The Daily Widget – Mon 9/8 – O-328, M-210 – The Contrabounce

1. ANALYSIS

You were expecting this, right? McCain’s convention bounce is beginning. It’s only fair that he gets one, too. Prepare yourself, because there will probably be a half dozen national polls released in the next day or two. These polls will have been conducted over the past weekend, and many will show McCain leading. So expect the poll widget below to spend a solid week looking like bizarro world:





Meanwhile, besides a second Alaska poll pretty much confirming the first, no new state polls have been released. Trading is down slightly for the Wigand states and for Obama’s Eighteen today.


2. NEW STATE POLLS


Alaska Obama 35, McCain 54 (Ivan Moore Research, 9/2, +/- 4.4, 500 LV)


Scale:
Strong Obama (10% or greater)
Weak Obama (5% to 9%)
Lean Obama (0% to 4%)
Lean McCain (0% to 4%)
Weak McCain (5% to 9%)
Strong McCain (10% or greater)


3. ELECTORAL VOTE SNAPSHOT



^ FIGURE 3a. This graph shows the daily tracking of Obama’s projected electoral votes from three sources. 270 is a majority of the electoral votes. The blue line shows daily tracking from 538.com, which projects what the outcome should be on election day. The red line shows daily tracking from Electoral-Vote.com, which shows a current snapshot of Obama’s electoral progress if the undecideds break evenly. The green line is my own projection, and it shows a current snapshot of Obama’s electoral progress if the undecideds break the same way as the swing states. A trend line is used (dashed green line) to show the average progress since May 19 and possible route for the next seven days.



^ FIGURE 3b. This graph shows Obama’s green line and red line from the previous graph, and compares it to John Kerry’s 2004 progress (orange line) as shown from Electoral-Vote.com. (Both the red line and the orange line show data from Electoral-Vote.com)



^ FIGURE 3c. This chart organizes all the state polls into groups categorized by how much a certain candidate is leading. “Strong” is used to indicate a candidate leading by 10 points or greater in a certain state. “Weak” is used to indicate a candidate leading between 5 and 9 points in a certain state. “Lean” is used to indicate a candidate leading between 0 and 4 points in a certain state. A total of electoral votes for each category is given at the bottom of each column.





4. POPULAR VOTE SNAPSHOT



^ FIGURE 4a. I am projecting 126,750,000 million votes on election day, which is the total 2004 votes plus population growth for each state. A total projected popular vote is calculated for each candidate based on projected votes on election day this year multiplied by each state’s current poll results. This graph shows the daily tracking of the popular vote calculations.


5. OBAMA’S EIGHTEEN



^ FIGURE 5a. The “Obama Eighteen” is the group of 18 states where the Obama campaign is concentrating much of its efforts this year. This widget shows how the candidates will do if the undecideds nationwide break the same way as the swing states. Each of the eighteen swing states are listed below the indicator’s current percentage of the total 1800 possible. The closing figures on Intrade are shown next to each state, with a column to show the change from the previous day. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority. The number of electoral votes for each state is shown in the left margin, and the most recent polling for each state is shown in the far right column.



^ FIGURE 5b. This graph shows the daily tracking of “Obama’s Eighteen” swing states total from the Obama’s Eighteen widget above. To show Obama’s progress in the swing states, divide the latest closing figure by 1800.



^ FIGURE 5c. This graph plots all of the state polling results for Obama’s Eighteen swing states, and displays a trend line to illustrate each candidate’s progress in these states as a group.


6. WIGAND ELECTORAL AVERAGE



^ FIGURE 6a. The Wigand Electoral Average is our own indicator, and shows how the candidates will do if the undecideds nationwide break the same way as the swing states. Each of the twelve swing states are listed below the indicator’s current score. The closing figures on Intrade are shown next to each state, with a column to show the change from the previous day. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority.



^ FIGURE 6b. This graph shows the daily tracking of the swing states total from the Wigand Electoral Average widget above. To show Obama’s progress in the swing states, divide the latest closing figure by 1200.



^ FIGURE 6c. Wigand vs. National Polls, RCP Average and Trading. The Wigand Electoral Average uses both poll averages and trading (swing states), and this graph compares it to the national daily tracking polls from Gallup, Rasmussen and Real Clear Politics (average), as well as the closing trading figures from Intrade (people buying shares with real money) and Rasmussen Markets (people using fake money).



^ FIGURE 6d. This graph shows the daily tracking of each swing state’s closing figure on Intrade. The scale is 0 to 100 with 50 being a majority. I commonly refer to the range from 40.00 to 60.00 as “The Zone” because the states in The Zone are true swing states this year.





7. LINKS AND SOURCES


Yesterday’s Widget
Full Weekly Tracking
Past editions of THE MATH

Sources:
Pollster.com
FiveThirtyEight.com
Electoral-Vote.com
Intrade
Rasmussen Markets
RCP Average
RCP Latest Polls

I only worry about the GOP stealing the election and pointing to close popular opinion polls as evidence that they won.

And a legitimate worry.

:donut: Good morning! :hi:

Those crazy National Polls. They should just call them the "National Ignorance Polls". It measures the reactions of those without convictions or attention spans to know what's going on.

Once America learns what an extremist Palin is on social issues, paired with mcPOW's extremism on foreign policy, their bounce will dip again.

Hit 'em Hard. Hit 'em Low. Hit 'em Now!

:hi:

or so it seems ...

And many seem to be males.



:donut: Good morning! :hi:

You would think people would have expected it, but you wouldn't have known that reading yesterday. Good grief!

:hi:

Until then, everybody must get stoned! Or work hard for Obama, or something.

:D

:donut: Good morning! :hi: :hi:

(The Top 10 Conservative Idiots is priceless today!)

:kick: Have a good day

:hi:

You actually made me like graphs-- a very hard sell indeed, though I do love me some charts! ;)

:hi:

I dont think you can get an accurate Electoral vote prediction until next week sometime.

and there have been no state polls released lately.

Do you think it should be higher or lower?

:hi:

I would bet that right now, states like Montana and North Dakota are leaning McCain.

If this were a prediction thread, I would definitely change those two states. But we're simply documenting the poll results as they're released, without bias. Patience, grasshopper :D

:hi:

I'd guess so queasily. Neither was expected to be competitive until data came in showing Obama winning. I doubt that in the end, they will be competitive...but as they stand now, McCain's got to burn resources to defend them. That itself is a good thing since the RNC is already abandoning down-ticket races nationally to have more $ for McCain.

edit:speeling.

:hi:

I am going to try to do a prediction thread without sufficient polls.

Digging through the crosstabs, I saw that the biggest change was from people of age 65 and up. PPP had them at McCain +4 previously, but now they're at McCain +16. Older folks in Michigan are moving toward McCain, at least for the time being.

I'll hunt down your prediction thread and give it a kick and a rec :D

Thanks!

:hi: