Why Attack the Community Organizer?

It took me a while last night and this morning to wrap my mind around the mocking line of attack that both Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani pursued in their speeches an evening ago. I mean, why, after a night of extolling the virtues of service, would you attack another person's service? Why indeed. I get the need to attack. That's politics. Everyone does that. I also understand the need to strike back after what Republicans found to be an unnecessary series of attacks on their nominee's choice for vice president after the Alaska governor's roll out last Friday. After all, Bill Clinton's campaigns' modus operandi was rapid response to attacks. That may not remove the fact that last night seemed a petty response, but pettiness in the face of pettiness is just tacky. Regardless, that's politics as well.

So why go after Obama on his experience as a community organizer? Why go against what, on its face, is your best interest? Yes, it fires up the Republican partisans, but it also fired Democrats up as well. But the question is, "How did it play among the independents and undecideds?" Here's where we start to answer the why of this particular line of argument. If both Palin and Giuliani look petty in making the argument, this likely backfires with those independents and undecideds. As one of our loyal readers, Rob, pointed out time and again during primary season -- at least in our discussion group meetings here at UGA -- the candidate or candidates perceived as negative lose. It happened to Romney in Iowa against Huckabee and in later primaries against McCain. And it happened to Hillary Clinton in her battle against Barack Obama. If that logic extends to the general election, then Palin, Giuliani and the McCain campaign have fundamentally misread the mood among the electorate. But does that logic extend in this case? During the primaries, the crowd was made up mostly of partisans. The general election brings in a completely new swath of voters or potential voters. I would argue that yes, this segment of the electorate would be turned off by an attack perceived as petty. Partisans already dislike the other side and expect the attacks. But independents and undecideds, while likely expecting the attacks, don't particularly like them. The point is that they may be turned off and have their mind changed. Whereas, with partisans, they'll be turned off but will have already made up their minds anyway.

But the question remains: Why attack Obama's past as a community organizer, especially when that could come back to haunt you and your party among the most crucial portion of the electorate in this election? Well, I think it all depends on this perception of pettiness. And that is affected by who this message was intended for. Yes, there was a lot of "red meat" in both Palin's and Giuliani's speeches last night. That played to the base of the Republican Party. But if we focus on Sarah Palin and the context of not only her but the speech as well, we can begin to see where the GOP was headed last night.

Fire up the base?
Check.

Appeal to independents and undecideds?
Check.

Huh? Why did you just write all that only to come to that conclusion? Good question. Palin's speech was about her background, her small town background. It was about life as a regular American. Fine, that appeals to independents and undecideds, but how is this attack in any way appealing to those folks? Well, it likely wasn't appealing to all independents and undecideds, but it was targeted at as many of them as the GOP could get to. And much of that is dependent upon how the concept of "community organizer" is defined in people's heads. If you tuned in to the Democratic convention a week ago, you learned about this aspect of Obama's life. In fact, I'm sure that most people could easily parrot the line, "He could have written his ticket to Wall Street but chose to be a community organizer instead," with relative ease -- with as much ease as they could tell you that John McCain voted with George Bush 90% of the time or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, put country first. But even if someone could tell you exactly what a community organizer is based on what they heard last week, I doubt that in most cases it is something most voters can relate to. Folks from urban environs can relate to it, but folks who have a background similar to Sarah Palin's may find it a stretch. So Palin can "get away with it" because she spent the first third of her time last night explaining what her background was and getting people to relate to her and her vantage point. To people in her corner, at least background-wise, community organizer is something of a foreign concept, nevermind the service aspect of it. [Incidentally, coming from Rudy Giuliani, this line of attack is somewhat disingenuous, given his experiences in New York. He likely knows very well what a community organizer is. But he was the keynote speaker. He can fire up the crowd and the base without it being overinterpreted. That's the role of a keynote address...or can be.] Soldier, people get. That's a concept that people can grasp. But community organizer is a concept that is as unknown to people as Sarah Palin was just a week ago.

Now, does that make it okay to attack that experience? I don't know. But does a pretty good job of drawing "community organizer" out as a foreign concept. And once you've accomplished that, mocking becomes a much more palatable enterprise. Granted this interpretation is vulnerable to the "politics of division" rebuttal from the Obama campaign since it cuts across an urban and not urban (I won't say rural because the suburbs and exurbs fall in between and may or may not gravitate toward the argument.) divide. And of course that brings with it some racial undertones that I won't get into here. At the same time, though, it is worth bringing up.

Among persuadables, did this work? Again, I can't say for sure, but it is a clever way to potentially peel off some of them at the margins. Nate Silver Sean at FiveThirtyEight mentioned in his wrap-up post to the evening (and especially the Palin speech) that the Democrats outnumber Republicans and that firing up both bases is somewhat counterproductive. While that's true, all the McCain campaign has to do is persuade enough of these small town, average Americans to swing a state like Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, or Ohio, or Michigan or Pennsylvania to win the election. Now getting from A to B in that is easier said than done, but I can see how they are trying to get there with that speech last night.

*For the record, I thought Palin was fantastic last night. The bar was lowered due to the firestorm surrounding her because of and since her selection, and that helped, but she did a great job for someone who was thrust into the spotlight only five days earlier. She passed the first test, but she will still have to withstand direct questioning from the media and/or in the debates. For that, stay tuned.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (9/3/08)

A Follow Up on the 50% Mark: The View from 2004

Obama Cracks 50% in the Daily Trackers. What Does It Mean?

The Electoral College Map (9/3/08)

Kudos to CNN for filling state polling void present since last week. Granted CNN continues to call Iowa and Minnesota swing states when they've been anything but. But hey, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, right? In addition to the North Star and Hawkeye states, there is also a new poll out in Ohio. Now that's enough to get your attention; a poll in one of FHQ's three most competitive states.

New Polls (Aug. 31-Sept. 3)
State	Poll	Margin (With Leaners/ Without Leaners)
Iowa	CNN	+13
Minnesota	CNN	+14
Ohio	CNN	+1

And these are three states that have, of late at least, been favoring Obama, continuing to do so here. Though CNN has yet to poll any of these three states, each of the results seems about right. I don't want to read too much into any of these polls, especially considering these are CNN's first efforts in each, but given where the polling had been in Iowa and Minnesota, both appear to be showing a bounce for Obama coming off the Democratic convention a week ago. The margins in the Hawkeye and North Star states had been tightening recently, but these three polls and the four state polls the Cable News Network conducted a week ago seem to be pretty close to what we've seen in all seven states on average over the course of the campaign. If Iowa and Minnesota are bouncing toward Obama, Ohio, like Colorado and Nevada last week, is in a holding pattern. All three are consistently polling within the range that would place each in the toss up category here at FHQ. Though Colorado is not as close in our averages as Nevada and Ohio, the Centennial state is trending toward McCain, or had been prior to the Democratic convention.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Despite the widened margins in Iowa and Minnesota, neither changes categories, though Minnesota is threatening to move back into the strong Obama category after a stint in the lean category through much of August. Iowa just seems to be stuck in the mid- to upper single digits, just beyond McCain's reach, but not yet comfortably in Obama's. Ohio? Well, the Buckeye state's 20 electoral votes seem destined to be fought over intensely throughout the general election campaign in a reprise of its role from four years ago.

The map, though, doesn't shift in any way based on the addition of these three polls to our weighted averages. Nevada remains a tie and will until the next poll is released from the state -- hopefully some time next week. Nevada, Ohio and Virginia should be among the first states polled once convention season ends tomorrow. But I suppose that's my personal preference.

The Electoral College Spectrum*
HI-4 (7)**	WA-11 (165)	CO-9*** (269/278)	AK-3 (373/168)	KS-6 (64)
VT-3 (10)	MN-10 (175)	NH-4*** (273/269)	MO-11 (384/165)	NE-5 (58)
RI-4 (14)	DE-3 (178)	OH-20 (293/265)	SC-8 (154)	AR-6 (53)
IL-21 (35)	OR-7 (185)	NV-5 (298/245)	SD-3 (146)	TN-11 (47)
CT-7 (42)	NJ-15 (200)	VA-13 (311/240)	TX-34 (143)	ID-4 (36)
ME-4 (46)	IA-7 (207)	ND-3 (314/227)	GA-15 (109)	KY-8 (32)
MD-10 (56)	NM-5 (212)	MT-3 (317/224)	MS-6 (94)	AL-9 (24)
NY-31 (87)	WI-10 (222)	NC-15 (332/221)	WV-5 (88)	OK-7 (15)
CA-55 (142)	MI-17 (239/316)	FL-27 (359/206)	AZ-10 (83)	WY-3 (8)
MA-12 (154)	PA-21 (260/299)	IN-11 (370/179)	LA-9 (73)	UT-5 (5)
*Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. **The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, McCain won all the states up to and including Pennsylvania (all Obama's toss up states, but Michigan), he would have 299 electoral votes. Both candidates numbers are only totaled through their rival's toss up states. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and McCain's is on the right in italics. ***The line between Colorado and New Hampshire is the where Obama crosses (or McCain would cross) the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

The widened margins in Iowa and Minnesota don't even alter the Electoral College Spectrum or the Watch List. Though, as I said, Minnesota is on the verge of jumping back into the strong Obama category based on this new poll in the state. The election, at this moment, still comes down to those five states at the top of the middle column of the spectrum. If Obama can hold Colorada and New Hampshire, he has the luxury of ceding the three closest states and still acheiving a victory in the electoral college. Maintaining that state of play, though, depends to a large degree on how the polling shakes out in the aftermath of the conventions and VP selections.

The Watch List*
State	Switch
Alaska	from Toss Up McCain	to McCain lean
Georgia	from McCain lean	to Strong McCain
Minnesota	from Obama lean	to Strong Obama
Mississippi	from Strong McCain	to McCain lean
Nevada	from Tie	to Toss Up McCain/Obama
Ohio	from Toss Up Obama	to Toss Up McCain
Virginia	from Toss Up McCain	to Toss Up Obama
Washington	from Strong Obama	to Obama lean
Wisconsin	from Obama lean	to Toss Up Obama
*Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

By the way, with Mike Huckabee up next at the GOP convention, I'm hopeful that someone will finally invite this Abe Lincoln look-a-like up on stage. Again, just a preference. The guy has maybe gotten enough face time already.

Recent Posts:
A Follow Up on the 50% Mark: The View from 2004

Obama Cracks 50% in the Daily Trackers. What Does It Mean?

And What About the Green Party?

A Follow Up on the 50% Mark: The View from 2004

Yesterday I made note of Barack Obama clearing the 50% mark in the daily tracking polls from both Rasmussen and Gallup. Now, I mentioned the significance of the 50% barrier and the timing -- September polls are better predictors of November results than late October or November polls -- but let's try and add a bit of context here. What did things look like in the national polls four years ago and how does that mesh with what we have seen and are seeing in this current race?

A quick glance at what Real Clear Politics has to offer from four years ago gives us a good start. By my count, there were 155 national polls that were conducted between March and election day. 76 came prior to the beginning of convention season in late July and the remaining 79 polls were conducted in the period during and after the conventions. Obama became the first candidate during this cycle to hit the 50% mark, just after the beginning of September. By contrast John Kerry hit that mark in early April. He didn't stay there, but the Massachusetts senator broke that barrier first. In fact, he hit it at various other points 10 other times prior to the Democratic convention in late July. President Bush, by contrast, was only over 50% in any of the national polls two times out of those 76.

The post convention story was a bit different. Of those 79 polls during and after the conventions, Bush broke the 50% threshold 27 times (over one-third of the time) while Kerry managed only five polls over that mark in that time. Granted, across the entire 155 polls (before and after the conventions), that leaves 61% that showed a closely contested race with both candidates in the mid- to upper 40s.

In fairness, this is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison (Alright, perhaps a Granny Smith to red delicious comparison.). Yesterday's numbers were from tracking polls, but the above data are from national polls, yes, but not tracking polls. As I mentioned, though, the 50% trend would have to extend to state polls in battleground states and national polls and last for a period of time for this to resonate in any way. The other caveat is that 2004 was a different year with a different set of variables. The presence of an incumbent in the race may have a lot to do with the differences we see. In a campaign without one, voters are still attempting to figure out who the two candidates are in 2008. They got a pretty good idea about Obama last week, and are hearing the rebuttal and McCain pitch this week.

Still, those 2004 numbers speak for themselves. During September, Bush led in 23 of the 25 polls that were conducted (Kerry led in one and was tied in the other.). Once we clear the next week or so (past the conventions), we should get a pretty good idea of where the race stands in 2008.

For a deeper look into the history of the national polls during the course of the presidential campaign, Andrew Gelman had a post up in June that had a figure from his 1993 paper with Gary King charting the polling trends from the 1952-1992 elections.


Recent Posts:
Obama Cracks 50% in the Daily Trackers. What Does It Mean?

And What About the Green Party?

It's Never as Easy as Taking Away Half the Delegates

Obama Cracks 50% in the Daily Trackers. What Does It Mean?

You'll notice that I've not really spent all that much talking about national polls much less national tracking polls in our electoral college analyses. They are important, but only to a point. I obviously prefer the state level polls -- though the two are linked in some ways -- due to the way the US presidential election is structured. Having said that, Obama crossed over 50% in both the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls today. I find that that to be significant for one main reason: typically September polls are better predictors of the ultimate outcome than those released immediately prior to the election.*

Now Democrats, I don't want to get your hopes up. [It has happened before (see 2000 and 2004).] However, if Obama is able to maintain this level of support through the next couple of weeks (And that is far from a sure thing, folks.), regardless of the fluctuations on McCain's side and thus the margins of the race, he theoretically should be looking pretty good for the general election. Again, this is just one facet of the robust polling regime we have at our disposal. If both the national polls (not the tracking polls) and the polls in certain states are also favorable to Obama over this period, then things will be looking up for the Illinois senator.

Starting tonight, though, the Republicans will start having a bigger say in the matter. Still breaking that 50% mark is worth noting.

*James Campbell has used Labor Day polls in his forecasting models in the past. Speaking of forecasting, following the American Political Science Association meeting in Boston this past weekend, most of those models are out. Here is a link to a synopsis of several of them.

Thanks to Paul Gurian via Del Dunn for the forecasting link.


Recent Posts:
And What About the Green Party?

It's Never as Easy as Taking Away Half the Delegates

The Electoral College Map (8/31/08)

And What About the Green Party?

This past week we've looked at how both the Libertarians -- behind Bob Barr's candidacy -- and Ralph Nader would fare in the upcoming November election given the information we have at this point in the race. The obvious goal is to see if, in a close race, either would pull enough of the vote away from McCain or Obama to affect the outcome of the race. The conclusion we've drawn is that in the most competitive states there are a few instances where either third party candidate could affect the race, but that across the full list of toss up states, it isn't likely to make all that much difference.

But are we getting the true Nader effect? Often we talk about the potential for a third party candidate to affect the fortunes of one or both of the major party candidates. What we don't discuss is how third party candidates can affect each other. Nader ran as the Green Party nominee in 2000 but as an independent in 2004. In 2004, however, there was something of a redistribution of 2000 Nader voters. Some returned to the Democratic Party having been spurned by the Nader and the perception that he cost Gore the presidency, others followed Nader and some stuck with the Greens and their nominee, Daivid Cobb. [Yes, I'm sure some stayed home as well, but we'll gloss over those folks.] The Nader effect can, then, be thought of as a Nader/Green effect to some extent. So what we really have here are two questions:

1) Does the separation/combination of the two add anything to our understanding of the effect they are predicted to have?

2) Does Cynthia McKinney's presence in polls -- and later on the ballot -- augment the effect and/or detract from Nader's vote share?

Reader (...and political scientist/blogger), MSS, asked about the latter in the comments to the second Barr/Nader post from last week, and as I said in response, there just isn't enough information out there on McKinney yet to draw any firm conclusions. The handful of national polls that include her give her an average of about .67% (not exactly lighting the world on fire). And the only state polls that have included her are the four released last week by CNN in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, which give the former Georgia congresswoman between 0 and 3%. [It should also be noted that all of the McKinney polling comes from just two polling firms, CNN and Zogby Interactive. We don't, therefore, have the benefit of the view of this from several different angles.] There just isn't at this point enough evidence to state that her presence in the race is having any effect on Nader or anyone else. Part of McKinney's problem in November will be ballot access. It plagued the Green Party in 2004 without Nader as the standard bearer and that trend looks to be repeating itself in 2008. A quick glance at the vote results on Dave Leip's US Elections Atlas shows that the David Cobb was not on the ballot (...or simply written in) in 23 states in 2004. You can't have an effect if you aren't on the ballot. Ballot Access News (and click on "View State-by-State Chart" for more information) confirms as much for 2008 as well. McKinney will be on the ballot in 27 states in November as of September 1. She is in court or petitioning for access in 6 other states. Whether she's on the ballot in those six states or not, there is a sizable enough number of states where not being on the ballot will have an effect on how much influence she could have in the race.

Now, I'd like to report that I ran the same sort of model I ran on the other third parties -- and I did -- but the lack of data really screwed up the resulting model. For starters, the relationship between the prediction and the 2004 Green Party vote share was negative; the more support in 2004, the less McKinney would get in the fall election. And that makes sense, right? But the lack of polling data for McKinney during this cycle is simply too sparse at this point. That may change, but at this point getting an accurate prediction just wasn't going to happen. [And yes, that same charge could be levied against the models run for the other third parties. As I argued last week though, the goal was to develop a rank ordering of where each is most likely to have an effect. But I digress.]

What we can do is address the first question posed above: predict a Nader/Green effect for November.

[Click to Enlarge]

If you glance back at the Nader scatterplot from the original post, you can see that the basic ordering of the toss up states is not fundamentally different when the Green data is added into the mix. All that we're really doing is raising the bar a bit. Instead of a series of predictions for Nader just under two points, you have a series of predictions for the Nader/Green vote that ranges from three and a quarter points to three and a half points. Those three states at the upper right of the plot are likely to be states where the Palin selection will play well -- especially in Alaska. That is certainly a point that is up for debate since Palin is "not a hit with undecideds" and is back on In-Trade, but the trading is over whether she'll be dumped as the VP choice. That aside, McCain still has the advantage in that trio of states. Is the Green/Nader presence hurting there? Well, Nader maybe, but McKinney isn't not on the ballot in two and is short over 6000+ signatures in North Dakota. So, perhaps it isn't a factor.


Recent Posts:
It's Never as Easy as Taking Away Half the Delegates

The Electoral College Map (8/31/08)

From Wyoming: An Answer to the "Will the GOP Sanctions Have Teeth" Question

It's Never as Easy as Taking Away Half the Delegates

Nor is it easy to seat state delegations apparently. The message concerning each wasn't clear it seems.

Yesterday, I discussed the apparent difference between the Democratic and Republican parties on penalizing states violating the timing of delegate selection events. The Democrats stripped Florida and Michigan of all their delegates before returning half of them and then, just prior to the convention, restoring complete voting rights to both states. The Republicans, at least according to reports out of Wyoming had stuck with their "if you go early, you lose half your delegates" rule. But the statement in the article on seating seems to have been false and so too is at least one aspect of the delegate penalty.

Here's the deal:
1) The Boston Globe reporting on the New Hampshire delegation, and its relationship with McCain since 2000, referred to a delegation that was 37 members in size. Huh? That's large for a small state that was penalized and voted for John Kerry four years ago. Was this referring to the size of the delegation with family members and friends tagging along or did New Hampshire avert the sanction regime?

2) In hunt of an answer to that question, I came across a piece on the Florida situation, one that implied the state would have a full delegation at the Republican convention. What? Are there sanctions or not (or worse yet, why didn't Wyoming get the memo)?

3) The Detroit Free Press finally clarified the situation in its story about the Michigan delegation's trip to the convention. Apparently all of the sanctioned states have their full delegations in attendance (the pre-sanctioned sizes), but only half of those members have voting rights. That number includes both actual delegates and their alternates. And that explains the 37 for New Hampshire; 24 delegates, 13 alternates. But only 12 of those 24 can vote on the presidential and vice presidential nominations.

And the seating position point in the Wyoming story appears to be false, since New Hampshire, according to the Boston Globe, is up front with the Arizona delegation. Michigan didn't look to be at the back either when a member of its delegation spoke not long after the convention kicked off in St. Paul during C-SPAN's converage.

This isn't as large a story as the rumormongering and subsequent revelations about a certain VP nominee and her family, but the clarification was worth bringing to everyone's attention.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (8/31/08)

From Wyoming: An Answer to the "Will the GOP Sanctions Have Teeth" Question

The Barr/Nader Effect Revisited

The Electoral College Map (8/31/08)

During a slow week during the Democratic convention, there wasn't a whole lot of polling work being done out in the field. Rasmussen, which is the largest provider of polling data this cycle, took the week off, but CNN filled the void with four polls in swing states. Overall there were eight polls in eight states. And despite the relative lack of polls, there were some interesting shake ups in our various metrics. Perhaps they weren't as big as McCain tapping Sarah Palin as his running mate, but they were big nonetheless.

New Polls (Aug. 27-31)
State	Poll	Margin (With Leaners/ Without Leaners)
California	PPIC	+9
Colorado	CNN	+1
Florida	Mason-Dixon	+1
Idaho	Greg Smith	+23
Nevada	CNN	0
New Mexico	CNN	+14
Ohio	University of Akron	0
Pennsylvania	CNN	+9

There is a lot of blue in the polls on the surface, but there are some interesting quirks in there as well. The CNN poll in Colorado handed McCain a one point edge in the Centennial state, a state that has been favoring Obama throughout, but that was counteracted by a similar, yet opposite, result in Florida, where Obama is up a point. Both are tightening as we enter the traditional kick off to the general election campaign (post-Labor Day). Other than those, there aren't any real surprises. Idaho is a little more strongly McCain in the Greg Smith poll there than it had been in the only other two polls conducted. Both New Mexico and Pennsylvania have favored Obama since he wrapped up the nomination (and before that for that matter), but both had drawn closer in some recent polling. The CNN polls in each then, are running ahead of where we have both states in our weighted averages.

Changes (Aug. 27-31)
State	Before	After
Nevada	Toss Up Obama	Tie

Ohio is tied as is Nevada. Ohio had been drawing attention in these posts of late due to the relative volatility in the polls triggering a back and forth between the Buckeye state favoring Obama or McCain. It has settled into Obama territory, but the margin is still razor thin. The real news is that the tie in Nevada has brought the weight average to a tie in the Silver state. This happened with Ohio earlier in the summer, but that is the only incidence of that having occurred here. Nevada, too, is very close -- obviously -- but this shifts the partisan line in the Electoral College Spectrum below to Nevada instead of between Nevada and Virginia. But I'll get to that shortly.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

The map then has a change for the first time since the recent Ohio flip-flop. [Sorry Ohio, I've heard a bit too much John Kerry this week -- at the convention and this morning on This Week on ABC. Flip-flop is fresh in my mind.] The underlying dynamic remains the same though. Obama still has that cushion of strong states, but has lost five electoral votes due to Nevada shifting into the gray area it is currently occupying on the map.

The Electoral College Spectrum*
HI-4 (7)**	WA-11 (165)	CO-9*** (269/278)	AK-3 (373/168)	KS-6 (64)
VT-3 (10)	MN-10 (175)	NH-4*** (273/269)	MO-11 (384/165)	NE-5 (58)
RI-4 (14)	DE-3 (178)	OH-20 (293/265)	SC-8 (154)	AR-6 (53)
IL-21 (35)	OR-7 (185)	NV-5 (298/245)	SD-3 (146)	TN-11 (47)
CT-7 (42)	NJ-15 (200)	VA-13 (311/240)	TX-34 (143)	ID-4 (36)
ME-4 (46)	IA-7 (207)	ND-3 (314/227)	GA-15 (109)	KY-8 (32)
MD-10 (56)	NM-5 (212)	MT-3 (317/224)	MS-6 (94)	AL-9 (24)
NY-31 (87)	WI-10 (222)	NC-15 (332/221)	WV-5 (88)	OK-7 (15)
CA-55 (142)	MI-17 (239/316)	FL-27 (359/206)	AZ-10 (83)	WY-3 (8)
MA-12 (154)	PA-21 (260/299)	IN-11 (370/179)	LA-9 (73)	UT-5 (5)
*Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. **The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, McCain won all the states up to and including Pennsylvania (all Obama's toss up states, but Michigan), he would have 299 electoral votes. Both candidates numbers are only totaled through their rival's toss up states. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and McCain's is on the right in italics. ***The line between Colorado and New Hampshire is the where Obama crosses (or McCain would cross) the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

Nevada, Ohio and Virginia remain the states to keep an eye on. Each is tight now, yet together they don't provide McCain with enough electoral votes to surpass 270. Nevada didn't move, but several other states -- states which had polls this week -- did move on the Spectrum. Idaho became even more intensely red while Florida moved in the opposite direction, moving closer to the partisan line -- the point at which states begin favoring the other candidate. On the blue end, New Mexico became bluer, jumping Wisconsin on the weight of that CNN poll while the single digit PPIC California poll pushed the Golden state past New York and closer to the partisan line. California and Idaho aren't going anywhere, but the fact that Florida and New Mexico are moving in Obama's direction is worth noting.

The Watch List*
State	Switch
Alaska	from Toss Up McCain	to McCain lean
Georgia	from McCain lean	to Strong McCain
Minnesota	from Obama lean	to Strong Obama
Mississippi	from Strong McCain	to McCain lean
Nevada	from Tie	to Toss Up McCain/Obama
Ohio	from Toss Up Obama	to Toss Up McCain
Virginia	from Toss Up McCain	to Toss Up Obama
Washington	from Strong Obama	to Obama lean
Wisconsin	from Obama lean	to Toss Up Obama
*Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Both move off the Watch List to end August, which brings the list under ten states for the first time since we added it. While this isn't definitive, it is on some level more evidence that the race is settling down and that the true battlegrounds are shaping up. Convention season may do something to shake that up, but we'll settle in again after that as we move further into September and closer to that first debate at the end of the month.


Recent Posts:
From Wyoming: An Answer to the "Will the GOP Sanctions Have Teeth" Question

The Barr/Nader Effect Revisited

The Links (8/30/08): Sarah Palin/GOP Convention Edition

From Wyoming: An Answer to the "Will the GOP Sanctions Have Teeth" Question

This week, as convention season has kicked off, we've cast an eye on the various sanction regimes that could be employed to deal with the frontloading of presidential primaries and caucuses in the future. 

Along the way I've done my fair share of mocking the current hollow sanctions. One question about 2008 remained though: Would the McCain campaign and the RNC let the sanctions slide for Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina and Florida? All five had their delegations cut by half for holding nominating contests prior to February 5. 

[What about Iowa and Nevada? They went early too. They did, but both held caucuses, the first steps of which were not determinative. No delegates were directly chosen in those January precinct meetings. In Wyoming on the other hand, nearly half the state's delegation was chosen in the January 5 meetings.]

Well, the word out of Wyoming is that those sanctions are alive and well. Furthermore, those from the Cowboy state will be sitting in the back of the hall in St. Paul (That rhymes a bit too much. I feel like Jesse Jackson describing what he felt was the "inclusion illusion" at the 2000 GOP convention now.) with the other states in violation. The obvious question now is, does it really matter? Would any of these five states have changed what they did? 

I doubt it. 

But sticking to their guns isn't something the GOP will be able to highlight with any great effectiveness this week. They can't come out and say, for example, "The Democrats flip-flopped on this, but we didn't. We're the party of reform." Well, I suppose they could, but they'd risk turning off some people in hotly contested states like Florida, Michigan and New Hampshire. They would not be able to fall back on the excuse Florida Democrats used in defense of their position to remove the stripping of all of Florida's delegates by the DNC. In other words, they wouldn't be able to blame it on the actions of the other party. Florida's state government (legislature and governor) is controlled by the Republicans. 

In Michigan, Republicans also had their hand in the state's move, though not to the extent that Florida Republicans did. Only New Hampshire's move was solely due to the decisions of Democrats. But that's due to the quirk of New Hampshire election law that leaves the decision up to the secretary of state, Bill Gardner -- a Democrat. He was given the ability by the Granite state legislature in the 1970s -- Yes, he's been the secretary of state there the whole time -- so that the state could quickly and efficiently to deal with challenges to their first in the nation status. 

This will not see the light of day this coming week in the press, but given our discussions here this week, it is certainly worth noting. 

NOTE: I'll be back later in the day with a later-than-usual Sunday update of the electoral college projections.

Recent Posts: 

The Barr/Nader Effect Revisited 

The Links (8/30/08): Sarah Palin/GOP Convention Edition 

More Thoughts on Penalties to Prevent Frontloading

The Barr/Nader Effect Revisited

Earlier this week, we looked at a prediction of how well both Bob Barr and Ralph Nader would do in November based on the Libertarian/Nader vote in 2004 and the state of polling on them both on the state and national levels thus far in 2008. A simple model, but one we can enhance. FHQ commenter and Election-Projection proprietor, Allen, spoke about the 2000 election in response to that post (...posing an altogether different question, but certainly one to look at.). And that got me thinking: What would adding in the data from 2000 do to the regression? It would do a couple of things. First, it provides a more consistent measure -- across two elections -- of the libertarian vote. This is advantageous because it eliminates the possibility that the events unique to 2004 are driving the changes we see. However, the drawback to adding in that data in is that it likely inflates to some extent the vote share Nader would be predicted to receive in November. As I said earlier in the week, though, the goal right now -- especially with the limited amount of polling we have for both third party candidates during this cycle -- is to get an idea about the relative effect each will have across the 14 states that FHQ has as toss ups at the moment in our electoral college projections.

What happens is that we don't see any monumental shake up, but there are some subtle shifts.

[Click to Enlarge]

In looking back at the Libertarian scatterplot from the previous post, there's not much difference in the predicted vote share that Bob Barr would get in November here. [Though there is a bit more dispersion here the focus should be on how high or low the point is.] There are three main groupings of states: Alaska and Indiana in the upper right, a group nine states in the middle, and Florida, Michigan and New Hampshire at the bottom left. To reiterate a point from earlier, the three closest states on the most recent Electoral College Spectrum -- Nevada, Ohio and Virginia -- are close enough that two to three points won by Barr could make a difference. However, if those states are that close, what we see here is likely to have been an exaggeration come November. Swing states across the 2000 and 2004 data typically yielded smaller vote shares to third parties than the less competitive states. Voters are willing to vote in protest if the candidate from their party has already seemingly won or lost the state.

One more thing we can add to this is how Ron Paul did this year in the Republican primaries. These are voters -- his supporters -- who are organized and perhaps inclined to vote for the Libertarian candidate. Ultimately, what this is measuring is the intensity of Paul support across states. A variable controlling for caucus states has been included to deal with contests where Paul did better on the whole than in primary states.

[Click to Enlarge]

Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Pennsylvania all see modest jumps while the remaining states hold relatively steady when compared with the plot above. That's three caucus states (Montana held a caucus on the Republican side) and one primary state; two McCain toss ups and two Obama toss ups. Again, the same caveats as above apply in the case of a competitive state -- which all of these are. However, Nevada is in a bit of a gray area here. Yes, it did have a caucus, but Nevada was a state where the Paul forces were very well organized. They completely disrupted the state convention in the Silver state and left Nevada without a delegation to next week's convention until just hours ago -- when the state Republican Party named the delegation. In a state that is as close as Nevada, this matters. Whether Barr's numbers are inflated in the state is beside the point. If those Paul supporters turn out and if -- this is a big if -- the opt for Barr, then McCain may have issues turning the tide there.

That's the story on the Libertarian front, but what about the impact Nader is predicted to have later in the fall? As I said at the outset in explaining the inclusion of the 2000 data, Nader would be expected to gain as a result of the inclusion of an election where he outperformed the 2004 numbers we used before.

[Click to Enlarge]

This distribution is also largely similar to the original plot with just the 2004 vote data. Ohio is the only state that really makes a move. Even with that 2000 data, Nader's predicted vote share for the upcoming election is still modest, only just more than 2 points at the most.

In the end though, the message is largely the same as what we saw earlier in the week among these toss up states with regard to the Barr/Nader effect. There is the potential for influence, but the main question is whether close states follow form, not giving third party candidates as large a share of the vote as in other states.

Somewhat tangentially, there's another issue I'd like to raise in this context. Earlier this week when FiveThirtyEight ran the latest CNN state polls, they used the version with the two party vote question as opposed to the four way race data. That has since been changed, but it started something of a discussion over there, and that is a discussion that is relevant here as well. It has implications for our electoral college projections. As I've discussed in this post and in others on the subject, it is likely that the third party percentages in polls are inflated in relation to where vote choices will ultimately be. That being said, is it beneficial to proceed with the four way polls or to go for the two way race version? In one version the third party aspect is supressed and that has an impact on the accuracy of that poll. But the accuracy of the four way polls are questionable as well since those numbers may be skewed here during the late summer weeks. What are people's thoughts on this? I have, to this point, included that four way race data when available.


Recent Posts:
The Links (8/30/08): Sarah Palin/GOP Convention Edition

More Thoughts on Penalties to Prevent Frontloading

If Taking Away Delegates Won't Stop Frontloading, What Will?

The Links (8/30/08): Sarah Palin/GOP Convention Edition

Who is Sarah Palin? The race is on to find out.

Chris Cillizza at The Fix weighs in as do the folks over at The Caucus.

The Caucus also describes the battle to define the Alaska governor...by both parties.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight provides a glimpse into the early polling being done on McCain's VP selection and the breakdown among men and women is surprising.

Here's the speech from her first appearance with McCain following the announcement.

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With the Republican convention set to kick off on Monday -- weather permitting -- the talk has shifted from the bounce the Democrats got or may have gotten to projections of how well the GOP will do in the polls after their own gathering.


Recent Posts:
More Thoughts on Penalties to Prevent Frontloading

If Taking Away Delegates Won't Stop Frontloading, What Will?

Who's McCain Going to Pick? Why, Sarah Palin, of course.