9/30/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction
• Click on the table to zoom in.
• Slight gains for Obama in Ohio and Florida. No change in projected EVs.

9/29/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction


• Click on the table to zoom in.


• Gains for Obama in Florida and North Carolina, and for McCain in Virginia. Pennsylvania moves from Toss Up to Leaning Obama. No change in projected EVs.

9/28/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction
• Click on the table to zoom in.
• A gain for Obama in North Carolina today. No change from Friday's EV projection.

9/27/2008

No changes to report.

9/26/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction


• Click on the table to zoom in.


• Gains today for Obama in Florida and New Hampshire, but his gain in Virginia has moved it into his column, and Obama retakes the lead.


• Missouri slips into theToss Up column, formerly Leaning McCain.

9/25/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction

• Click on the table to zoom in.


• Gains today for Obama in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Michigan keeps oscillating between Toss Up and Leaning Obama, today returning to the latter. And North Carolina is now a Toss Up, formerly Leaning McCain.
• But the big news -- suggested here on 9/22 as a looming possibility -- is a gain for McCain in New Hampshire has pushed the Granite State into his column, creating the prediction of a tie! See the 9/22 entry for the implications of an actual tie on Election Day.

9/24/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction


• Click on the table to zoom in.


• Gains today for Obama in Virginia, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, and for McCain in Wisconsin. Michigan returns as a Toss Up due to gains for McCain, and Colorado exits the Toss Up group, now Leaning Obama. No change in projected EVs.


• Note that there's now a full three points between the two states closest to flipping the other way [Virginia and New Hampshire], as if a dichotomy is starting to develop.

9/23/2008

• For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction

• Click on the table to zoom in.


• Gains of various degrees today for Obama in Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and Wisconsin, and for McCain in Minnesota. No change in projected EVs.

9/22/2008

For a description of this blog, click: BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction

Click on the table to zoom in.

Today, some gains for McCain in Ohio, Nevada, and New Hampshire, and for Obama in Virginia and Pennsylvania. But a gain for Obama in Minnesota moves the Land of 10,000 Lakes into his column, enough to change today's overall prediction to Obama in this neck-and-neck race. Also, Michigan moves from Toss Up to Leaning Obama, but this prediction methodology already had Michigan in Obama's column, so there's no overall change in projected EVs.

It's interesting to note that New Hampshire's 4 EVs are now the closest to switching sides, and if that were to happen we'd be in a tie situation with 269 EVs each. In the event of an actual tie on Election Day, the incoming (newly-elected) House of Representatives chooses the President, with each state delegation having one vote. It takes 26 states to elect the President. If neither candidate gets 26 states, they keep balloting. Currently, there are 26 states with a majority of Democratic House members, 21 Republican, and 3 have a 50-50 split [Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi]. But, of course, this can change after Election Day.

9/21/2008

Slight gains for Obama in Virginia and Michigan, and for McCain in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The most significant of these is Pennsylvania, followed by Wisconsin: they both move close to falling into the McCain column.

Florida is now classed as a Toss Up [formerly Leaning McCain], but the projection remains for McCain, so the overall projection remains unchanged.

The Current Financial Instability

There's a lot of debate going on about how much the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act has affected the current financial instability. Glass-Steagall first came about during the Depression to keep banking and investment firms separate. Prior to Glass-Steagall there were things going on similar to today's situation that ultimately contributed to the stock market crash of 1929, which ushered in the Depression.

It was a Republican-controlled Congress in 1999 that passed the repeal, though it had bi-partisan support [the Senate vote was 90-8 ... Biden in favor, McCain didn't vote] and a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, who signed it. So, there's a lot of finger-pointing going on, but there may be fault among both parties.

9/20/2008

Slight change in Michigan today...McCain narrows the gap a bit.

Note that McCain & Palin were both in Michigan on 9/17.

9/19/2008

BLOG DESCRIPTION - 2008 Presidential Election Prediction

This non-partisan prediction is based on current statistics from RealClearPolitics.com [RCP] -- which averages multiple polls -- plus a percentage of the Undecided/Other Candidate vote [the percentage not attributable to McCain or Obama].

Chuck Todd of MSNBC predicts McCain will win 70% of the Undecided vote [I'll post a source when I find one]. I use this as a guideline. Current polling statistics for Obama and McCain are readily available for each of the battleground states. But the percentage that cannot be attributed to McCain or Obama is a mixture of Undecided and Other Candidate preferences. 3rd party candidate polling statistics are not as readily available, so I understate Todd's 70% prediction before applying it to this non-Obama/McCain percentage: I award McCain 60% of this vote, and 40% for Obama. My rationale for these percentages:

Suppose a state is polling 8% as Undecided/Other Candidate [about average in the current polls]. If half of this is Other Candidate [about what I've seen in various polls], McCain's numbers increase by 2.8% [70% of the 4% who are Undecided], and Obama's by 1.2% [30% of 4%]. This gives McCain a net gain of 1.6%.

60% of the combined Undecided/Other Candidate percentage yields a 4.8% increase for McCain, and 40% for Obama yields 3.2%, which also nets a 1.6% gain for McCain.

This method results in a slightly inflated adjusted percentage for each candidate, but the difference between the two adjusted numbers should approximate the real world difference -- even when the Undecided percentage varies somewhat from this example -- and an accurate difference is all that matters in this game, because all we really need to know is who wins each state.

After adjusting the polled percentage for each candidate within a state, I award all of that state's electoral votes [EVs] to the candidate with the larger adjusted percentage. I perform these calculations only for Toss Up states as classified by RCP. Those are the only states where the Undecided vote can flip the results [see Minnesota in the current prediction]. I then add the Toss Up EVs to RCP's Leaning and Solid EVs for each candidate in each of the 50 states to determine a predicted winner.

Check back often, as this gets updated with the latest RCP numbers every day. And note how close the results are. If your candidate of choice isn't the predicted winner, just wait a few minutes.