But 2.9 is what RCP says, too, and I thought that was a straight average.

RCP is a straight average, and Nate supposedly regresses such data to the mean, and yet Nate projects Obama to win Ohio by that same 2.9.

You can't trust that liberal organ.

Now, now----I've heard that they're compassionate Christian conservatives. You know, like snapper.

Granite State Poll has New Hampshire tied, 47-47.

Granite State Poll has New Hampshire tied, 47-47.

re polls I feel like a drug addict.

Cool toy.

Right, but the margins in Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and New Hampshire are 0.3, 1.4, 0.6, and 1.5, respectively. (And if he's regressing those Ohio polls to historical party splits and voting trends, Obama has less than a 2.9-point lead there.)

This must be what it would be like to have a week long rain delay just before Game 7 of the World Series.

The odds of winning four straight coin flips is 1-in-16, or 6.25%. If you do the math, Nate's actually giving Romney better odds than what the polling numbers are saying.

and the passionate insistence that fielding stats are now on par with the longer history of hitting stats in terms of accuracy.

I just disagree that Ohio isn't more of a toss-up than Nate's model suggests.

If you follow the link in #1290 and give Obama Ohio (where he's +2.9 at RCP) and Wisconsin (where he's +5.4 at RCP), Romney has exactly one way to win: to win all of FL, NC, VA, CO, IA, and NV (if Romney wins NH, he wins outright; if Obama wins NH, it's a 269-269 tie that Romney would win in the House of Reps).

In some states, the statistical picture seems fairly clear. In Nevada, for example, where early voting finished Friday, Democrats have a formidable lead, solidifying the forecasts from polls that have suggested Nevada will wind up in the president’s column.

Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by almost 48,000 ballots out of more than 700,000 cast in the state, according to figures released Saturday by the Nevada secretary of state’s office. The early vote amounted to 56% of the registered voters statewide, which is up from 2008. Since not all registered voters will cast a ballot, the numbers suggest that about two-thirds of the Nevada vote is already over.

To win the state, Mitt Romney would have to rack up a large majority among the early voters who were not registered in either party (19% of the early turnout) and win heavily on election day – a tall order.

The Democratic margin is smaller, but still formidable in Iowa, where about 614,000 people have voted, according to state statistics compiled by George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald. Iowa Democrats lead Republicans among the early voters by an 11-point margin, 43% to 32%.

The picture seems more favorable to the Republicans in Colorado, where early voting also ended Friday and where almost 80% of the vote in 2008 was cast early. Republicans hold a small advantage in party registration among early voters so far -- 36.9% to 34.6%. Four years ago, it was the Democrats who held a small margin among early voters. The flip is a good sign for Republicans; on the other hand, Obama won the state in 2008 by 9 percentage points over Sen. John McCain, giving him a substantial cushion.

Florida, the nation’s biggest swing-vote prize, wraps up its early voting Saturday night. As of midday, with about 4 million of the state’s voters having cast ballots, registered Democrats had built up a margin of more than 100,000 votes over registered Republicans.

That’s a considerably smaller margin than in 2008 – and also a smaller absolute number, reflecting the fact that the state has fewer days of early voting this year.

After the major gains by the GOP in Ohio in 2010, it's hard to believe the state has swung back to being even more Dem than 2008, as some of the polls are claiming.

Are we saying that if Nate is "right" he is a genius and if he's not, then it's a polling failure?

Are we saying that if Nate is "right" he is a genius

Are we saying that if Nate is "right" he is a genius and if he's not, then it's a polling failure?

Nate's key input is polling data. It's not his model you're disagreeing with, it's the data that's going into it,

This must be what it would be like to have a week long rain delay just before Game 7 of the World Series.

I like the concept, but will the "sample size" even be enough?

We need a fair pre-election platform for how much to credit Nate if he's very accurate, how much to knock him if he's way off, and how much to weigh your take on variances from other analyses.

If Nate is wrong, he's not going to be the only outfit with egg on its face - not by a longshot.

You know who'd be great at that kind of analysis? Nate Silver! Too bad he's probably busy.

He'll be the most notable one, though.

Won't know what to do with myself if the guy who nails it is Mr. Unskewed.

I'd say there is virtually no way Obama is losing Ohio. Polling numbers on who is voting early is going hugely for Obama while polling numbers for those planning on voting election day is pretty much even.

Wait, if "Polling numbers on who is voting early is going hugely for Obama" how does that match up with "Dem early voting in Ohio is reportedly down ~220,000 from 2008 while GOP early voting is up ~30,000"?

Isn't it because early voting numbers have a correlation to primary turnout? Dems didn't have a prez primary this year. (Well, technically, Ohio did - but ou know what I mean.)

Four years ago, early voting was a option [in Ohio] for each of the five weekends during the voting period. This year that was reduced to one. Some Ohio election boards, particularly in urban counties, have been reporting that fewer people have so far taken advantage of the in-person early-vote option this year, when polls until now have been open only on workdays.

But the Ohio secretary of state’s office said Saturday that, statewide, 1.6 million people had voted by mail or in person as of Friday, a figure that puts the state on track to top 2008 early-vote tallies.

the Ohio elections people have said that X percent of the electorate has voted, but the polls are claiming as much as X+15 have done so.

Is this Joe again? Those are garbage numbers that I believe were stated by Karl Rove. Dem voting isn't down by that much and again because of the nature of Ohio's system of labeling early balloters "democrats" or "republicans" the counts are not very accurate. If you voted in the Republican primary this year and then requested a absentee or early ballot you were considered a Republican voter asking for a ballot. If you voted as a Dem this year you were considered a Democrat requesting a ballot.

Dem early voting is down ~220,000 and GOP early voting is up ~30,000

where did the other ~190,000 voters go?

Wait, if "Polling numbers on who is voting early is going hugely for Obama" how does that match up with "Dem early voting in Ohio is reportedly down ~220,000 from 2008 while GOP early voting is up ~30,000"?

While I'm at it, I think it's kind of hilarious that Joe keeps harping on the party splits in the polls, and YC keeps harping on the independent split, while neither of them seems to realize that there was a pretty big move of Independents out of the Republican party TO THE RIGHT, not the center (Independent != Moderate), which helps to explain both. Anybody remember that whole Tea Party thing?

But I still think the polls are underestimating the size of the Ohio electorate this year.

Maybe they got reclassified as Independents because they didn't bother to vote in either primary in 2012?

It's kind of hilarious that you keep harping on this, since there's actually no polling evidence to back it up. Neither Gallup's nor Rasmussen's party affiliation polls have shown this

In 2008 20.7% of registered voters requested an absentee/early ballot and those 21% ended up accounting for 29.7% of the ballots cast in 2008. Voila, Joe's a fool on this particular issue.

But when a poll is supposed to be representative of the electorate but is off by 15 percentage points, there's a problem.

dispatch-poll-shows-ohio-a-toss-up.html

has it Obama 50, Romney 48

Wow, the two biggest right leaning polls back up a right winger. What a shock!

Could you link to one (or more) such polls, because if you're talking about the % of people who passed the likely voter screen, then having that number at X+15, where X is the percentage of total registered voters could be perfectly consistent if X is a large enough number.

Unless more people vote this time than in 2008 it is very likely that early ballots will make up 30 to 35% of the total votes this year which means the polls were accurate to state that a third or more of the people who were going to vote had voted.

It would also seem to be directly contradicted by the 2010 elections. How did the Democrats get such a shellacking if voters were less inclined to identify with the GOP?

It would also seem to be directly contradicted by the 2010 elections. How did the Democrats get such a shellacking if voters were less inclined to identify with the GOP?

This is trolling, right? Pretending that midterms are the same as presidential elections in terms of turnout?

The premise was that people CALL themselves "Independent" but they're really conservative and vote almost exclusively for Republicans. This is entirely consistent with the 2010 results (where I'm pretty sure "Independents" supported Republicans in exit polling) and with Mitt Romney beating Barack Obama among so-called "Independents". (which is not to say whether this is the right explanation, just that 2010 doesn't contradict it)

It would also seem to be directly contradicted by the 2010 elections. How did the Democrats get such a shellacking if voters were less inclined to identify with the GOP?

Susquehanna poll of PA for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: 47-47 (!)

the last poll of Susquehanna for PA had Romney ahead 49-45.

And Democrats are expected to pick up seats in the House this year and either gain or maintain their Senate numbers while having a Presidental race with their guy in front. Isn't that signs that the Democrats are gaining while the GOP is losing support?

And Democrats are expected to pick up seats in the House this year and either gain or maintain their Senate numbers while having a Presidental race with their guy in front. Isn't that signs that the Democrats are gaining while the GOP is losing support?

Susquehanna got both the Pennsylvania Senate & Governor races right in 2010. Even, if they are off, how far do you think they are off?

Gallup is now tentatively planning on conducting interviewing over the last four days of this week, Thursday through Sunday, to provide a final pre-election estimate of the election race. The decisions we make on the validity of the sample and the analysis of the data that results will be carefully informed by the degree of recovery from the storm over the period of the survey.

I don't think anyone has denied that this is the case, has s/he? I don't know anyone who thinks Obama's going to get 53 percent of the vote, or win 365 EVs. The question is whether it's suppressed their enthusiasm enough to deny Obama a second term, and the polls suggest it has not.

Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 10% in 2008, running ahead of his national vote. If he's now only a few points ahead in Pennsylvania, he well may be behind nationally. Which is why I asked those that think Susquehanna is wrong, how far could they be off even if they were incorrect about the race being tied.