in 2008 Ohio had a Dem Governor and SOS
now Ohio has Rep Governor and SOS

And that's why the power over elections must be taken away from Governors and SOS.

Got away with wiping out 250,000 early votes.

And thanks for the good news...

How do we get them?

thanks!

As a general rule, they are very accurate. The overwhelming majority of the time, the candidate that leads in the RCP average wins the state. And as Nate Silver points out, once you approach 3% points, you are a near lock.


This is why Romney is in Pennsylvania.


Here are two more numbers I found interesting.


Nevada 2008
Final Results -- -- -- 55.2---42.7 Obama +12.5 (Look at that jump!)
RCP Average 10/25 - 11/3 50.3---43.8 Obama +6.5






Colorado 2008
Final Results -- -- -- 53.7---44.7 Obama +9.0
RCP Average 10/27 - 11/2 50.8---45.3 Obama +5.5





If you look at Colorado and Nevada from 2008, notice the RCP average compared to where Obama finished. This is because pollsters have a difficult time judging the hispanic vote in their models. In Nevada it was off by a whopping 6 points!

The same was true in the Senate races of 2010 in Colorado and Nevada. Senator Harry Reid trailed Sharon Angel by nearly 5 points but won for the same reason. Again the hispanic vote was undercounted by 5-8 points.


This is why I think Obama will win Colorado. His margin of victory tomorrow night will likely be larger given his 70-30 lead among hispanics.

A couple Obama polled lower than what he got.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2008/11/final_ohio_polls_put_obama_as.html

Monday November 03, 2008, 8:06 AM

Finals polls the day before election 2008 show that Barack Obama is more likely than John McCain to win the swing state of Ohio.

The University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll today puts the race at 51.5 percent for Obama, 45.7 percent for McCain, outside the margin of error.

Quinnipiac University has Obama leading McCain 50-43 percent.

But Public Policy Polling puts it at 50-48 percent, or too close to call. Dean Debnam, president of this polling operation, says that "undecideds" have been breaking for McCain and that Obama has lost ground among white voters. Ohio "could definitely go either way on Election Day," Debnam says in a release this morning."

Up an average of 2.9% over 20 polls.
Behind in 1 poll.
Tied in 2 polls.
Up by less than 5 in 11 polls
Up by 5 or more in 6 polls.

Citizens United 11/1/2012 -3
Ohio Newspaper Poll 10/28/2012 0
Rasmussen Reports 11/5/2012 0
Gravis Marketing 11/5/2012 1
University of Cinci 11/5/2012 1.5
Columbus Dispatch 11/4/2012 2
American Research Group 10/26/2012 2
Purple Strategies 10/26/2012 2
Lake Research 10/25/2012 2
CNN | ORC 11/2/2012 3
YouGov 11/4/2012 3
Reuters/Ipsos 11/5/2012 4
Grove Insight 11/3/2012 4
WeAskAmerica 11/2/2012 4
CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac 10/31/2012 5
TIME 10/24/2012 5
SurveyUSA 11/5/2012 5
Public Policy 11/4/2012 5
Zogby 11/5/2012 6
NBC News/Marist 11/3/2012 6

What if it is wrong again, but in the wrong direction?

then Obama wins Ohio.

In order for your prognosis to take effect, all of the polls would have to be off by 2.1 points IN THE SAME DIRECTION.

This is part of what Nate is always talking about that people don't understand. Ohio has been polled a million times. There is almost too much data. Good pollsters, bad pollsters, conservative, liberal, big companies, small companies, live callers, robo callers etc. etc etc. they are all there.


All of the pollsters pretty much have come to the same conclusion. What are the odds that all of them are off (or show bias) IN THE EXACT SAME DIRECTION?


It is darn there not mathematically possible without the introduction of a 3rd party element. This is why Obama will win Ohio. And this is why Romney is campaigning in PA.



Edit: This was a reply to post #12

Huge advantage of votes already in the bank and overall consistent polling plus there seems to be a mini-surge to Obama coming into election day. My reservations are voter suppression and tampered vote counting.

See the 1992 UK General Election. A tiny Labour Party Lead in the opinion polls on election day, ended up as nearly an 8 point Conservative lead.

...is not valid unless you believe that the enthusiasm for Obama now matches that in 2008 and that on the GOP side the enthusiasm matches the "meh" feeling toward McCain. Neither condition seems satisfied to me.