To be first to rec

First to rec!!!!

This is much better than the Gallop poll I must say.

On (doh) Oct. 1st, Obama was at 99%?

I think we should have heard that before now.

it was pretty impressive.

If the election had been held on Sept. 30, President Obama would indeed have had a 98.2 % chance of winning. That's different than the Nov. 6 forecast. On Sept. 30, the Nov. 6 forecast had him with an 85.1 % chance of winning on Nov. 6.

that's fine by me; any win is a win.

A popular vote-win, but Electoral College-loss is not a win.

I didn't get the sense that the numbers would shift this way from his blog post today. I hope he intends to explain it tomorrow. I hold 538 in high regard but I like to know what moves the numbers. I don't think I have felt more dread about this election than I did all day today. Even the first debate didn't have me feeling this way. I didn't want to go to work and once I got there I wanted to leave early. The day simply had a bad start as I was depressed from looking at all the numbers from the night before, the day started with the front page of CNN blasting the increase in the number of newly unemployed for the week, and then the Gallup poll came along and just stomped out all the wind I had left. The update to 538 was not enough to completely alleviate my worries tonight but I certainly feel a little better. I think there were a lot of people who felt the way I did today. On to tomorrow!

and I imagine he will discuss that. Gallup is an outlier poll.

Obviously we saw an exception with the first debate. In past blogs Nate has said that the debates carry little weight in the model because they rarely shift public opinion greatly. I would not expect him to apply such an effect to the model based on an expectation of future shifts due to the debate especially given his view on them. I suspect that the shifts are largely due to statewide polling. The part I'm unsure of is why they moved the numbers so much. I think over the weekend we are going to see if the last debate is moving the polls.

A big question that I have... does anyone expect that the final debate will be nearly as big a deal as the previous ones? Also, does it make sense to dedicate one of the three debates entirely to foreign policy when domestic policy is the primary concern on voters minds? I believe the conversation is an important one but it seems like a nonsensical limitation.

Most voters simply aren't as tuned in to foreign policy, I don't think they believe it impacts their daily lives very much. Now, the 2004 race was different, coming on the heels of 9/11 as it did, but without such an extreme event like that people just aren't going to be as engaged in this debate much.

Obama showed he can deal with Libya
Romney will continue his bullshit about an "apology tour"; I'm confident Obama will have a strong reply for that.
Iran? I think that has a small potential for Romney to try to scare the public, but I think it is a minor issue in terms of swaying anyone's vote.

And of course Obama has the ultimate hole card-- Bin laden is dead. I hope he plays that up, particularly MittWit's comment that it wasn't worth moving heaven and earth to get Bin Laden, stupid fucker that he is.

Of dread today .... thinking we'd see a bounce from second debate sooner....hoping that Dem internal polling was showing more positive results ....worried about election fraud etc.... feeling better now hope u are too

I am honored We need a cat smiley!

they saw the cReep Tuesday night and thought to themselves:

"Me? Vote for that fool? What was I thinking?!? No way!"

Buyers remorse.

"Pennsylvania has overtaken Florida on our list of tipping point states"