17
   

Get yer polls, bets, numbers & pretty graphs! Elections 2008

 
 
dyslexia
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 12:29 pm
This coming election will be won by groups. Groups that hate the war in Iraq, groups that hate the lies about the war in Iraq and the economy. these groups are called voters. I'm thinking McCain will make the Goldwater bid seem like he lost by a hair.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 02:22 pm
nimh wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
Whereas Republicans make a living off of keeping the whites above everyone else; obvious for a long time, wouldn't you say?

I think wealth trumps race: the Republican Party's political machine is primarily about defending the interests of the well-to-do against the demands of the poor. Racial prejudices, just like the religious issues that are thrown to the evangelical voters as a bone, are just tools to bind specific voter groups to the Republican agenda.

The agenda itself is not about race or religion or gun rights or flag waving; it's about defending the interests of corporations and the better-off in society, with some hegemonic foreign policy interests thrown in.

Thats just my opinion tho - the perspective of a cynical European lefty.


It's the perspective of many of us. Here's a relevant case in point...
Quote:
THE CHINA SYNDROME....Speaking of Esquire's profile of Adm. William Fallon, it also contains this fine little fragment about the tail wagging the dog:

Quote:
When the Admiral took charge of Pacific Command in 2005, he immediately set about a military-to-military outreach to the Chinese armed forces, something that had plenty of people freaking out at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. The Chinese, after all, were scheduled to be our next war. What the hell was Fallon doing?

Contrary to some reports, though, Fallon says he initially had no trouble with then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld on the subject. "Early on, I talked to him. I said, Here's what I think. And I talked to the president, too."

It was only after the Pentagon and Congress started realizing that their favorite "programs of record" (i.e., weapons systems and major vehicle platforms) were threatened by such talks that the **** hit the fan. "I blew my stack," Fallon says. "I told Rumsfeld, Just look at this ****. I go up to the Hill and I get three or four guys grabbing me and jerking me out of the aisle, all because somebody came up and told them that the sky was going to cave in."


Ladies and gentlemen, your military-industrial complex at work.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_03/013275.php
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 02:25 pm
IN response to nimh's post, okie wrote

Quote:
...This is the typical liberal mindset, confirming what I am saying here, you don't see people as individuals, you see them as groups...


Does anyone else want to bother trying to show okie how blindly self-contradictory he can manage to get himself even using so few words.
0 Replies
 
Butrflynet
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 02:40 pm
I think only someone like Helen Keller's teacher can do that.
0 Replies
 
Butrflynet
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 03:09 pm
http://cagle.msnbc.com/working/080229/bagley.jpg
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 06:58 pm
okie wrote:
As I said, your work is all fine, I don't want to be mis-interpreted, but it is simply my opinion that this sort of thing can be used by politicians and taken to the extreme to pander to groups, and indeed we see that is happening big time.

OK. Sure, thats true. Mark Penn, Hillary's chief strategist, is the author of Microtrends, and so kind of embodies what you're talking about. Yes, that happens.

okie wrote:
To take what you said about a liberal plot, I do think Obama and Clinton are actively plotting strategies all the time to maximize their support among their chosen groups, and we see the strategies change as they go from state to state, depending on which constituencies they encounter. Sure all policiticans do this, but the Democrats / liberals have perfected this craft in a big way.

Yes, sure, "Obama and Clinton are actively plotting strategies all the time to maximize their support among their chosen groups", and changing strategies depending on which constituencies are most in play in a given state. Part of their job description, really.

I disagree that Dems/liberals do this more than others. The McCain campaign does the exact same thing. Except that instead of weighing the size, influence and interests of, say, union members, African Americans, older women, the youth vote, they have their pollsters busily plugging away at the data for how important evangelicals, suburbanites, white men, rural voters, high- or low-income conservatives. And you bet that those numbers impact the language of McCain's scripted remarks or press release for that day just as much -- see his pandering to Hagee, for example, to cater for the evangelical vote. See the attempts by McCain supporters to persuade Jewish voters, a potentially decisive swing vote in several states, that Obama wouldnt be Israel-friendly enough. In location A, part X of his message is more emphasised, in location B, part Z is fudged, etc. Same as with, say, Obama.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:04 pm
Cyclo flagged this on the Obama thread yesterday: Survey USA has outdone itself and done a massive match-up polling exercise. Within a few days in late February, they polled the match-ups Hillary vs McCain and Obama vs McCain in 50 states ( Exclamation ).

The results are, of course, fascinating. You can read all about them on the Survey USA site - go here for the Hillary match-ups and here for the Obama match-ups. In the big table with the results by state, you can click on the state's name to see the results in greater detail.

There's a number of things to be said here...
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:11 pm
For example, Kos had some interesting observations about the regional spread of the numbers for the two candidates and how they differ; and about how these polls offer a brief preview of just how much the concept of what are "swing states" might change this year - at least if Obama becomes the nominee.

Quote:
It's amazing how many non-swing states will suddenly be, well, swing states this year, like Texas, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Some of these states become competitive depending on the candidate, like Arkansas and Tennessee for Clinton, and just about everything west of the Mississippi for Obama. [..]

In all, Obama outperforms Clinton in 33 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Clinton outperforms Obama in 15 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

They are even in: Kansas and Ohio.

Now New Jersey, Washington, and maybe even Pennsylvania are teases to the GOP. They seem to consider flipping, then never do. Obama getting North Dakota is so implausible that I'd never count on it.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:25 pm
How about Chris Bower's analysis?

Quote:

Despite seemingly similarity in their performance against McCain, this breakdown shows real differences between Obama and Clinton in the general election. Against Obama, McCain's "solid" and "lean" states only add up to 123, while Obama's add up to 229. In a matchup against Clinton, the "solid" and "lean" states are of equal size: 201 for McCain, and 203 for Clinton. In other words, while McCain and Clinton appear evenly matched, McCain is only able to keep it close against Obama by running up a series of narrow wins in the toss-up states.

An important pro-Clinton caveat on these polls is that they were taken before Clinton's successful night on March 4th. Since whoever has the momentum in the primary tends to have the momentum in the general election, I expect her to start performing better against McCain after those victories. An important pro-Obama finding from these polls is just how utterly myopic and stupefying her campaign's argument about "states that don't matter" actually is. Obama puts a whole range of supposedly deep red states into play, such as Alaska, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, and even Texas (although Clinton doesn't do too bad in Texas herself). There are other ways to win outside of the 2000 and 2004 paradigm. To insist that there is no way to break out of the electoral maps of recent elections is not only depressing fatalistic about Democratic chances, but it actually reinforces the Obama campaign's assertion about Clinton not being able to break out of the political arguments of the past. A new map is clearly possible, as long as we put the effort into actually running a 50-state campaign. Heavy Democratic campaigning in Texas has even put that state into play (and heavy Democratic campaigning in Ohio has virtually put that state out of play). Over the next two months, I salivate over what heavy Democratic campaigning in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana can accomplish.


http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4374

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:31 pm
These 50 Survey USA state-level match-up polls are very interesting, because they provide a much more in-depth view of how the Democratic candidates compare to each other in how they match up than your regular national match-up poll.

For one, because they involve a much larger total of respondents; for another, because elections, of course, are decided in the Electoral College and not in the popular vote, so national match-up polls are only of so much value. National match-up polls cloak the great electability differences between the two candidates from region to region.

But there are also major qualifications to keep in mind when looking at these data.

There are the general ones that you should always trot out when presenting these polls. Like, it's always tricky to look at the numbers of just one pollster. SUSA has been performing very well this year, but it is still one pollster, and considering the impact of differences in methodology, selection of likely voters etc, you can bet that another pollster will get differing results. In fact you know this, because I've posted the results of state-level match-up polls side-by-side for Survey USA, Rasmussen and Quinnipiac. SUSA tends to have the Democrats doing much better than Rasmussen.

Second, it's very, very far ahead of the elections, so these polls say nothing about how the electability of any of these candidates will look then. They merely indicate the candidates' relative popularity among the overall electorate by state right now.

Then there are specific qualifications that apply to this set of polls. On the one hand, the total number of respondents for all the state polls added together is much larger than that of your typical national poll, so the polling goes deep. But on the other hand, each individual state poll has a regularly-sized sample, and the margin of error and reliability rate that goes with it. As Kos warns:

Quote:
[..] if polls are correct 95% of the time (which is standard), then we have to assume by definition that 2-3 of these are off. So take with all the appropriate grains of salt.

So if you see a state or two that seems wholly off-kilter -- well, that would happen if you have so many polls side-by-side.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:44 pm
Holy ****. Pictures are too big. Wait a sec...
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:50 pm
A more problematic aspect of the exercise is the way that Survey USA has used the run-down of the 50 polls to emulate the full Electoral College breakdown.

Here's what that looks like - maps and electoral college breakdowns and all:


http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/4503/susa50stateshl0.png


This is very titillating, but a little problematic for a reason SUSA does point out in the small print:

Quote:
There are specific limitations to this exercise. The winner's margin in each state is not always outside of the survey's margin of sampling error. Rather than show states where the results are inside of the margin of sampling error as "leaning" or "toss-ups," SurveyUSA for this illustration assigned Electoral Votes to the candidate with the larger share of the vote, no matter how small the winner's margin.

But there's a reason they are called toss-ups: if the result is within the margin of error, it's a statistical tie, and the 50% vs. 49% lead that might show up is close to (if not entirely) meaningless. So to just colour the state red or blue on that basis is a bit much.

Moreover, it cloaks the difference in how deep the support - or resistance - is if Hillary is the Dem candidate, versus if Obama is the Dem candidate. The short version here is: if you regard the states where the lead is within the margin of error as toss-ups, and then compare how many states are properly in McCain's or the Democrat's camp, a clear Obama advantage shows up.

Commenter "FormerPollster" on Ezra Klein's blog puts this as follows:

Quote:
In addition to the specific quibbles above, Ezra fails to mention an important part of the SurveyUSA post. That is, "the winner's margin in each state is not always outside of the survey's margin of sampling error. Rather than show states where the results are inside of the margin of sampling error as "leaning" or "toss-ups," SurveyUSA for this illustration assigned Electoral Votes to the candidate with the larger share of the vote, no matter how small the winner's margin."

If you take this into account and crunch the numbers, something very interesting comes out. Hillary gets 250 electoral votes to John McCain's 223. They are within the margin for 65 electoral votes. This isn't enough for either to win the nomination.

On the other hand, Barak Obama gets 244 to McCain's 156. They are within the margin for 138 ev's.

It just isn't accurate for SurveyUSA to consider states where the candidates are within the margin of error (+/- 4% on each individual survey of 600 voters). From a statistical point of view, it cannot be said with 95% confidence (the standard for polling) that either candidate would win.

Looking, then, only at the states outside of the margin produces a totally different picture. Hillary gets more electoral votes than Obama, but John McCain gets SIGNIFICANTLY fewer paired against Obama than against Hillary. This tells us that Obama is likely more competitive than HRC in many of the states that McCain can win. [..]
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 07:55 pm
But - where there is a will, there is a way. I mean, where there is a need, there is a blogger geeky enough to provide a custom-made solution.

In this case, it's Nick Beaudrot at Cogitamus - the third time or so in a row that I find the best electoral maps there. Here he is:

Quote:
All Victories Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others

[The] maps from SurveyUSA don't really give you the full picture. While Ezra notes the final electoral college margins are similar, the margin-of victory in individual states is not. Here's a better look:


http://www.cogitamusblog.com/images/2008/03/06/ge_competitive_2.png


Chris Bowers notes that Barack Obama clearly has both a larger base and more potential swing states. To get to 270, Obama simply needs to defend New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, while picking up Ohio, Florida, or two more medium-sized states like Iowa and Virginia. Hillary Clinton has to play defense in the same places, but she also has to spend time and energy defending the Northwest and the Upper Midwest in a way that Barack Obama does not. Her only real pickup opportunities are Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Arkansas, Iowa, and Missouri. Obama has Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Texas. Okay, even I don't believe he has a shot at all of those states, but he has a much better chance there than Clinton does in Mississippi or Kentucky or Oklahoma.

In addition, in the states with the ten most competitive Senate races, Obama does better than Clinton in eight of them; only Kentucky and Louisiana are better for Clinton (and, seriously, if Mary Landrieu can't win 25% of the white vote in Louisiana, she's got bigger problems). There's also the third tier of Senate races, in places like North Carolina, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota (that's a defense), Texas, and Idaho, where Obama does better in four of five and ties Clinton in the fifth. Should Rick Noriega or Scott Kleeb catch lightning in a bottle, it would be better to have Obama at the top of the ticket. Put Tom Daschle or Ed Rendell as VP and he'll be unstoppable.

At the moment, Barack Obama is the better general election nominee. Period. Full stop. He will have to spend less time defending blue states. He's competitive in a larger number of red states. And he's more competitive in states that have Senate elections. Barack Obama: because this is the year to bust the map wide open.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 09:06 pm
Looking at these Survey USA 50-state results, Ezra Klein concluded that "Obama's electoral coalition is Western, while Clinton relies more on the Midwest. He's Sun Belt, she's Rust Belt."

I disagree. There's a few states between Midwest and Northeast where Hillary does clearly better than Obama: New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West-Virginia. But elsewhere in the greater Midwest, Hillary has no advantage - and in the Western reaches of the region (WI, IL, MN and IA) Obama actually does distinctly better.

Meanwhile, I associate "Sun Belt" with the Southwest, specifically, and perhaps Florida too. But there is no Obama in advantage in Arizona, California or Florida.

No, there is a clear geographic contrast between the two candidates' general election appeal, but Ezra mis-defines it. One look at the Cogitamus maps reveals it, I think. Hillary's relative strength is in the (old) South; Obama's relative strength is in the Mountains and Plains states.

In both regions, of course, the Republican Party remains very strong either way, and pick-ups would have to be very hard-fought indeed -- but those are the regions where Obama's and Hillary's numbers diverge most sharply. Hillary gets hammered in the West and doesnt do badly in the South; Obama gets hammered in the South and doesnt do badly in the West.

Conveniently, I was already making the point about Hillary's relative strength in the South here months ago and in January, and covered the differences in the candidates' performance in both South and West a couple of weeks ago :wink:

To verify the impression I get from a brief look at the Cogitamus maps, I copied the new Survey USA polling data into an Excel sheet, calculated the leads/deficits that Obama and Hillary have versus McCain per state, and then calculated the difference between how the two candidates perform.

In the table below, the states at the top are the ones where Hillary outdoes Obama the most in a match-up against McCain, while the states at the bottom are the ones where Obama outdoes Hillary the most. As you can see, Hillary does double digits better in Arkansas, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Florida. Obama does double digits better in a full 18 states, and more than 15% better in Washington, Alaska, Illinois, Idaho, North Dakota, Nebraska, Vermont, Hawaii and Utah.


http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9629/susa50statesobamavscliniz0.png
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 09:25 pm
For clarity's sake, I just replaced the table above with one in which the states are coloured by region: the Northeast is light blue, the South yellow, the Midwest pinkish and the West green.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 Mar, 2008 09:42 pm
More still about those Survey USA 50-state polls

Wow - and that's not all. At Pollster.com, Mark Blumenthal really goes into the weeds on these Survey USA polls, and comes out with all kinds of interesting info, including fascinating tables.

GO AND READ!
0 Replies
 
Butrflynet
 
  1  
Reply Sat 8 Mar, 2008 04:54 pm
Wyoming Caucus Results - 12 delegates

91% reporting - high voter turnout

Obama 58%
Clinton 41%
0 Replies
 
realjohnboy
 
  1  
Reply Sat 8 Mar, 2008 05:08 pm
Cheyenne may be reporting a bit late, I heard. Big turnout there, and tend to be a younger crowd.
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Sat 8 Mar, 2008 08:43 pm
I'm still studying exit poll data.. some interesting stuff in there if you look in neglected corners.

For example: the media and blogs are full of stories (and evidence) of the escalating bitterness of the campaign - both up there on the political level and down here among rank and file posters. But how much of an impact is it having out in the neighbourhoods, among ordinary Democratic voters?

I have made it a point, several times, to note that according to polling, the phenomenon of mutual bitterness isnt anywhere as large as it may seem reading the media, old and new. That Hillary, for example, remains greatly popular among Democrats - or among African-Americans, even after the South Carolina fracas. Same with Obama, of course. Going on a cursory reading of polls here and there, it seems like a large majority of regular Democrats still see this race as a luxury choice between two perfectly fine candidates.

Or at least that's what it looked like last I went checking, couple of weeks ago. So I thought I'd do a more systematic check, using the exit polls.

Every exit poll since South Carolina has asked respondents whether they would be satisfied or dissatisfied if Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama were to be the nominee. Back on Jan 31, I wrote about the numbers on that question among Edwards supporters, in the South Carolina and Florida primaries. One surprise finding (see this follow-up post) was that Edwards supporters were more sceptical about both Hillary and Obama than Obama's and Hillary's supporters were about each other's candidate.

But yeah, back then we were talking about a 30-40% dissatisfaction rate. I was curious whether, now that the campaign is lasting so long, the number of respondents saying they'd be dissatisfied with the other candidate as nominee was going up - and if so, who would be the more dissatisfied ones, Hillary or Obama supporters.

Finding out the latter isn't entirely straightforward, it involves a bit of recalculating. But the results are surprising/interesting:

  • The "bitterness quotient," to give it a flippant label, did increase over time, but it was mainly right between the SC/FL primaries and Super Tuesday, with surprisingly little deterioration since;
  • Hillary voters would be more dissatisfied with Obama as nominee than vice versa (something I hadnt expected);
  • Differences from region to region are much larger than the difference over time. In five Southern states, Hillary voters would be significantly more dissatisfied with Obama than voters of either candidate would be with the other anywhere else. A race question? Alternative explanations welcome.
Here's the table with results:


http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/2307/bitternessquotientvl0.png
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Sat 8 Mar, 2008 09:38 pm
Quote:
Poll: Dems Evenly Split On What Super-Delegates Should Do

TPM, Greg Sargent
March 8, 2008

Here's another key number buried in the new Newsweek poll: It shows that Dems are pretty much evenly split on whether the super-delegates should back the candidate who wins the pledged delegate count and/or popular vote or whether they should back the candidate of their choice...

    Should neither Clinton nor Obama secure enough delegates to win the nomination (a scenario that looks increasingly likely), 43 percent of Democrats said they would prefer that the candidate trailing in the delegate count concede the nomination, while 42 percent think superdelegates should choose the nominee. Should the ball end up in the superdelegates' court, most respondents (42 percent) think they should choose the best-qualified nominee in their judgment, while 38 percent believe they should choose the person with the popular vote lead.
We haven't seen this polled anywhere else; if anyone else has, please let us know.

My guess is that should Obama win the pledged del count and especially also the popular vote, all the media attention given to it would shift these numbers significantly in his favor.

Nonetheless, these numbers suggest the possibility that the war over what the super dels do could amount to yet another bruising political battle and that things could get very, very murky and ugly at the end.
0 Replies
 
 

Related Topics

 
Copyright © 2024 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.12 seconds on 11/15/2024 at 02:23:19