29 responses so far ↓

• 1 Stephen // Oct 20, 2008 at 2:02 pm

  I understand with Virginia’s history and all that moving it into Obama’s column was tough, but it had to be done. Rasmussen was one of the last pollsters to keep the race within the margin of error, and now they say he’s up by 10. Other pollsters like SurveyUSA, PPP, and ABCNews have had Obama up by 8-10 within the last few weeks. Barring a total turnaround, Virginia is going blue. You can disregard one poll, or even two, but when everybody says the same thing, you can’t ignore it.

  McCain really screwed up with the whole “real virginia” pitch.

• 2 Alex // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:57 pm

  I agree with moving Virginia to Obama’s column. I thought previously that you all might be hesitating because it might look like an endorsement. I applaud the staff for being overly cautious in this matter. I know it must have been frustrating as numerous polls kept coming out in favor of Obama in Virginia.

  A question I have for the staff of 270towin:

  How did you all finally come to the decision to push Virginia into the Obama column? Was there a vote among various staff members or some kind of mutal agreement?

• 3 Mike // Oct 20, 2008 at 4:41 pm

  Absolutely the correct decision to reflect where the polling data is right now. Not to color Virginia blue would have been inconsistent with the rest of the map.
  Of course it still matters not, the real votes have not yet been counted.
  My question to the 270towin team, is which of the remaining toss-up states is close to going Red or Blue? I would estimate North Carolina is getting close to blue.

  270toWin You are definitely correct that none of this matters until the votes are actually counted. Of the 7 states currently polling inside the margin of error, Colorado and North Carolina are probably closest to ‘blue’, with Indiana closest to red. Obama seems slightly ahead in Florida and Nevada, with Missouri and Ohio basically a coin flip. Of states already ‘chosen’, North Dakota is probably most at risk to return to undecided, although the polling there is so infrequent it is really hard to know what to think.

• 4 Zachary // Oct 20, 2008 at 7:12 pm

  I applaud you for both your caution and for putting it finally in the obama column. I have a question as well, does anyone know why msnbc moved south dakota from likely mccain to lean mccain on their map….i haven’t seen any polling in that state and surely they aren’t doing it just because north dakota is closing up

• 5 christian // Oct 20, 2008 at 7:34 pm

  Polls are not science proof but it does give insight on the thinking of the population. If we add Virginia to the Obama column it will make the route to 270 for McCain impossible. I am an Obama supporter but we cannot take this campaign for granted; therefore, I will continue to support this campaign through November 4, 2008

• 6 Vicente Duque // Oct 21, 2008 at 1:53 pm

  The First “unlikelys” for Obama :

  Other McCain toss up states that could go for Obama ( but very unlikely Obamas ) are these.

  I give the INTRADE prices to win $100

  The First Unlikelys for Obama ( in betting prices order ) :

  North Dakota (3EVs) ….. Obama 32.1, McCain 69.0
  Indiana (11EVs) ……….. Obama 30.0, McCain 67.1
  Montana (3EVs) ……….. Obama 22.0, McCain 78.0
  West Virginia (5EVs) ….. Obama 21.0, McCain 75.0
  Georgia (15EVs) ………. Obama 21.9, McCain 80.0

  Tennessee (11EVs) …… Obama 16.0 MacCain 84.0
  Arkansas (6EVs) ……… Obama 15.0, McCain 83.9
  Luisiana(9EVs) ……….. Obama 14.0 MacCain 83.0

  These are very unlikely, but who knows ????

  There are people there risking their money for Obama in those unlikelys.

  http://tossUpStates.blogspot.com/

  http://milenials.blogspot.com/

  Vicente Duque

• 7 James // Oct 21, 2008 at 8:40 pm

  I don’t understand. Such caution with regard to passing the 270 mark. Yet the simulation consistently predicts an Obama win. The simulation results today don’t show even a fleck of red. If things are “iffy” enough to resist declaring Virginia blue, why doesn’t the similation relflect that.
  Don’t get me wrong. I am DELIGHTED that Obama will apparently be our next president

  270toWin: Probably the best way to explain that is (and this is not an exact example) that there are a fairly large number of states polling closely. No single one of them is favoring Obama by a lot, but because of how the other states had been polling, Obama would win if he just won one or two of those close ones. So, we can’t assign any one of those states to Obama, but in almost all the simulations he would win quite a few of those,.which would lead to his victory (in the simulation).

• 8 Jacob Rosen // Oct 21, 2008 at 11:21 pm

  I can’t wait to see how this all plays out. I am still having trouble finding out how McCain can possibly win 270… Is Pennsylvania his late surprise? Can he pull it off?

• 9 Nan in NV // Oct 22, 2008 at 1:44 am

  Congrats on taking Obama over the 270, the absolutely correct step at the right time. But, unless I’ve missed it, why is this not getting more play here on the web or on television? Is there still some hesitation?

• 10 Stephen // Oct 22, 2008 at 2:58 pm

  Jacob, Obama is polling on average about 9-10 points ahead in Pennsylvania from what I’ve seen. Either McCain knows something that we don’t know, or he’s begging.

• 11 Mike // Oct 22, 2008 at 3:09 pm

  Jacob Rosen, you asked ‘How McCain can win 270?’

  Well OH and FL are must wins obviously for McCain. Personally, PA seems to have gone. Joe Biden is very popular with strong roots across the electorate. The lead is around 10% which would be a unprecedented turnaround.
  For McCain to reach 270, he needs to really seize back VA and take every other toss-up. How you do that is another issue. It seems like whenever McCain tries to reassert his campaign, he gets blown off course. A good example is today, McCain’s camp tries to set the agenda of winning NH but gets blown off course by Sarah Palin’s $150,000 clothes budget. As an independent and someone who has run three political campaigns for office, I just bang my head in disbelief at the misfires McCain’s team keeps making. Of course Obama’s team just needs to stay out of sight. The maxim ‘if your opponent keeps shooting themself in the foot, why get in the way’ certainly rings true in this campaign.chapin show

• 12 Randy // Oct 22, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  I do not believe that a 10% turnaround in a state would be “unprecedented”. That being said, the supposed mistakes being made are nothing in comparison with Joe Biden’s repeated gaffes. Of course, the election could swing either direction (I would be very surprised to see a landslide). After all, someone remarked “We are not a 60-40 nation. We are a 51-49 nation.” That should hold fairly close to true, even this year. Great job 270 to win! I love this site.

• 13 Zachary // Oct 22, 2008 at 8:41 pm

  Ok, something’s fishy with Rasmussen in the last week. They’ve told me in their daily updates since something like last Thursday that the following day would have a Texas presidential poll, even today they said they’d release it at the same time as the Kentucky one. I want to know why they haven’t released it.

  270toWin: It is out this AM. McCain 54, Obama 44. We’ll have it up later today.

• 14 Skep T. // Oct 23, 2008 at 1:48 pm

  Hi -
  Thanks for this exercise. Do you have a record of your predictions & estimates VS. actual for the last two presidential campaigns (200, 2004)? Show us how well you performed then - to give us some confidence in your predictive estimates for 2008?

  270toWin: These are not predictions; this site does not predict. We’re just reflecting what the polls show. If the polls end up being wrong, then this map will end up being wrong.

• 15 Skep T. // Oct 23, 2008 at 3:41 pm

  For the record, these polls are all over the place. Additionally the statistical error margins, the polling sample caveats, the way the questions are asked, if other independent candidates are included or not, mean we need to take this with a barrel of salt;until all the actual votes are counted. i want to see big bold visible caveats on all these numbers you are putting up here. Obama’s victory is in no way assured, especially based on the historical record. I urge all his supporters to work incredibly hard to turn in the vote all the way thru election nite.

• 16 Final Election Report « The Sports Report // Oct 23, 2008 at 3:52 pm

  […] of the eight. He has a solid lead in both Colorado and Virginia, and many pollsters are actually starting to move those states into the solid Democratic […]

• 17 Jacob Rosen // Oct 23, 2008 at 8:54 pm

  To me, McCain winning 270 electoral votes right now seems particularly unfeasible. He would either have to win absolutely every single toss up state (and he is currently trailing in seven of those eight states) or win Pennsylvania (the McCain campaign has been there a lot recently, they must be up to something) plus the vast majority of those toss ups. I don’t see how this can happen right now. It is amazing to me how this one path to victory is to win all of North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada.

  Hey there 270towin, I just finished up my Final Election Report over at http://www.jrosen.wordpress.com and I wanted to thank you for all of the help! Keep up the good work over here, it is one of my favorite sites!

• 18 Mike // Oct 24, 2008 at 11:37 am

  I have a quick question about the AP poll that came out during the week that supposedly showed a tightening of the race to 1%. I read the footnotes to this poll and noted that it was a survey of ‘registered likely voters’. This was further tightened that a ‘registered likely voter’ was those who had voted in previous elections. So effectively freezing out anyone under 22 or anyone who was not registered at the last election or did not vote. It seems like the AP poll was designed to deliver a ‘tightening race’ headline. Similarly a quite meaningless poll on AOL shows McCain winning every state-yes every state by a landslide.
  So my question is does 270towin examine the footnotes of every poll and assess the polling data?

  270toWin: We look primarily at the state polls. We don’t make a huge distinction between the footnotes, except we tend to ignore polls that sample fewer than 500 people and/or are conducted on behalf of a partisan organization. There is probably nothing wrong with those polls, but there are plenty of other options to look at. We tend to underweight polls that are outliers vs. other recent polls in the same state until they are ‘verified’ by subsequent polls.

• 19 Biiilllll // Oct 24, 2008 at 5:26 pm

  Take the Biiilllll challenge…. I bet you cannot honestly tell me that you are voting for Obama after watching this short video….. I guarantee you it will change your vote…. guarantee.
  Do you consider yourself to be enlightened?
  Think I am a rube?….. Think I am a country hick from a redneck red state?
  Okay…. prove me wrong…. I dare you.
  Warning…. this video may forever change your life.
  http://www.durarealidad.com/

• 20 Frank // Oct 24, 2008 at 7:03 pm

  I am curious, why has 270towin moved Virginia but not Ohio to Obama? Is it the large undecided? Ohio also leads by two digits.

  270toWin: We’re just being cautious. We waited on VA until there were multiple polls showing Obama clearly leading. In Ohio, it is still a bit up in the air. This week, there have been a couple poll showing him +10 or more, yet there was a Strategic Vision poll today (which we haven’t posted yet) where McCain is up by 3. These discrepancies are pretty remarkable, so it is hard to know what to think.

• 21 Stephen // Oct 25, 2008 at 12:17 am

  Indeed, what 270 is referring to in Ohio were two polls released on 10/24, one by Strategic Vision, the other by Insider Advantage. SV has McCain up by 3, but IA has Obama by 10. Earlier this week, Qunnipiac, SurveyUSA and Big Ten Battleground had Obama up by big margins as well. My guess is that Obama does have the lead, but it’s probably in the 4-6 point range, close to turning the state blue, but not quite.

• 22 Sauberei // Oct 26, 2008 at 10:02 am

  Bill, I’m a Republican so I was not voting for Obama to begin with, but a video about abortion is unlikely to change many minds, since pro-choice Democrats are nothing new and abortion supporters already know that abortion is disgusting. Pro-life Democrats have already come up with reasons to continue voting Democrat despite the Democrats’ support for abortion.

• 23 Stephen // Oct 26, 2008 at 1:06 pm

  I live in Virginia. Life in a so-called “Battleground State” has provided us the opportunity to receive the full breadth of each campaign’s marketing efforts. We have been shocked by the vile, hate-filled messages we are receiving from the McCain/Palin campaign. The level of personal attacks, negativity and distortions of truth is incredible. This collateral has just landed, so I’d expect this race to tighten as people receive the “fear” messages and endless automated phone calls. Unfortunately, these kind of messages do resonate with some folks.

  Now, to be fair, we’ve also received numerous marketing efforts from the Obama campaign. However, in contrast to the above-mentioned McCain/RNC materials, they are issue-based, do not include personal attacks, and carry a largely positive message.

  I’ve always respected McCain, but he has clearly sold his soul to be President at ANY cost. He has ruined his legacy and dishonored himself. He may win this election, but through the sleaziest means imaginable.

  I lived in Arizona for many years and still have many friends in that great state. I’m collecting the McCain propaganda and sending to my friends there. Arizonans - particularly McCain’s constituents - deserve to know how far McCain has fallen, and how different the real John McCain is from the man he claims to be:

  “I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don’t have much of a vision for the future or you’re not ready to articulate it.”

  -John McCain, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 2/21/2000

• 24 Vicente Duque // Oct 26, 2008 at 7:40 pm

  We have not factored the Racial Voters in all their power. They are not easy to capture in Polls.

  But look at the long lines for early voting in Florida and the enthusiasm for it in the Southwest as reported by the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times, Blacks and Latinos.

  The Economic Pain in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico is prodding the Newly Registered Voters.

  And Hillary and Bill are a great factor in the mentioned States and are working hard.

  What about the “Anchorage Daily News” ( Alaska ) and the “Des Moines Register” ( Iowa ) just Endorsing Obama.

  The New York Times has an article :

  “In Defense of White Americans”, By FRANK RICH, Published: October 25, 2008

  This is a superb article, it has literary and intellectual quality. There is Racism still out there. But if Mr Rich is right. Then McCain is liquidated.

  I bet that Mr Rich is right and we are witnessing and avalanche of white voters for Obama. We are not going to believe it.

  http://tossUpStates.blogspot.com/

  http://milenials.blogspot.com/

  Vicente Duque

• 25 Paul // Oct 27, 2008 at 9:15 am

  Hey,

  It’s time to update your Colorado polls and move it to blue.

• 26 Ain't Right // Oct 29, 2008 at 3:46 pm

  When 1000 of 1000 simulations turn out with the same winner, it indicates there is something wrong with your simulator.

  270toWin: Well, it will either be right or really wrong! If it is wrong, then it is really a lesson about trusting the polls. For the model to come up with the same winner every time, the poll numbers really have to favor one candidate over the other well outside the margin of error in enough states to exceed 270 electoral votes. It would be far more entertaining if it was 50-50 (which it basically was right after the Republican convention), but it is what it is…. we can’t really change the methodology at this point.

• 27 Darlene Jenkins, PA // Oct 30, 2008 at 4:13 pm

  Your problem with the simulation is that you do not handle Zero well. As long as one person votes for McCain, you still have a chance that all the Obama people stay home thinking he can’t lose, then that one person votes for McCain and he wins and vice-versa. Of course that is the most extreme case, but a polling closer to 60%-40% could easily suffer from that.
  Why not give Obama a 99.9% chance to claim a state with more than 10% in his favor or consider raising that threashold to 15% or 20%. You’re too conservative with following polls. Do the same with McCain state to get a few % chance of McCain outcomes.

  270toWin: Your points are valid. When we designed the algorithm, we weren’t expecting the polls to turn out this strongly for one of the candidates. It is something we will need to look at after the election. If McCain does end up pulling it out, given the polls that underlie the simulation, it might also mark the end of polling as we know it.

• 28 kirk willis // Nov 2, 2008 at 10:16 pm

  Hey folks i live in southwest va even the democrats i talk to down this way are going for mccain/ something is fishy with polls

• 29 Elizabeth // Nov 4, 2008 at 8:32 pm

  I understand why VA changed to Obama he can offer way more than MCcain. Plus he chose the best vice president for him. i love him

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