The Daily Widget – Tuesday, July 22 – Obama 365, McCain 173 – Weaker South and New England?

[phrigndumass]

Contents:
1. Tidbits – Weaker South and New England?
2. Widgets
3. New State Polls
4. Daily Tracking – Electoral Votes
5. Daily Tracking – Wigand Electoral Average
6. Daily Tracking – Popular Vote and Swing States Trading
7. Electoral College Map, Links and Sources


* * * * * * *


1. TIDBITS – Weaker South and New England?

Maybe berni_mccoy can confirm this with her Electoral Vote Strength Factor. Obama seems to be losing some ground in the South and in New England. Does this mean he is losing ground overall? Since Obama seems to be gaining ground in the West and Midwest, it might be a close call.

New England:
Maine ... (Obama +8)
New Hampshire ... (Obama +3)

South:
Arkansas ... (McCain +13)
Georgia ... (McCain +11)
South Carolina ... (McCain +6)
Virginia ... (McCain +1)

And in the national polls, one national daily tracker would have us believe Obama is losing ground overall, while the other shows differently. Rasmussen’s Daily Tracking shows Obama’s lead dropping again to +1, while Gallup’s Daily Tracking has Obama leading McCain by 6 points now.

Yet Gallup samples an even number of D’s and R’s while Rasmussen is currently weighting their surveys with a D-slant, I believe 9% more Democrats than republicans according to reports. Poll an even number of D’s and R’s, and you get a nice Obama lead. Poll more D’s than R’s, and it’s a relative squeaker? :crazy: Does this mean Obama is doing better among R’s than he is among D’s?

Or is Rasmussen just F’d in the H? :shrug:

Before you answer that, consider this. Five of the six state polls listed above were conducted by Rasmussen. And the sixth poll (NH) has the same margin of error and sampling size as most Rasmussen polls.

Something is askew in Rasmussenville.


* * * * * * *


2. WIDGETS



^ FIGURE 2a. This is what we refer to as the “Widget”. In the white section, it shows Obama’s and McCain’s electoral vote projection from three different sources. 270 would be a majority. In the yellow section, it shows three sources of trading and averages for the candidates. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority. Intrade shows the trading, while RCP-av shows the aggregate average of all the state polls. 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.



^ FIGURE 2b. 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.


* * * * * * *


3. NEW STATE POLLS

Five new state polls continue the “Mixed Signals” story. In Obama’s favor, Ohio moves from leaning blue to weak blue, and Alaska changes from strong red to weak red. In McCain’s favor, Georgia switches from leaning red to strong red, and New Hampshire moves from strong blue to leaning blue. Michigan remains weak blue because of averaging. North Carolina remains leaning red. So, Obama goes 3 for 6 today in state polls. But note that McCain’s favorable changes each moved two categories to the right, while Obama’s favorable changes each moved only one category to the left.


Alaska Obama 44, McCain 49 (Rasmussen, 7/17, +/- 4.5, 500 LV)
Georgia Obama 42, McCain 53, Barr 1 (Rasmussen, 7/17, +/- 4.5, 500 LV)
Michigan Obama 43, McCain 41 (EPIC-MRA Detroit News, 7/16, +/- 4.0, 600 LV)
New Hampshire Obama 46, McCain 43 (University of New Hampshire, 7/20, +/- 4.5, 475 LV)
North Carolina Obama 40, McCain 43, Barr 2 (Civitas-R, 7/16, +/- 4.2, 800 RV)
Ohio Obama 48, McCain 40 (Public Policy Polling, 7/20, +/- 3.0, 1058 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)


* * * * * * *


4. DAILY TRACKING – ELECTORAL VOTES



^ FIGURE 4a. 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 4b. 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)


* * * * * * *


5. DAILY TRACKING – WIGAND ELECTORAL AVERAGE



^ FIGURE 5a. This graph shows the daily tracking of the swing states total from the Wigand Electoral Average widget above (second chart from the top). To show Obama’s progress in the swing states, divide the latest closing figure by 1200.



^ FIGURE 5b. 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).


* * * * * * *


6. DAILY TRACKING – POPULAR VOTE AND SWING STATES TRADING



^ FIGURE 6a. 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.



^ FIGURE 6b. 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. ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAP, 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

What is this? THE MATH’s Daily Widget was created to track multiple daily sources which measure the potential success of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Projected Electoral Votes are on a scale of 0 to 538, with 270 being a majority, or projected win. Trading and Averages are on a scale of 0 to 100, with 50.1 being a majority, or projected win.

The Wigand Electoral Average uses public polling results to determine base states for both parties and a short list of swing states, and combines the actual electoral votes from base states with a weighted Intrade calculation for electoral votes from swing states to derive an average on a scale of 0 to 100. On this scale, greater than 50.00 is considered a win for Barack Obama. An average of 50.10 would yield 270 electoral votes, and an average of 100.00 would yield 538 electoral votes. More Information

As always, I’m open to your feedback and suggestions, and I will be happy to explain anything!

Feel free to use these charts and graphs anywhere on Democratic Underground.

Donate to the Obama Campaign today through DU’s donation link at Barack Obama’s website:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/du

[DarthDem]

1. Outstanding!

And full of good stuff today. Thanks.

[phrigndumass]

2. Thanks DarthDem

:donut: Good morning! :hi:

[tekisui]

3. Ohio.

Game Set Match.

Alaska is heading our way. I mentioned yesterday that Chuck Todd said as goes Alaska, so goes the landslide.

Morning, phrign!:hangover:

[phrigndumass]

5. Chuck Todd re: Alaska ... That sounds correct to me!

If it turns blue, landslide.
If it only leans red, pseudo-landslide.
If it stays solid red, the race will be closer.

And if Ohio stays blue beyond the margin of error, republicans will need both Florida and Pennsylvania to even make it competitive.

:donut: Good morning, tek! :hi:

[mod mom]

23. 300 Obama fellows on the ground in Ohio organizing every part of the state:

email from the campaign:

"Last night in Butler County, nearly 200 people turned out to open the doors of our first official Campaign for Change office in Middletown, Ohio.

Four years ago, George W. Bush won that county by a huge 2-to-1 margin. But with the strength of our grassroots movement -- active in every county, precinct, and block of the Buckeye State -- we know this year will be different.

From Cincinnati to Cleveland, Williams County to Washington County, this campaign is working with all Ohioans as we build the movement that will help carry Barack to victory in November and win elections up and down the ballot.

Over the next week, we're kicking off our general election efforts with at least 19 Campaign for Change Office Openings across Ohio. "

[phrigndumass]

38. This helps me rest easier about the Rasmussen Ohio poll released today

Thanks for posting that, mod mom.

Now if we can get Blackwell to stfu, lol

:hi:

[Alexander]

28. I agree we'll win Ohio, but we shouldn't just rely on one state...

I think Obama will also take Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia and Iowa.

[fight4my3sons]

4. Good morning!

Aaack! The Maine weakness is spreading! I do not believe it. x(

[phrigndumass]

8. If I were a fly on the wall at Rasmussen ...

I'd probably be swatted dead. But if I'm only maimed, I might find out either we are being duped or Rasmussen is being duped. I wonder if there's a campaign among republicans to identify themselves as Democrats on Rasmussen polls and then choose McCain. Rasmussen does automated polling, not live interviews.

:donut: Good morning, f4m3s! :hi :hi: Hope LMD is feeling better today!

[fight4my3sons]

15. I think that your wonderings are right.

Stupid automated polling.

Lil Math Dude is well enough say "I am dark blue!" :rofl:

[phrigndumass]

17. I'm dark blue, too! lol ...

:rofl:

[Demeter]

6. Good Morning, P-Man!

Isn't it a little early for the fudging of polls? That's what it looks like. Of course, if these are all telephone surveys, we know how full of holes they can be. Between the people who've cut the landlines, and the ones lucky enough to take a vacation....results may vary.

It's not like anything politically significant has been happening, aside from the tanking economy, which nobody but wonks talks or thinks about. The world tour is pretty lame, in my estimation, but it gives good phot-ops.

Which pollster is your gold standard--the one whose techniques you trust the most?

[phrigndumass]

9. I trust Quinnipiac the most ...

Simply because of their huge sampling sizes and small margins of error. Public Policy Polling would come in as a close second.

Since Rasmussen uses automated surveys, I'm wondering if there is a campaign to press the Democrat button and the McCain button for Rasmussen polls.

:shrug:

[Kdillard]

7. Interesting hopefully Obama will be able to make up

whatever ground he may have lost in the South after this week with some positive coverage and images. I think he is in fairly good position now but that he needs to have this week continue to go extremely well and also have people like Bill Clinton go campaign for him effectively in the South possibly starting in September and October. His VP choice will also be helpful in shoring up and hopefully adding more for him in the South.

[phrigndumass]

11. His trip abroad should definitely help among Southern voters

Bill Clinton could do wonders for Obama in Arkansas and Louisiana, up through Appalachia to Pennsylvania.

:donut: Good morning, Kdillard! :hi:

[jefferson_dem]

10. Mornin' phrigndumass!

Thanks bro!

:kick:

[phrigndumass]

12. Good morning to you, jd!

:donut: :hi:

[phrigndumass]

13. Off to work kick

Have a good day

[berni_mccoy]

14. EV Strength Update: Minor change, Obama -2, McCain +1; Ratio -0.05

Current Obama EV Strength: 90% (down 2 from 18-Jul at 92%, his all-time high)

Current McCain EV Strength: 51% (up 1 from 18-Jul)

O:Mc Strength Ratio: 1.77 (down 0.05 from 18-Jul)

GRAPHS:

[phrigndumass]

18. Awesome! It's a wash because they're both down overall

It's great that we can see the smallest of changes and then see your data confirm it. Synchronized!

Thanks Berni! :hi:

[berni_mccoy]

20. Yep, only a minor bump... and he's still near his all-time high. I suspect...

Obama will be breaking a new EV record next 3 weeks...

There is about a 2-3 week lag in events and their effect on the EV strength.

[phrigndumass]

21. Hope you're right, fingers crossed

Then I hear about McCain leading in Ohio by 10 points today. Another Rasmussen poll.

:hi:

[grantcart]

16. I wonder in the South how much weight they are giving to increased

AA participation.

My suspicion is that they are all under reporting it and that is not a bad thing.

[phrigndumass]

19. That isn't a bad thing at all, lol

What's itching me is a more D-slant results in a more R-vote, and vice versa. That would be the complete opposite of underweighting.

:crazy:

[grantcart]

22. Did you see this?

http://www.race2004.net/index.php

Gives a point of reference where you can judge poll results from 2004 and see how accurate they were.

Who was the best over all?

Who was better in a particular state?

[phrigndumass]

25. Great website! Can't wait to jump head first into it

(when I have time, lol) I just saved it to my faves, thanks!

:thumbsup:

[grantcart]

24. Ohio flipping is going to be a big hit

can you update the strength of support chart with the 6 columns?

[phrigndumass]

27. Yes, I'll be happy to update the six-column widget showing strength of support

In a bit ... I'm working on a "bizarro" spreadsheet where Rasmussen never existed, lol

:banghead: :crazy:

[Alexander]

26. Obama should visit Maine and New Hampshire to solidify New England.

Remember, Maine has split electoral votes just like Nebraska.

Obama getting 1 EV from Nebraska would be worthless if he lost 1 EV from Maine.

[phrigndumass]

29. Agreed :)

And doing so would boost local candidates in those states as well.

:hi:

[Alexander]

31. Yes, it'll be nice sending Sununu into the private sector...

And even though it's unlikely, if Tom Allen could beat Susan Collins, I would be overjoyed, because we would undoubtedly have a landslide.

[phrigndumass]

33. Ha! I'd be dancing as they show Sununu the door :)

Fight4my3sons has gotten me interested in the Allen-Collins race. Tom Allen is holding his ground but it's a nail-biter! The problem is Collins' high favorables. Obama could give Allen a big bounce by spending time in Maine. Coattails :D

[fight4my3sons]

36. Thank you phrig :)

Tom Allen asked Collins for a series of four town hall meetings today.

Susan Collins said she believes Mainers would prefer to focus on the campaign after Labor Day. "People think that campaigns have started too early, that they last too long, and they cost too much. So I suspect that Mainers would really prefer to have the summer to enjoy themselves and then focus on the campaigns in the fall."

"The Mainers I talk to cannot enjoy their summers because they are very concerned about how to heat their homes this winter and how to pay for both gas and groceries," Allen said. "They want to know what their government is going to do to solve these problems.

http://www.tomallen.org/newsroom_details.asp?id=983

We'll see what she comes back with.

[phrigndumass]

37. Collins: "Mainers are mental whiners, whaaaa!"

Let's hope! lol :hi:

[fight4my3sons]

35. Yes, he should visit Maine

:)

[phrigndumass]

30. Kickin'

:kick:

[Demeter]

32. Some Food for Thought--In Case You Need a Midnight snack!

How can anyone resist an opinion piece promoted on RealClearPolitics.com by the alternate title, "History suggests Mr. McCain is toast."
One can't. Or at least this one can't. So the above-advertised link sent me scurrying to the Financial Times, where columnist Clive Crook's officially titled "One simple way to predict a victor" awaited me. It was worth the electronic journey, which on my aging computer, I can assure you, is never one taken at optimal cyber speed.

But at any rate, the route to Crook's scorching conclusion with respect to McCain's electoral fate began with this:

One cannot help but be struck by the current disconnection in US presidential politics between, on one hand, the excitement and enthusiasm that attend Barack Obama’s candidacy and, on the other, the tightness of the race....
Look at the polls. A recent Gallup reading says that Mr Obama’s slender lead has narrowed; last week Rasmussen’s tracking poll called the race a tie. State-by-state polling, filtered through the electoral college arithmetic, gives Mr McCain a real shot at victory.

Granted, Crook's set-up is a slightly skewed way of looking at the whole picture. What he says about these particular polls is, of course, correct, and it's also true that McCain's number crunchers still see, and not entirely unreasonably, a rather traditional South-West-Rustbelt path to the White House.

On the other hand, based on an averaging of all the various state-by-state polls Obama is up, for instance, in Ohio, he's up in Virginia, up in Michigan and up in Colorado; not by retiring or even comfortable margins, but up is better than down. What's more, in the past week RealClearPolitics' electoral college count for Obama, after eliminating the 'toss-up' category, has moved from 304 to 322.

Nevertheless, Crook's point is well taken. It has been and remains something of a puzzlement that any poll could find this contest even marginally close, let alone nail-bitingly contestable. Obama has been thundering along almost flawlessly for months, while McCain ... well, poor John McCain; though veteran master of the universe he is, he's still struggling with elementary world geography. Yet Gallup finds them statistically tied?

"How does one make sense of this?" asks Crook. The answer he provides is to dismiss the polls as "worthless" at this point and look instead to political scientist Alan Abramowitz's "electoral barometer," which, as Crook describes it, is a "laughably simple metric" that "weighs together the approval rating of the incumbent president, the economy’s economic growth rate and whether the president’s party has controlled the White House for two terms (the 'time for a change' factor)."

As Crook reminds us, laughably simple the metric may be, but it has "correctly forecast the winner of the popular vote in 14 out of 15 postwar presidential elections." (I should add that Abramowitz nearly had that one outlier nailed as well. The election he miscalled was that of 1968, yet, according to pollsters, Hubert Humphrey's momentum was such that had the election been held only one or two weeks later, he would have won.)

But back to the future, which, as Crook reports, is colored by this Abramowitzian finding: This election cycle's barometer "gives the Republican candidate a score ... as bad as it gets: second only to Mr Carter’s in the annals of doomed postwar candidacies."

In other words, writes Crook, the barometer says Mr. Obama is going to waltz to victory.

The one unquantifiable and possible inhibitor to an Obama victory, however, is the familiar one of race, which Abramowitz examined as best he could nearly three months ago in a Washington Post op-ed.

Overtly racist beliefs are much less prevalent among white Americans of all classes today. But a more subtle form of prejudice, which social scientists sometimes call symbolic racism, is still out there -- especially among working-class whites. Symbolic racism means believing that African American poverty and other problems are largely the result of lack of ambition and effort, rather than white racism and discrimination. Who holds symbolically racist beliefs ?

The answer to that was self-evident. But did this imply that McCain is not, in fact, toast? Not necessarily, yet Abramowitz was socially scientifically vague, noting merely that this abominable economy and resentment toward the GOP could overshadow -- overcome -- racial prejudice. It would be methodologically reassuring if the strength of such sociological currents could be measured, but they can't.

Still, we have Abramowitz's bang-up barometer and his bigger big picture that can indeed be quantified -- the one portraying Obama's "waltz to victory."

Please respond to P.M.'s commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community. For personal questions or comments you can contact him at [e-mail]

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/carpenter/134

[phrigndumass]

34. Excellent read, Demeter! I always love me some P.M.

This one line sticks out for me, regarding racial prejudice.

"It would be methodologically reassuring if the strength of such sociological currents could be measured, but they can't."

I am personally getting a sense that the "symbolic racism" factor overall is going to be a wash. It'll be up in some parts of the country, but down in other parts. But it could also be a tipping factor for a few states where it's close, namely Missouri, Indiana, Virginia and Florida.

There's just no way of knowing for sure. This year's election will probably be the most referenced election for decades to come!

:hi: