270 electoral college votes to win the US presidency

[swimmer]

If we learned anything from 2000, its that all the pollsters can be totally wrong, and that we still have the electoral college (like it or not). We have people here from all over the place, (hi to the rest of the world, this is probably interesting to you as well!), some of you even live in a swing state; if you don't mind sharing with us, what are you seeing and what do you think will happen?

Please, lets strive to not get mean here, people get to have their thoughts and feelings and while we are all very passionate about it, remember that whole sticks and stones things and stay on topic. I also personally find that there is no point to debating the validity of the EC system in this thread, it exists, its here, now we have to deal with it. Aren't we all really curious to find out what is "really" going on in many states, esp FLA, NC, VA, and PA (the big ticket states everyone wants)?
Thanks to you who answer for letting those of us trapped in politically isolating pockets of the US know what is going on in the political "front lines."

http://www.270towin.com/ link

 

[FrekeChild]

I don''t know whats going on here in NM--the typically purple state that only has around 5 electoral votes. We have a huge (50% ish) Hispanic population and because of the historic rivalry between minorities, it''s thought that by voting in a black president, they would become higher on the totem pole than the Hispanics. The population is split around 50/50 Republican/Democrat, and we are a very poor state. We are also a very Catholic state. And we''re right next to AZ. Hillary also won NM (last time I checked-I think it was by a margin of less than 500 votes-they had to do a recount and I stopped paying attention) in the primary, partially because of her close ties with Bill Richardson. We also have a large rural population-typically more conservative. So I think it''s very much up in the air.

I have problems with the polling methods though. Perhaps it''s because I''ve been taking so many research methods classes and talking about how to conduct surveys lately, but political polling is messed up. They call exclusively landlines, around dinnertime. That excludes those without landlines (typically younger or poorer people) and those who work night shifts and those in the restaurant industry(also typically poorer people) are essentially discounted.

 

[stone_seeker]

did you know we can have a tie where each candidate receives 269 electoral votes? It actually is possible under some current scenarios as to where some states are leaning.

In that case the vote goes to the House which isnt a sure-win for Obama because each state''s delegation gets one vote. Since Repulicans tend to win more states in total, its a bit more likely McCain would be voted in.

 

[swimmer]

Great post Freke!
I hear you about polling reliability. But the landline thing is what did Zogby in right? He also thought that young people would actually vote...historically not something that has happened sadly. Interesting info about NM demographics, please keep us updated as we get closer with your predictions/observations (like how will Sephora moving in impact the election

)

58 days till the election!

 

[SarahLovesJS]

I'm in a "front line" state and while Obama is carrying this state due to the high population of democrats in our cities and in the northern part of the state, I'd like to caution anyone about getting too excited about this state automatically going Dem due to our Dems in office. I hear this all of the time on the news, and I am really frustrated. The more recent Republican candidates put up for Senate and Gov have been excruciatingly weak (and lost due to their own weakness and ignorant mistakes in some cases), so the Dems won rather easy here less due to politics and more due to lack of opposition. Moreover, our Dems in power are pretty conservative by most standards and are following on the coattails of our successful Dem Governor. Just my opinion.

ETA: Some things I forgot! Where I am located we get the DC area advertising and WOW what a lot of political ads! I saw I 4 or 5 at one point within an hour. Very heavy ads going on in different markets.

 

[meresal]

Date: 9/8/2008 1:44:37 PM
Author: FrekeChild
I don't know whats going on here in NM--the typically purple state that only has around 5 electoral votes. We have a huge (50% ish) Hispanic population and because of the historic rivalry between minorities, it's thought that by voting in a black president, they would become higher on the totem pole than the Hispanics. The population is split around 50/50 Republican/Democrat, and we are a very poor state. We are also a very Catholic state. And we're right next to AZ. Hillary also won NM (last time I checked-I think it was by a margin of less than 500 votes-they had to do a recount and I stopped paying attention) in the primary, partially because of her close ties with Bill Richardson. We also have a large rural population-typically more conservative. So I think it's very much up in the air.

I have problems with the polling methods though. Perhaps it's because I've been taking so many research methods classes and talking about how to conduct surveys lately, but political polling is messed up. They call exclusively landlines, around dinnertime. That excludes those without landlines (typically younger or poorer people) and those who work night shifts and those in the restaurant industry(also typically poorer people) are essentially discounted.

Freke: Who is calling? and for what? I'm not following?

I'm in Texas. I don't have a huge problem with electoral college... actually I just don't really have an opinon at all. I admittedly am not very informed on the subject, but am learning as much as I can. With that said, what I do have a problem with is the pandering for votes in the lower income sectors by BOTH parties... but here in Tx there is really only one, it is Texas after all.

They put signs on apartments and home doors directing people (without transportation) to be at "said" corner to take a bus at "said" time to go vote. That's great if you are also going to educate these citizens on WHY and HOW to vote for who they want. However, you are essentially just TELLING these citizens who to vote for, because I would venture to say that they hardly understand how the electoral college is set up, and are being told how to vote as they step off the bus at the polling station. I would love to be on one of these buses just to see how the whole thing actually goes down. I have mental image of something like the game telephone... as they pass the name back of who you are supposed to vote for once you get inside.

I want everyone person to have the ability to vote, and I don't have a solution, I just don't agree with it. I feel like it shouldn't be something that is funded by the parties themselves.

I am of the notion that all voters should want to be educated, and I don't understand why people will just allow someone to take their opportunity to have a personal opinion.

 

[swimmer]

Date: 9/8/2008 1:54:38 PM
Author: stone_seeker
did you know we can have a tie where each candidate receives 269 electoral votes? It actually is possible under some current scenarios as to where some states are leaning.


In that case the vote goes to the House which isnt a sure-win for Obama because each state's delegation gets one vote. Since Repulicans tend to win more states in total, its a bit more likely McCain would be voted in.

Statistically unlikely, but very interesting. Yes, it would go to the House, with each state getting a vote, but in a situation where the electors were split, like if MN had 5 for M/P and 5 for O/B, they would abstain...so it would be unclear who would have the upper hand in that bizzaro situation. And remember of course that it would not be the sitting House that made the decision, but the newly elected folks...


Historically a tie happened once, the famed election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each got 73 electoral votes. Then the House voted 10-4 (with two abstentions) for Jefferson to award him the presidency. But don't forget the VP, the Senate would chose him or her...with the sitting VP acting as tie breaker I believe...but I could be totally wrong about that double tie scenario.

While speaking of freakish occurences, remember that Maine and Nebraska can split their votes.

This blogger link thinks a tie is possible and disagrees with you totally. I like the blogger's use of graphics to make the information very visible but the slant taken obscures some of the data.

 

[swimmer]

Date: 9/8/2008 1:59:16 PM
Author: SarahLovesJS
I'm in a 'front line' state and while Obama is carrying this state due to the high population of democrats in our cities and in the northern part of the state, I'd like to caution anyone about getting too excited about this state automatically going Dem due to our Dems in office. I hear this all of the time on the news, and I am really frustrated. The more recent Republican candidates put up for Senate and Gov have been excruciatingly weak (and lost due to their own weakness and ignorant mistakes in some cases), so the Dems won rather easy here less due to politics and more due to lack of opposition. Moreover, our Dems in power are pretty conservative by most standards and are following on the coattails of our successful Dem Governor. Just my opinion.


ETA: Some things I forgot! Where I am located we get the DC area advertising and WOW what a lot of political ads! I saw I 4 or 5 at one point within an hour. Very heavy ads going on in different markets.

Sarah, what state do you live in? I'm assuming VA? Why do you think there are so many ads in DC? Seems like a waste of money, DC is so heavily DEM...I get the NH advertising. OY to the VEY is it endless.

 

[Elmorton]

I''m in Iowa, and if the caucuses were an indication, there were more people caucusing democrat than there were republican - but that was 6 mos ago, and anything can change.

I see more support for Obama around here in terms of bumper stickers, yard signs, and people were wearing pins at nearly every event I went to this summer. Oh - and at our minor league baseball bobble-head election, Obama won - very scientific poll-taking right there. I also live in one of the largest cities in Iowa AND we''re on the border of IL (which I assume will definitely go to Obama), so I really can''t say I know much about how the rest of the state will vote. My guess is that Iowa is still very much a swing state, and I think that Obama needs to bump up his advertising campaign here because McCain is dominating the airwaves with a ton of negative ads.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Date: 9/8/2008 2:10:13 PM
Author: swimmer

Date: 9/8/2008 1:59:16 PM

Author: SarahLovesJS

I''m in a ''front line'' state and while Obama is carrying this state due to the high population of democrats in our cities and in the northern part of the state, I''d like to caution anyone about getting too excited about this state automatically going Dem due to our Dems in office. I hear this all of the time on the news, and I am really frustrated. The more recent Republican candidates put up for Senate and Gov have been excruciatingly weak (and lost due to their own weakness and ignorant mistakes in some cases), so the Dems won rather easy here less due to politics and more due to lack of opposition. Moreover, our Dems in power are pretty conservative by most standards and are following on the coattails of our successful Dem Governor. Just my opinion.



ETA: Some things I forgot! Where I am located we get the DC area advertising and WOW what a lot of political ads! I saw I 4 or 5 at one point within an hour. Very heavy ads going on in different markets.

Sarah, what state do you live in? I''m assuming VA? Why do you think there are so many ads in DC? Seems like a waste of money, DC is so heavily DEM...I get the NH advertising. OY to the VEY is it endless.

Hello! Yep, I''m in VA. I really don''t know..I guess they''re hoping to pull off the few conservatives in northern Virginia, but it is pretty silly because it''s very heavily democrat. But the ads are crazy..they''re back to back..Obama..McCain..Obama..McCain. My parents, on the other hand, see essentially no ads. Granted, they watch mostly national networks and that is why..but my Mom does watch the local news so she should see local ad-buys; however, she doesn''t. So central VA is apparently not considered battleground..but NOVA is.

 

[Krissie]

I''ve had some interesting experiences over the past few months. I''m a lawyer and spend quite a few pro bono hours providing assistance to certain election protection groups (subset of some civil rights groups) and have seen it all, during the primary season and since then. I have staffed voter hotlines on primary days in various states and I have to say the overwhelming majority of calls were from Democrats who''d been turned away from the polls, either because their name was not on the rolls at the precinct, or because they registered at the DMV and their registration was erroneously entered, or because they were told they had to have voter ID. Other times it was Democrats who had not voted since the 60''s or 70''s, wanting to know if their registration was still valid. If any of them followed up with their local officials to be eligible to vote in November, I''d say Democrats have a decent chance of winning it. But I''m sad to say that voter intimidation is alive and well, and poll workers have proven in 2008 to be discriminatory and uninformed. Another problem is that polling places are understaffed. Many blue collar workers have to vote before or after work, and if there are huge lines, they have to miss out. This happened a lot during the primary season. Finally I''d just like to note that a national study showed that the average age of poll workers was between 70 and 80 years of age. Now, we are all internet and electronically savvy, but put electronic voting machines in the supervision of the unexperienced, and see what happens if there''s a glitch. It''s hardly a fail-proof system.

Watch out for Michigan in November. I spent about 100 hours preparing a voter election manual for that state. They have a new photo ID law which will be in effect for the first time in the presidential election. The new law provides that a voter must present a photo ID or sign an affidavit attesting that he or she is not in possession of a photo ID. I''m fearful that this could result in many Americans not being able to vote - or not having their vote counted -- I just fear that the affidavit option will not be presented, or someone will not be able to articulate what an affidavit means, or the voter will just get disgruntled, feel discriminated against, and go home. And Michigan is a very important state.

On election day, I will be a poll inspector. I''ll probably be in Michigan, since I know now their voter laws backwards and forwards ... !

I guess my point in sharing all of this is that people turning up at the polls is one thing; but there''s a heck of a lot that can go wrong from there. I wish we had learned from 2000 and 2004, but I''m just not sure we have.

 

[FrekeChild]

Date: 9/8/2008 2:01:17 PM
Author: meresal

Date: 9/8/2008 1:44:37 PM
Author: FrekeChild
I have problems with the polling methods though. Perhaps it''s because I''ve been taking so many research methods classes and talking about how to conduct surveys lately, but political polling is messed up. They call exclusively landlines, around dinnertime. That excludes those without landlines (typically younger or poorer people) and those who work night shifts and those in the restaurant industry(also typically poorer people) are essentially discounted.

Freke: Who is calling? and for what? I''m not following?

Polling. The Gallup Polls call only landlines:

"Next, we choose or design a method that will enable us to sample our target
population randomly. In the case of The Gallup Poll, we start with a list of all
household telephone numbers in the continental United States. This complicated
process really starts with a computerized list of all telephone exchanges in America,
along with estimates of the number of residential households those exchanges have
attached to them. The computer, using a procedure called random digit dialing (RDD),
actually creates phone numbers from those exchanges, then generates telephone
samples from those. In essence, this procedure creates a list of all possible household
phone numbers in America and then selects a subset of numbers from that list for
Gallup to call."

Household=landline.

Here is my source: Gallup media pdf

My parents live in an expensive area of town-it is predominantly Republican. They get polling calls and mail geared towards Republican candidates. It''s pretty entertaining when my dad receives them...

 

[luckystar112]

Freke, not sure which is more credible, but here is what I found from the Gallup site itself....

From Gallup:

Survey Methods

For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.

The general-election results are based on combined data from Sept. 5-7, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,733 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

 

[FrekeChild]

Interesting. The PDF that I posted was also from gallup.com. From what I had understood, cell phones were still not being called, but perhaps this has changed recently?

Hmmm...

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 9/8/2008 4:45:34 PM
Author: FrekeChild
Interesting. The PDF that I posted was also from gallup.com. From what I had understood, cell phones were still not being called, but perhaps this has changed recently?


Hmmm...

up until about a year ago maybe a little longer it was not legal for them to call cells phones.
It is now.

 

[FrekeChild]

That would probably explain it. I believe that PDF is from 2007.

 

[swimmer]

Yeah Krissie!
You are awesome, way to keep the slow wheels of democracy turning!

 

[swimmer]

An interesting blog entry about polling issues (+/-)
It has a summary of everyone''s results for each state with a mean running down the right side of the page.
link

 

[pennquaker09]

If Obama wins in New Mexico, Colorado, and Virgina, he wins. In this scenario, Florida and Ohio go to McCain.

 

[FrekeChild]

Isn''t CO usually a blue state?

 

[miraclesrule]

Nobody has ever polled me

I find that puzzling.

 

[FrekeChild]

That is very odd miracles. I''ve even gotten polled at my parent''s house. I''d say all three of us have been polled several times. FF says he''s been polled as well.

Weird.

 

[miraclesrule]

Hmmmmmmm, maybe you need to be in a swing state for anyone to care. Sheesh, putting together the pieces isn''t ultimately fulfilling if the picture of the puzzle isn''t pretty...Boo...

 

[FrekeChild]

I''m sorry you live in a typically blue state. Wanna switch states for a bit so you can get polled?

 

[diamondfan]

Polls do not really matter til election day. (meaning it is what someone does in the booth and not what they say weeks in advance that really matters in the end).
I live in PA, a swing state. While my township is largely Democratic, the state as a whole is not. I know we are important in the election. And with California a done deal pretty much, I know the states that are mixed or running pretty even, those with bigger electoral votes, are so critical to the outcome of this race. It is going to be quite a night November 4th.

 

[miraclesrule]

Date: 9/9/2008 12:38:16 AM
Author: FrekeChild
I''m sorry you live in a typically blue state. Wanna switch states for a bit so you can get polled?

If I get to borrow your shoes....ummmm, YES!

 

[miraclesrule]

Dfan: I agree. I actually think polls are useful near election day. I just wish that the THREE mainstream news media didn't spend all their time on "guessing" the outcome and spinning for sensationalism than they do for investigative journalism.

Seriously, I would prefer they put as much effort into covering politics that affect our nation, then the endless replaying of the same coverage and the same "Predator" series...over and over and over again. What ever happened to 24 hour news coverage? It's more like 8-12 hours played over and over again. News reruns....isn't that an oxymoron?

Heck, even hotel security has three shifts to cover a 24 hour period....but the main networks can't...Bahhumbug.

 

[diamondfan]

exit polling gets nailed a lot. if people hear one candidate is winning and it is by a large margin, often times, people for that candidate think they do not need to go. If they are for the other candidate, sometimes they feel why bother, if the margin is big enough they will not make a difference. To me, it all counts and it all matters. Go push that button or punch card, be heard...even if I have no clue how accurate it all it at the end of the day!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Date: 9/9/2008 12:41:21 AM
Author: diamondfan
Polls do not really matter til election day. (meaning it is what someone does in the booth and not what they say weeks in advance that really matters in the end).
I live in PA, a swing state. While my township is largely Democratic, the state as a whole is not. I know we are important in the election. And with California a done deal pretty much, I know the states that are mixed or running pretty even, those with bigger electoral votes, are so critical to the outcome of this race. It is going to be quite a night November 4th.

Dfan
at least your vote counts in Pa. Calif has already been decided.

 

[stone_seeker]

Date: 9/8/2008 4:45:34 PM
Author: FrekeChild
Interesting. The PDF that I posted was also from gallup.com. From what I had understood, cell phones were still not being called, but perhaps this has changed recently?

Hmmm...

I read a stat that 95% of likely voters still have landlines. Young voters 18-24 who predominantly dont have landlines are turning out to vote in larger numbers in recent elections but they tend to never decide elections. They are all assumed to be in the deomcratic camp in any event but less than 20% are registered and an even smaller amount actually go out and wait on line to vote on election day.