25 responses so far ↓

• 1 Doug R // Sep 18, 2008 at 11:05 pm

  I’m rather surprised that the simulator would give OREGON and New Mexico to McCain! Well maybe NM is not such a biggie, but the Oregon thing is rather HUGE! Then again, I don’t get it with the Virginia thing gone to Obama. I mean, I think that Virginia will eventually go to McCain, and Indiana to McCain as well.

  Your NH prediction for McCain is interesting though…. I’ve been driving myself nuts on that particular New England enclave of voters lately.

  I’m betting that FL is a state in McCain’s pocket as well.

  Thanks for a great website… as a system developer, I know the work required to put together something like this together and it is now my site of choice for electoral mapping next to realclearpolitics.

  (btw, I would’ve put my email here, but it doesn’t say if it will be made public or not, which may be hindering commenters).

  Thanks,
  Doug.

• 2 Doug R // Sep 18, 2008 at 11:12 pm

  Wow, I just ran the simulator again, and now it’s given NM and OR to Obama - but yet, Washington state is now in McCain’s camp… New Mexico is now Obama’s. Perhaps you just did a stats update?

  Interesting to say the least.

  270toWin: Each run of the simulator provides a different outcome based on polling probabilities. We have a short description of the methodology above the simulator map.

• 3 Bill // Sep 19, 2008 at 7:10 pm

  I ran the simulator and got NY (NY!) and PA red with OH, IN, and MT blue. You guys do realize that if Obama loses NY (which will never happen - I assume you’re basing this on the Siena Obama +5 poll from earlier this week, which is clearly an outlier) - but if he loses NY he’s going to lose OH and and IN and MT and CO and NM and basically everything else too. Your methodology needs to be changed, first so that NY doesn’t go red (basing the simulator on one poll makes it useless) and second so that if it does (and it won’t) Obama loses everything else too. He’s not losing NY except in the biggest of McCain landslides.

  The result of that simulation was McCain 293 and Obama 245. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE for McCain to win NY and PA and only get 293. If McCain wins NY, he’ll get like 500 EVs.

  270toWin: We agree with most of your thoughts here. The simulator treats each state as an independent event and so it will occasionally throw out some combinations that are unrealistic. Any given simulation is less important than the range of outcomes displayed on the results page. We’ve played around a bit with a methodology for addressing this issue, but haven’t hit on a good solution yet. We did not base NY on the Siena poll, but did give it some weight, which, coupled with other polls led to about a 1-2% chance of McCain winning New York in a given simulation.

• 4 Bill // Sep 20, 2008 at 6:29 pm

  Thanks for the response. Another question though - do you factor national tracking polls (Gallup, Rasmussen, e.g.) into the simulator? Because with the recent pro-Obama movement in the poll I would expect to see him winning more often, which, frankly, I’m not.

  But regardless - keep up the good work. I have a lot of fun playing around with the interactive map.

  270toWin: We don’t factor in the national polls. That issue came up earlier in the summer, when Obama was continuing to win 80-90% of the simulations even though the national polls were tightening to near even. We discussed it in a prior post.

• 5 Rod // Sep 21, 2008 at 8:41 pm

  While your site may be treating each state as an independent event, they really are not independent events. Certain geographical groups of states tend to move as a group, a fact reflected in the national polling which reflects national events. Those states tend to have even registration between the parties and a relatively large independent block. Call these states sensitive or persuadable. Other states do not move and would vote for a dead horse from their favorite party. e.g. Wyoming and Alabama will stay Republican and the District of Columbia, Democratic. At this point in the race, the undecideds act as a kind of proxy for sensitivity and results over 50% for a candidate as a proxy for dead horse states. Contiguous sensitive states can be ranked in order and a result for candidate X fed back into its neighbors. The ranking would look more like a web or network than a simple linear arrangement. Thus if New York goes Republican so then will Pennsylvania and Ohio. Unfortunately building such a dependency network and its feed back mechanism is pretty much seat of the pants trial and error. Overall, great, enjoyable, bookmarked, and frequently visited site!

• 6 Sauberei // Sep 22, 2008 at 7:53 pm

  Awesome. My only wish is that the simulator allowed me to add handicaps to the simulation to reflect bumps in national polls, and also because I suspect that McCain will start losing most of the simulations soon and then it won’t be as much fun anymore.

• 7 QuincyConscience // Sep 23, 2008 at 2:20 am

  I must say, I admire you more than any other website. With a better result than most sites you created an addictive site. Putting the blog up whose sole purpose now is for us to backhand compliment you on the nice site, but your doing it wrong. By the way, and keep in mind there is no way to answer this correctly, so you use Research 2000 polls?

• 8 Biiilllll // Sep 25, 2008 at 7:57 am

  270 to win…. I’m curious as to why IA still shows blue with the Big10 showing just polling it as tied

  
  270toWin: We’re definitely factoring this poll in, but it is an outlier vs. many of the other polls out in the last week or so, that all show Obama ahead from 7-12 points. Also, except for the convention bounce seem nationwide by McCain/Palin, Iowa has been leaning blue for several months now. The trend in surrounding (WI, MI) states has also been toward Obama in the last few days, so we think it can be categorized as leaning Obama right now, although not in the likely category at this point.

• 9 Grinder // Sep 25, 2008 at 12:43 pm

  I have been running 3 sims a day for the last month and love seeing the day in day out fluctuations. I wish I new how often the sim was being run every day though.

  Well done.

• 10 Stephen // Sep 25, 2008 at 1:50 pm

  Bill, ARG and SurveyUSA have also released polls in Iowa within the past week, ARG has Obama up by 7, SurveyUSA by 11. If you average out the three, Obama is ahead by 6%, making the state blue.

  Rasmussen should have another poll there later this week, so we’ll see if anything has changed.

• 11 Daniel // Sep 25, 2008 at 3:49 pm

  Rod,

  With all due respect, I think you’re asking a bit much of the simulator when you start talking about results in certain states influencing results in others. Sure, it would be more realistic, but it’s not like the results are going to be 100% accurate before the final poll (i.e., the election itself) anyway. As the webmaster said, it’s not any individual result that’s important; it’s the curve formed by the aggregation of the collection of polls.

  For my own part, I give the curve a fair amount of credence but individual results are kind of a game to me. I’ll run it several times to see how what the most bizarre results I can get are (my favorite was the time I saw both TX and SC go blue), how many different contiguous areas of blue and red are formed in the lower 48 (the most I’ve seen was nine, thanks in part to a red NH, red VA, blue NC, and red OH), or some similar little game. Truth be told, I don’t think the simulator would be anywhere near as addicting if it didn’t produce the occasional boffo result.

• 12 William // Sep 25, 2008 at 4:15 pm

  hehe, true that. Yesterday, I ran a simulation where NewYork went Red!

  About a week ago, I thought this election was going to be pretty typical in that the Republicans would sweep the south, but VA, NC and FL are competitive again.

  And the race for PA is tightening up north.

  Nov. 4 could yeild some boffo results.

• 13 Dave // Sep 25, 2008 at 10:03 pm

  I’ve known about this website for a while but just discovered the simulator last night and I too, am getting a bit addicted to it! I just thought I would note that I ran the simulator tonight and had NY Red and Obama still won! (I think he got Florida and maybe NC as well)

• 14 Dave // Sep 25, 2008 at 10:06 pm

  I just realized I left the simulation I just referred to open - NY & OH were Red, but PA, NC, VA, & FL were all Blue, giving Obama a 288-250 win.

• 15 Rebekah // Sep 26, 2008 at 7:35 pm

  Hey 270 to Win:
  I noticed today when I logged in that there were 13 states in the undecided color on the map. I believe when I logged in a few weeks ago it was 12. What state’s margins shifted? I really enjoy this site, especially the simulations. It’s a good example of how our votes really affect the race. Thanks
  
  270toWin: We made a change after the conventions. Prior to conventions, the interactive map was a based on both polls and history. With the election approaching, and more frequent polls in each state, we’ve moved toward basing it purely on a poll or composite of polls in each state. As a result there’s been a decent amount of movement. Hard to say which state(s) changed since you last looked, but I can tell you that NM, NC, MN, IN and WI have all bounced around in recent weeks. WA was briefly undecided as was WV. Overall, the polls have trended toward Obama this week, although not enough to change the bottom line status of most of the swing states.

• 16 Stephen // Sep 27, 2008 at 11:39 pm

  It’s time to move Wisconsin into the Obama column. That’s three straight polls in which he’s been ahead by 5-7 points.

• 17 Lulu // Oct 2, 2008 at 10:54 am

  OMG this is the coolest website and blog evaaaaa!!!! I heart Obama and I hate Palin I mean she made a high school friend secrtary of agriculture because she liked cows. I mean, come on!!!!1

• 18 Jeremy // Oct 3, 2008 at 1:28 am

  Just asking, today is Oct. 3rd, why hasn’t MI polls been updated since Sept. 26/08. McCain is winning MI too many times based on current polls and the fact that he has pulled out of MI.
  
  270toWin: No polls since then, although we see one this AM from Public Policy with Obama +10. That will get in the mix at some point today and you’ll see a change.

• 19 Sauberei // Oct 4, 2008 at 4:59 pm

  I think the fun is over now for us Republicans.

• 20 Elizabeth // Oct 6, 2008 at 2:29 pm

  Please God, let McCain win…otherwise, well, does anyone know Ireland or Scotland’s immigration policies? I want to go somewhere where English is spoken and morals still count.

• 21 Olga // Oct 6, 2008 at 6:08 pm

  Dear Elizabeth, I completely disagree with you. Although, you may perceive the U.S. as strictly Anglo-Saxon you couldn’t be further away from the truth. I believe we need a common language to be able to communicate effectively (as for instance at one’s job), however diversity is deeply engrained in this country’s history. It’s a factor that has to be considered and included in every political aspect if we as Americans want our country to prosper. How can we possibly steer this country successfully without including the millions of immigrants that live here now. I am an immigrant myself, all of my family has received citizenship, we pay taxes and put money back in the economy by spending money on cars, food, clothes, houses, etc. Unfortunately, my grandparents are too old to learn English and I am pretty sure they never will. They are also American citizens and they love their new home. It has been this way from the beginning, there’s nothing in the constitution that makes this country exclusively “English”.

• 22 QuincyConscience // Oct 7, 2008 at 2:40 am

  God is an important swing vote in this election, who do the polls have him leaning towards?

• 23 Alex // Oct 7, 2008 at 3:07 am

  I’ve learned to ignore people like Elizabeth. She is one of those people who are part of the right-wing religious zealots.

  When she is implying that the United States does not have morals, she really means that Barack Obama does not have morals or democrats for that matter. She is part of the uneducated, uninformed, and God-fearing members of the Republican base.

  Elizabeth are you implying that you will leave the country if Obama wins? I remember when so many people said this after Bush won re-election. As far as I know they all stayed.

• 24 Daniel // Oct 7, 2008 at 12:21 pm

  Olga,

  I think the “speaks English” part of Elizabeth’s post simply means that she only speaks English, so any country she abandons America for needs to be one where she speaks the language. I don’t think she means to imply that an Obama presidency will mean the end of America being an English-speaking country.

  In any case, her opinion can safely be ignored, as can the opinion of all people who are convinced that this country will collapse if their favored candidate (and there are plenty of people on both sides of the aisle who feel this way) loses.

  That being said, I can’t resist the urge to ask: WHY DOES ELIZABETH HATE AMERICA?

• 25 SandyC // Oct 21, 2008 at 4:57 pm

  Thank you 270towin, I’m a political junkie and surprised that i only found you guys today. I spent the better part of the day running simulations. I used 1948, Truman/Dewey for some back-up stats for swing states and I finalized my best guess @ Obama321 McCain217 as the Nov. 5th outcome. It might be fun to post your guesses, maybe this site will run a good natured contest, let my best guess be the first entry!
  Thanks SandyC

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