election is therefore completely illegitimate. Again I worry....

I'm also curious, since a lot of polls seem to be focusing on early voters, how many have already voted. Has everyone/anyone here voted yet? Both of my kids did absentee (I was surprised to hear how they voted, actually)....

Glenn, is it true that 2/3rds of Nevada has already voted?

I don't always agree with Nate Silver but I am hardpressed to find flaws in his argument here. This race is not a "toss-up," it is on the cusp of becoming an Obama electoral college landslide:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Obama could end up winning Florida. Still three days to go but I am increasing my JHEPI to 75. Romney's path to electoral college victory is shrinking rapidly. Even if Obama were to lose Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, he STILL wins if he wins Colorado and New Hampshire. If Romney wins Ohio, it will basically be the first poll that has him winning there (other than the small Rasmussen lead from a couple days ago (and Rasmussen has Obama gaining those two points back in today's poll)). Like Silver, I'm finding it very, very hard to fathom a Romney route to victory.

I hear some claiming Ohio is a lock for Romney, interesting

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83252.html

interesting to see romsters largest rally(15-18k) was yesterday in ohio, McCain had nobody 4 years ago.
obama's rally in hillard ohio 2-4k...Paul Ryans rally in Penn was about the same size as Barry. I'm telling you something is happening here.

from what i understand Repub early voting leading dems in colorado

Through Friday morning, early voting in Colorado has the Republicans with a narrow lead:

Total number of ballots cast – 1,462,163

Republicans voting – 547,150
Democrats voting - 509,091
Unaffiliated (independent) voting – 390,875
Third party voting – 15,047

When I was in law school in Boston I saw Walter Mondale give a speech to 100,000 in the Boston Common the week before the election and he ended up losing 49 out of 50 states to Reagan in '84.

But he won Minnesota!

Lol. And DC!

There u go again jim....lol

Yeah if Nate Silver were alive at that time he would have had it at a 100.0% probability of a Reagan electoral college victory.