I agree, if President Obama is doing this well BEFORE the convention, just imagine how his numbers will spike after.

That RNCircus was a colossal failure. It's like planning an expensive elaborate dinner party and the only thing people remember about it is how drunk Uncle Bob got, and what an ass he made of himself. I almost feel sorry for RMoney and Lyin. No I don't....

the only thing that his model does not take into account is voter suppression... I know that Nov 6th, we will be looking for that as reporters.

Ohio and VA, two very important swing states. That gives me hope!

of poll watchers...'

That is how they are going about it as well.

of lawyers all over the country back in 08 to watch over the polls on Election Day, in case pubs try to keep folks from voting?

That's because Nate's model actually assumes a convention bounce and therefore adjusts post convention polls downward for each candidate. So part of what is driving Obama's good numbers now is the lousy bounce the rethugs got from their convention.

I read this in one of Nate's recent updates, not sure which day, but it was in the last few days.

four years ago. I need to get back to it now.

some worse than others...my grown kids were...a coworker, even people I met casually were telling me they were practically chained to their computers every day...and I can feel the momentum starting all over again. At least, tho, we don't have to deal with the scare we got with Palin's big "moment." I had a coworker in tears over that...

I just found about this blog and I check it everyday.

I guess the Thugs are lurking today.

I'm one such DU'er. I fear greatly just what kind of bomb the Citizens-United-fueled conservative attack machine is ready to drop on the country in late October. The American public can be quite gullible - especially these "morally high-minded" independents. Repubs are good at lying and really throwing stuff out of whack. It takes weeks of counter-attacking with the truth to fix things.

fewer people participating lately, unless there is a gun fatality........

visit everyday, along with electoralvote.com

I need to see how things are really going.. I'm obsessed.

The vast majority of the electorate is too polarized and has already made up their mind. I doubt anyone would be won over by such a bore like Romney, and I really can't see Obama giving a speech that's going to make people feel more enthused by him than they were four years ago. The debates will be what seals this.

and Chuck Todd was saying that Romney won't see a convention bump for another 2 weeks. It seemed like a lame excuse to me. If Romney hasn't energized his campaign in his convention, what makes you think it will get better after the Democrats are done with their's? I guess I'm still optimistic over the DNC. I don't think that the country is as polarized as the pundits suggest - I think Obama and the Democrats will get a decent bump.

His point was that it's hard to guage what Rmoney's true bounce is cause it does usually take a few days after the convention for it to percolate out into the polls but that with the Democratic Convention right on the tail of it, we will know in two weeks, once we're a week past both conventions, where the race actually stands.

but I'm really interested in what happens in the 1st debate, which iirc, is the one that the most number of people tune in to see.

a graph of polling, one of those rolling polls or whatever they call them. Romney had ZERO bounce. A bounce either occurs immediately, or it's not a bounce.

Less than a week after the repub convention in 2008, there was a noticeable bounce because of Palin. That's why I'm calling Todd's assertion on this bullshit.

And they aren't swayed by political leanings when it comes to wagering.

I'd highly recommend this site: http://www.electoral-vote.com/ for accurate and informative poll updates.
If you have any others that you highly recommend, I'd be interested in seeing them.

Now if only we can get the remaining anal retentive jerks to pick up the damn remote control to switch off FOX news we might get a governing body that really can make changes that count... YES WE CAN

I had not heard of him prior to this election cycle.

In the final update of his presidential forecast model at midday of November 4, 2008, Silver projected a popular vote victory by 6.1 percentage points for Barack Obama and electoral vote totals of 349 (based on a probabilistic projection) or 353 (based on fixed projections of each state).[27] Silver's predictions matched the actual results everywhere except in Indiana and the 2nd congressional district of Nebraska, which awards an electoral vote separately from the rest of the state. His projected national popular vote differential was below the actual figure of 7.2 points.

The forecasts for the Senate proved to be correct for every race. But the near stalemate in Minnesota led to a recount that was settled only on June 30, 2009. In Alaska, after a protracted counting of ballots, on November 19 Republican incumbent Ted Stevens conceded the seat to Democrat Mark Begich, an outcome that Silver had forecast on election day.[28] And in Georgia, a run-off election on December 2 led to the re-election of Republican Saxby Chambliss, a result that was also consistent with Silver's original projection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FiveThirtyEight#Final_projections_of_2008_election

I've followed him for years and he's always been pretty accurate from what I could see. He's very thorough.

My first impression was that he is pretty thorough but new enough that his model is still evolving and that appears to be the case. My concern was that he might just be the flavor of they day who may have gotten lucky so I feel better now. Thanks.

Nate Silver was a sports-statistician and predictor/handicapper before he moved to politics in the run-up to 2008. His sports-predictions models and computer-simulations were by-far the most accurate ever published. He's one of the key analytics guys that Las Vegas reads to set its betting lines...his work outside of politics makes him credible.

And I'm so glad it's trending this way.

The title of the thread got me spooked a little, for a moment there.

...is because it built in an assumption of an (IIRC) ~4 point bounce for Romney from the GOP convention. If Romney had hit that it would have said that was basically normal and left things static.

Instead it doesn't look like he managed better than a 2 or 3 point bump at best, which the model considers underperforming, so it swung towards Obama.

There is a similar expectation built into the model for the DNC, if Obama under performs his expected post convention bump it will correct back.


(I just keep waiting for Obama to break 75% odds of victory, he's soooo close...)

A friend was one of the journalists traveling on the Reverend Jesse campaign bus. No matter who the journalist greeting him or how many times JJ was asked the perfunctory, "how you doing," he always answered, "We're winning every day."

Then there's the other Jesse.

like caging and ridiculous voter ID laws in R-controlled states?

Is the reason for the recent Obama rise that his model attempts to account for convention bumps and Romney had none?

more, after the jobs report comes out and after the convention is over

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/