If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

Current Presidential Betting Line as of 17SEP04


Republican Party
4/9


Democratic Party
2/1


BOLD marks current front runner on odds line.

Last set of odds on 08 SEP 04 showed the following:

Republican Party
4/6

Democratic Party
13/8

Odds are getting longer and longer for the Democratic Party

LINK

hehheh ... that gave me a chuckle

if only, eh?

If only indeed.

Just read Yahoo news article about the widely varying Pew and Gallup polls -- there was a quote about how voters are unsettled, can get it if asked, forget who said it.

I find that hopeful (I'm the most optimistic cynic you've ever met) in that the scandal stuff is offsetting (I so believe it has an effect) and maybe now Kerry can pull out with some current issue stuff and it when the dust settles he'll have the advantage.

I'm not sure about the effect of a "cell phone skew". I went looking frantically but no longer can find the link to an article I read a while back ... from a trade journal, I believe, that looked at "The Cellular Effect" on survey methods and results as applied to broadcasting. One of the findings was that conventional, landline telephone surveys of entertainment preferences yield statistically congruent results compared with postal surveys, face-to-face-surveys, and electronic monitoring, such as Nielsen and Arbitron employ to estimate TV or radio audience size. There is little reason to expect anything different would pertain to political preferences.

New CBS/IBD out; Bush adds two more to his lead here compared to this poll's last week's sampling, scoring 50% (up 1) to Kerry's 41% (down 1), for a Bush lead of 9 points ... Wonder if Kerry knows what Bush Bounce they're talkin' about yet?






Some interesting internals ... Bush's base (Republicans and Conservatives) appears more strongly tied to their candidate than Kerry's base (Democrats and Liberals) to him. Additionally, Bush's "Strongly Favor" numbers remain as they were last week, at 63% (though down from July's 70%), while Kerry's "Strongly Favor" numbers, which stood at 54% in July continue to tick down, falling from last week's 45% to today's 40%.

54% feel US action against Iraq was "The Right Thing", trending upward through last week's 52% from the August's 49%, and the current and previous surveys show 46% feel things are going "Well" in Iraq, well up from the 37% assessment recorded in May and congruent with last December's 47%.

52% of respondents feel Kerry has "Been spending too much time talking about the past".

Only 33% feel the Swiftboat Veterans ads are "Mostly True", but 64% feel the SBVets "Speak for themselves" as opposed to for "Most Vietnam Veterans", and opinion is split 42/41 on the question of whether there has been coordination between the SBVT and the Bush/Cheney campaign.

Kerry's current "Favorable" of 31% is essentially equal to last week's 32%, and Bush Records a second straight 47%. Their respective "Unfavorables" have remained essentially static as well.

Bush, at 50% in the category, has more folks thinking he has clearly set out what he wishes to accomplish as President, while only 38% feel Kerry has been clear on that.

There's lots more in there, and not all of it is glowing for Bush or gloomy for Kerry, but overall, I would have to say the present call "Advantage: Bush" not only is unendangered but enhanced and reinforced by this poll and most of its indicators. Kerry may be the "Come Back Kid" ... he and his handlers say so, and he sorta demonstrated that as the primaries got under way. Still, I see little likelyhood Bush will afford Kerry an opportunity similar to that granted Kerry by Dean earlier this year. I really see no prospect, absent a Dean-like meltdown on the part of his current opponent, for Kerry to wrest momentum his way.

Well, that at least speaks for the average American's sanity ...

I doubt the SBVT ads, or the Moveon ads, really have all that much impact. I think most folks blow 'em off as partisan carping. Rathergate, on the otherhand, which really hasn't had a chance to impact the polls, may be a different deal altogether. I figure the flap will prolly begin to wind down in the coming week, but its effect could be seen in the polls run over the Thursday-Sunday timeframe for release Monday. I don't see it playing at all to Kerry's advantage, but by the same token, I doubt it will benefit Bush the Younger much, perhaps not even enough to rise above statistical moise. We'll see. I'm sure too we're gonna start seein' lots more polls. The spreads between the low and high polls this past week likely is gonna spur other folks to jump in and sample The Electorate. The standbys, of course, are the ones to heed, but there are bound to be some interesting results from the lesser-knowns.

IEM's latest 15 Minute tick has it a clean 60-40 3-to-2 for Bush with high Bush volume, and Tradesports has been ticking up for Bush steadily all day, running fairly high volume showng a current Bid/Ask of 65.9/67 vs Kerry at 33.5/34.5 and about 20% of the Bush volume. Neither board showed any major swing however, and actually both seem to have reacted fairly calmly throughout Rathergate, so mebbe there really won't be a carryover into next week's polls.

Gee, this is fun, ain't it? This guessin' and rationalizin' and speculatin' and analyzin' and all ... regular folks must think we're nuts

Do you truly believe only the insane could accept the charges the Swift Boat veterans are putting forward ? I believe the evidence is very strongly against you on that one.

Both the verifiable facts they have put forward and the implausibility of the story Kerry would have us believe establish beyond reasonable doubt that he took advantage of loose oversight of the awards documentation process during combat operations to get 3 Purple Hearts he didn't deserve; that he used them to get an early reassignment back to the states; that he knowingly and falsely accused those with whom he served of murder and worse crimes; and that he did all this to establish a base for his subsequent political career.

Worse he now goes out of his way to present himself to the American public as some sort of war hero or icon. In my own xperience I have observed that real heros are much more discrete and more mindful of their own shortcomings. Kerry has finally become the chief consumer of his own false propaganda. All this betrays serious defects in his moral character and equally serious failures of judgement that render him unfit for any position of serious responsibility and leadership.

I'm going to say this in as non-partisan a voice as I can:

What does it mean when poll results vary wildly -- when Bush has a double-digit lead in one poll, and yet the race is apparently neck-and-neck in another? Perhaps these polls have a twelve point margin of error, which is to say they're complete guesswork. Perhaps one of these polls is trustworthy and the other uses questionable methodology -- but the very fact that questionable methodology can exist takes us back to my initial point: I don't trust polls. Or, maybe more accurately, I trust them in the way that I trust the weather forecast; they may give you a general sense of the mood of the country but they often miss the sudden thunderstorm that blows up out of nowhere and totally ruins your picnic.

Or the other guy's picnic, if you prefer.

Look, a lot of people (timber) want you to believe that if Bush pulls ahead 7/8ths of a point, it means that he's got the election sewn up and you might as well stay home on election day because there's really no point in bothering. They want you to believe that because a certain sequence of events has occurred in the past, there's no possible way Bush can lose now. They want you to believe that because liberals do not worship Kerry with the unconditional unthinking adoration conservatives seem to have for Bush, the outcome of the election is predetermined.

It's all bollocks, of course. Republicans just want to psyche you out. They want people to think they can't be defeated. They want you to doubt, to get depressed, to give up.

But there are way too many variables at play. Iraq, an economy that can't decide which way to go, the over-arching threat of terrorism -- a confluence of events never before seen.

This is uncharted territory.

The future hasn't been written yet.

Oh, BTW: only the insane believe the SB lies.

A for effort! :wink:
Funny thing is; I'm not convinced a candidate being behind in the polls is bad for voter turnout. If my preferred candidate was the guy in the underdog spot; I'd redouble my efforts to convince like-minded friends to vote. I would think trying to turn the tide more important than "piling on".

my wife must be one of those regular folks, timber.

move over rover, big dog's movin' in....

I'll try to be non-partisan for a moment here myself, PDiddie. Of course any one poll, or even series of polls, may be off-the-mark; that's a given. At best, a poll is just a snapshot of the mood of a given set of folks at a given point in time - this has been discussed at length here on this thread and just about anywhere else polls are discussed. From a single poll little of meaning can be drawn. A glimpse into actuality is provided only be examining the trending of a poll over a series of sample periods. Whether A or B is ahead or behind by whatever amount in a given poll's results largely is immaterial apart from how that particular result compares with its direct predecessors. If one or the other displays upward/downward momentum, or inertia - a resistance to change ... a consistent direction of movement over time, it reasonably may be inferred, whatever the reported numbers, that something meaningful is being said of that one's prospects.

Now, with that said, it also needs to be understood that any one result, or any one poll or poll series may be abbertational ... an "outlier". Should that divergence from the mean of its contemporaries persist, the accuracy of the subject report falls to question. Not necessarilly does that mean the poll is "wrong", per se, but an outlier is just that; outside the norm. It is not unheard of for a given poll to be ahead of the curve compared with its contemporaries. As exampled most recently by Gallup's unexpected post-RNC breakout, the rest of the polls may begin to track more closely with the outlier, indicating the direction of movement shown, regardless its magnitude, likely is real. Conversely, and more commonly, an outlier on subsequent releases will trend back toward congruence with the pack, indicating the individual outlier itself was not truly representational.

Finally, with all that said, it must be understood the best information to be gleaned from polls is derived by comparing a broad sample of polls from different organizations, partisan, independent, commercial, academic, what have you, charting the trendline created by placing each poll's reported results-over-time onto the graph. This method greatly reduces the impact of both of partisan sentiment and abberational results, "smoothing the bumps", so to speak, and enhances the overall accuracy of any inferrence drawn therefrom. As mentioned earlier in this little essay, the magnitude of the difference between A and B is statistically of somewhat less significance than are the trendlines thus revealed, and the consitency, or momentum, of those trendlines. That, of course, is more work than just looking at a given poll or polls on a given date, and the information derived is far less subject either to "spin" or misinterpretation. Saving one the effort of broadbased poll tracking, RealClearPolitics, among others, including our very own nimh, does precisely that; look at many polls, from many organizations of every stripe, and present conclusions drawn from examination of congruences, differences, and trending.

Here is RealClearPolitics' current assessment, updated through yesterday's releases:



What inference do you draw from the trending charted there?

edited to add: It just dawned on me the link for that chart image goes not to a static chart, but to the chart as it is updated daily. So, its correct as of the time you view it. Incidentally, the movement since it tirst was posted hasn't dismayed me a bit as of this writing, early evening Sept 18th.

Oh, and just to reitterate, I don't do my election prognostication by poll tracking alone ... I dig into it A Little Deeper than just that. It would appear, at least by the available evidence, I'm not doing too badly.

By the same token, that may be said of The Incumbent's prospects as well, and according to my methodology, there is no reason to expect a reversal of, or even significant change in, the current momentum.

The national polls vary widely; but the state polls, Colorado and W-Virgina excepted, are universally glum.

In Ohio, for example - and if there was ever a crucial state it's Ohio now - four different pollsters in the last ten days all came up with Bush leads (sorry Soz) - and sizable Bush leads. Survey USA said 3%, Mason-Dixon 7-8%, Gallup 8-9%, and Strategic Vision 10-12%. That's pretty grim.

In Nevada, five subsequent polls each neatly increased a Bush lead by 1% - from a 1% Bush lead in a Rasmussen poll August 15 to a 5% Bush lead in a Mason-Dixon poll last week.

In Missouri, both Research2000 and Mason-Dixon polled a 7% Bush lead last week.

In Arizona, tentatively considered a battleground state earlier this summer, Bush leads by 11% or 16% in polls out this month. In Tennessee (see Arizona), Mason-Dixon now has Bush in the lead by a whopping 16%. The pollster also has Bush up by 9% in New Hampshire.

Well, you get the picture. Post-Republican Convention, SurveyUSA has Bush up by 6% in Florida (in unfortunately the only poll since). Rasmussen has Wisconsin for Bush, if only by 2% - but Strategic Vision says the lead is 5-6% and Gallup says it's no less than 8%. Out of seven different pollsters who tried their hand at Pennsylvania after the Convention, six have Bush in the lead, even if they almost unanimously have the difference at a hairwidth.

As we say in Holland, "tsja".

Oh, and Georgeob1 - Debunking SBVFT. I've spent way too much time researching the various SVFT claims, and they have astounding holes in them all over the place. I understand where their anger at Kerry comes from, but if they'd been honest they would have just come straight to the point (resenting his anti-war activities), instead of making up, manipulating and charicaturising his service in Vietnam. Anyways, enough about that.

Excellent point re the SBVT nimh.

Even if Kerry manages to win New Mexico (a tossup in the polls), Pennsylvania and Wisconsin again, and gain New Hampshire and West-Virginia from Bush - and all that still seems more or less feasible, though Wisconsin does not look good at all - he still ends up with just 269 EVs - the exact same number Bush would then have. In which case Bush would still win the presidency ...

Ohio looks almost out of reach now ... but the main alternative is called Florida ...

Thanks Timber ... appreciate it.

Entirely welcome ... we have our different perspectives, even, to some extent, on the SBVT thing, but picking open three-decade-old scabs is disgusting. Enough about that indeed, though I suffer no delusion other folks will tire of the pointless game any time soon. Memes are so much more convenient than actual consideration of real issues.

Re Wisconsin ... thoroughly unscientific, I know, but drivin' around, I notice far more Bush/Cheney yard and window signs, and far more Bush/Cheney bumper stickers as well. Over the border into Minnesota, there seems to be noticeably more Kerry/Edwards sentiment, but still less than that displayed in yards and windows or on bumpers for Bush/Cheney. Interesting ... prolly not meaningful, but interesting none the less.

My neighbor across the street put on her lawn a large BUSH CHENEY sign, so this morning I walked across the street and said hello and I told her I was looking for a even larger KUCINICH sign to put in my yard, she laughed and said she would keep her eye out for one and pick it up for me if she found one. She's a pretty good neighbor, I like her.

LOL, Dys ... that's great.

Well, back to business. Over at NewsFutures, "Bush Will Win Election" currently is trading at 67 vs "Kerry Will Win Election" at 31, or a bit better than 2-to-1 for Bush. "Bush Will Win in Fla" is going for 57. In their Electoral Vote contest, 76% of participants are betting on a Bush win, 62% wagering he will garner 280 or more electoral votes ... 37% betting 290 or more, 25% a bit more conservatively laying their bets in the 280+ bracket. 14% are hedging at 270+.

The current IEM tick average has DEM04 at .403, REP04 at .599, roughly 3-to-2 for Bush.

Tradeports has Bush up 3.4 at 70.4 bid/70.7 ask, territory he hasn't been in since January of '03, while Kerry is down an even 3 after opening down 4, at 29.0 bid/31.0 ask. The comparatively, and persistent, low volume and broad bid/ask spread the Kerry issue shows don't bode well for near-term improvement.

Today's Zogby release again has Bush over Kerry by a consistent 3, at 47 to 44 head-to-head, 46/43 in a 3-way. An interesting internal there is the 75-to-19 lead Bush has on The War on Terrorism.

Today's Rasmussen offers a glimmer for Kerry; though Bush leads, 48/46, that's a Kerry gain. An interesting Sidebar released there today indicates folks perceive ABC/CBS/CNN/NBC more favorable to Kerry than to Bush, by a margin of roughly 3-to-1, while Fox is perceived to favor Bush by about double that margin. CBS, with 33%, gets the lowest "No Bias" score, with ABC a bit better at 36%. NBC and CNN both score 39% "No Bias", with Fox riding close behind at 38%. If anyone stops by over there, check out the comparison they've done re this year's election vs that of 1896 ... very interesting.