The Obama SurgeThe jarring economic news combined with a sharp increase in Sarah Palin negatives has caused Obama to rebound sharply in the state and national polls. The National model is at
51.92% thanks to Gallup, Hotline, Zogby and CBS. In the new CNN/Time state polls, he is leading in FL, OH, and VA and is nearly tied in NC. The State Monte Carlo model projects him to win
319 Electoral votes with
51.45% of the two-party vote.
But the key result, as always, is Obama’s Electoral Vote Win Probability. It’s a simple calculation — if you use Monte Carlo simulation. Obama won 4906 of 5000 Election trials, so it’s exactly
98.12%. More confirmation: based on the national polls, there is a
98% probability that Obama will win the popular vote; based on the state polls, it’s 92%. Of course, all of these calculations assume that a fraud-free election is held today. It’s a snapshot which changes slightly every day. But today was a major turning point. See the
State vs. National vote share projection Trend.
Why Election Model projections differ from the Media, Academia and the BloggersThere are a variety of
election forecasting models used in academia, the media and internet election sites. The corporate MSM (CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, etc.) sponsors national polls to track the “horserace” and state polls to calculate the electoral vote.
As of Sept.16, three well-known sites each had McCain in front:
electoral-vote.com had him leading by
257–
247 (34 tied).
realclearpolitics at
227–
207 (104 toss-up). The
fivethirtyeight.com at
288–
250. But the
2008 Election Model (EM) had Obama leading
285–
253. Why the difference?
• The EM uses Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method to calculate the probability of winning the electoral vote. Monte Carlo is widely used to analyze diverse risk-based models, when an analytical solution is impractical or impossible. The EM is updated weekly based on the latest state and national polls. The model projects the
popular and
electoral vote,
assuming both clean and fraudulent election scenarios. The EM allocates the electoral vote based on the
state win probability in calculating a more realistic
total Expected EV.
• Corporate MSM pollsters and media pundits use state and national polling data. Electoral vote projections are misleading, since they are calculated based on the latest state polls regardless of the spread; the state poll leader gets all of its electoral votes.
This is statistically incorrect; they do not consider
state win probabilities. And there is no adjustment for the
allocation of undecided voters.
For example, assume that McCain leads by 51–49% in each of five states with a total of 100 electoral votes. Most models would simply assign the 100 EV to McCain. But that is an
oversimplification: Obama could easily win one or more of the states, since his win probability is 31% :
- The state projected vote share V(i) is the state poll share PS(i) plus the undecided voter allocation UVA(i):
V(i) = PS(i)+UVA(i), for i=1,51 states
For this example, a final Obama projected vote share V(i) = .49 for all states is assumed (with distinct state poll shares and respective undecided voter allocations implied). Five states total 100 EV.
- The probability P(i) of winning each state assuming a 4% polling MoE (95% confidence):
P(i) = NORMDIST ( V(i), 0.5, .04/1.96, true )
.31 = NORMDIST( .49, 0.5, .04/1.96, true) for each of the 5 states (the NORMDIST function is available in Excel)
The
2008 Election Model would allocate 31% of 100 EV to Obama and 69% of 100 EV to McCain.
• Bloggers also track state and national polls and do not adjust for undecided voters. A few use Monte Carlo simulation, but the EV win probabilities and frequency distributions are NOT consistent with the polling data. Either the state win probabilities and/or the simulation algorithm is incorrect.
• Academic regression models predict the popular vote but are run months prior to the election. They are typically based on economic and political factors rather than state or national polling data. They do not project the electoral vote. In 2004, virtually all of them forecast Bush to win by 5-10%. But since the election was stolen, the models had to be wrong — they didn’t factor election fraud as an independent variable in the regression. In fact, they never even mentioned the F-word in describing their methodologies.
Fixing the polls: Party ID, Voted in 2000, RV vs. LVThere has been much discussion regarding the recent McCain “surge” in the national polls. Most national and state polls are sponsored by the corporate MSM. Gallup, Rasmussen and other national polls recently increased the Republican
Party ID percentage weighting. This had the immediate effect of boosting McCain’s poll numbers.
But there are 11 million more registered Democrats than registered Republicans. USA Today/Gallup changed the poll method from
RV to
LV right after the Republican convention.
Party-ID weights were manipulated to favor McCain as well.
There is a consistent discrepancy between Registered Voter (
RV) and Likely Voter (
LV) Polls. The Democrats always do better in RV polls. No wonder: Since 1988, Democratic presidential candidates have won new voters by an average 14% margin.
The manipulation of polling weights is nothing new. Recall that the 2004 and 2006 Final National Exit Polls weightings were adjusted to match the recorded vote miscount. But
all category cross-tabs had to be changed, not just Party ID. Of course, the
Final Exit Poll (state and national)
is always matched to the Recorded vote, even though it may be fraudulent — as it was in
2000,
2002,
2004 and
2006. This cannot be emphasized enough. Say it loud, again and again.
In 2004, the
12:22am National Exit Poll (NEP) had a
38–
35 Democrat/Republican
'Party ID' mix.
Kerry
won the
12:22am Preliminary NEP by
51–
48%. (
13,047 random sample, 1% MoE )
The mix was changed to
37–
37 in the
Final NEP to
'force' a match to the Recorded vote;Bush won the 1:25pm 'forced' Final NEP by 51–48%.
Likewise, the Gore/Bush
'Voted 2000' weights were changed from
39–
41 to
37–
43 in the Final ('13047' & '13660'
here).
The election was stolen. Bush was the
official winner by 50.7–48.3% with 286 EV. The
Final Exit Polls were "adjusted" accordingly.
The final 2004 Election Model projection indicated that Kerry would win 337–201 EV with 51.8% of the 2-party vote. In their Jan. 2005 report, exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky provided the average exit poll discrepancy for each state based on 1250 total precincts. Kerry won the unadjusted aggregate state exit poll vote share by 52.0–47.0% (2-party 52.5%) with 337 electoral votes — exactly matching the Election Model!
In the 2006 midterms, the 7pm NEP had a 39–35 Democratic/Republican weighting mix. The Democrats won the NEP by 55–43%. But the weights were changed to 38–36 in the Final NEP in order to match the 52–46% recorded vote; the Dem 12% margin was cut in half. Once again, the 'Voted 2004' weights were transformed: from Bush/Kerry 47–45 at 7pm to 49–43 in the Final. The landslide was denied; 10-20 Dem seats were stolen.
The “dead heat” claimed by pollsters, bloggers and the media is a canard — unless they are factoring fraud into their models and not telling us. The media desperately wants a horserace, and so they fail to adjust the polls for undecided and newly registered voters. They avoid McCain’s gaffes, flip-flops and plagiarisms, while he supports the most unpopular president in history.
Polling data source:
Electoral-vote.com
RealClearPolitics.com