http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ en-us csar@stanford.edu 2004-11-02T20:39:26-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000076.html The last days have shown a clear and unexpected trend favoring Kerry in the presidential race. Polls in key states, particularly Florida, have led us to update our probabilities of who wins these states, and as a result the "roll-up" of all these probabilities at the Electoral College level, as reported on our main page, led to final odds favoring Kerry. Surely, this "final answer" is but a probabilistic one, and should not be interpreted as us calling the winner. First, we remind the reader that the final number reported is a probability of winning the White House -- not a forecast of the popular vote. Subtle leads in key battleground states can quickly snowball into noticeably biased odds for one candidate or another nationwide. This mechanism is not quantified by traditional media reports. Second, we must bear in mind that this final prediction is based on opinion polls conducted through Tuesday, 4 PM PST, and are not based on actual exit polls. Most analysts agree that two factors are being left out of any analysis based on such opinion polls: (1) turn-out effects (and preliminary indications this Tuesday seem to suggest a historically high turn-out for this election), (2) biased sample effects: it has been argued at length that “unpollable” cell phone users not owning or answering a landline are mostly comprised of younger voters, and several polls have shown a distinctively Democratic-leaning tendency in this age group. In summary, this project has now reached the limit of what it can offer, and while we attempted to assess the odds of this race, the dice are now cast -- and out of our hands. We do hope, however, that this website and this methodology stimulated our readers' curiosity, and offered interesting insights into the mechanics of the Electoral College, and particularly the discrepancy between classical statistical reports of state-by-state polls and a more rigorous analysis of the Electoral College outcome. We will be busy performing postmortem analysis of this and past elections to refine the reliability of our methodology, particularly the aggregation of polls over time. The fluctuations of polls over time have a large impact on the smoothness of our reported probabilities since we “roll up” all the state polls into a single probability of who will win the majority of the electoral votes. Our off-season research hopefully will shed insight to improve upon such concerns. We are most grateful to all our readers for their support, comments, error corrections, constructive criticism, and thoughtful commentaries. Until 2008, then...... 76@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ 2004-11-02T20:39:26-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000075.html If voter sentiment is static, we would treat all polls (old and current) as equal – without discounting earlier polls. However, we know that it is far from the truth. Events influence voter preferences and undecided voters make up their minds. Thus, it becomes an “art” to find the most appropriate “discount” factor so that we can aggregate polls of different vintage in each state to compute the probability that each candidate will carry a state. Heavy discounting gives more weight to the most recent poll, while lighter discounting distributes some of the weights to older polls. One can get a sense of voter trend by viewing our computed probabilities as a function of the discount factor used. The following table shows the sensitivity of the computed probabilities as the discount factor goes from light to heavy. Consumers of our analysis can draw their own conclusion and make their inferences based on the numbers presented herein: who has a better chance to win the election?... 75@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ 2004-11-02T20:38:25-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000074.html What we choose to present We have chosen a “medium” discount factor to balance the “inertia” of earlier polls and trends suggested in recent ones. Had we treated all polls taken after October 1 equally, President Bush would have been the run-away winner of this election (with probability of winning over 90%). This choice of discount factor is our best educated guess about the result of this election. When all the election excitement fades, we will be performing postmortem analysis of this and past election, hoping to shed light on voter trends to better treat polls of various vintages. The following chart also provides some insight as to the tightness of this race, with the following rules to “categorize” the electoral votes: If a candidate has a 95% chance or high to win a state, we call it solid. Leaning is in the (85%, 95%) interval. Soft is in the (65%, 85%) interval. If neither candidate has a 65% or higher probability of capturing that state, we put it in the “toss-up” category. Note that there is no guarantee that the candidates will get their red/blue electoral votes with the probability of attaining them depending on into what category they fall. If we count up the blue/red votes, we have Kerry 287 and Bush 227. Those 24 “toss-up” votes belong to: Ohio 20 and Hawaii 4. We should point out that our analysis is based on the inferred probability (inferred from polling data) that a candidate will win a state’s popular votes (thus, its electoral votes), and NOT on the exact polling statistics. The percentages (on the map below for each state) represent the probabilities that either candidate wins the state (thus its electoral votes) cummulatively based on the state-by-state poll data. Please refer to the methodologies section for a general description on how these probabilities are computed, and to the mathematical section for a mathematical description. If you are unable to view the interactive java map above, please click on the electoral college map for the static image... 74@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ 2004-11-02T20:33:15-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000070.html There are thoughts as to whether people of faith can make a strong enough voting bloc to drastically influence the election. If they place a lot of value on not wanting same-sex marriage or side for/against Measure 36, they might make an impact in favor of Bush. There is wonder because not all people of faith stand on one side. Here is a small portion of the source, the Oregonian (to read the entire article, click on the title below): Faith politics could tip vote Republicans and Measure 36 supporters pray for a big turnout of conservative Christians Saturday, October 30, 2004 BILL GRAVES and JEFF MAPES Tim Nashif, a key Republican strategist in Oregon who also is running the initiative campaign to ban same-sex marriages here, says he figures there is just one way President Bush can confound the pollsters and win the state. "I don't think it's going to happen unless there is a dynamic out there that we haven't seen before," he said, "and that would be people of faith voting at a much greater clip than they have in the past." This voting bloc -- which actually is not as monolithic as it sounds -- is also the prime force behind ballot measures in Oregon and 10 other states that would prohibit same-sex marriages.... 70@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Oregon 2004-11-01T21:33:19-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000066.html CINCINNATI, Ohio (CNN) -- A federal judge Monday barred political party challengers from questioning Ohio voters' registrations at the polls on Election Day. The state Republican Party immediately said it would challenge the judge's ruling in hopes of having the order overturned in time for Tuesday's election in Ohio, an important battleground state that could throw the presidential contest either way. (Showdown state Ohio, Electoral College explainer) Polls show President Bush and his Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry virtually tied. Ohio is among six battleground states showing voters almost evenly split in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Sunday (CNN.com Poll Tracker, opinion poll figures) The Republican Party has said it wants its challengers at polls to prevent voter fraud, as allowed by state law. Following a rare Sunday night hearing on the issue, U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott said that allowing inexperienced challengers to question voters' registrations at the polls would disrupt the election process. According to the judge's ruling, Republicans in Ohio filed "for hundreds of challengers to be physically present in the polling places in order to challenge voters' eligibility." In her ruling, Dlott said that there are sufficient safeguards against voter fraud in place with precinct election judges appointed by county election boards and that "disruption of this system by over 1,100 lawyers who have no experience in the process" would impede voting. Mark Weaver, attorney for the state Republican Party, said an appeal of Dlott's ruling would be filed Monday morning. ....... 66@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Ohio 2004-11-01T16:04:39-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000065.html Campaigning in the US presidential election has entered its final day and the latest opinion polls suggest that President George W Bush and the Democratic challenger, John Kerry, are virtually neck and neck. The candidates are wrapping up their campaigns in the handful of states where just a few votes could make the difference between victory and defeat. Mr Kerry today ends his campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio.... 65@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Wisconsin 2004-11-01T02:02:37-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000064.html The U.S. presidential election campaign is now in its final week, with both major party candidates reaching out to voters in the few states where the race remains extremely close. Time is running out for the candidates in an extremely tight race for the White House. With one party or the other holding a solid lead in many parts of the country, attention is focusing on the so-called "battleground" states where neither candidate dominates. And so it came as no surprise both Republican candidate George Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry included Wisconsin in their schedules on Tuesday. The president spent the day leading a caravan of buses through the small towns in the western part of the state. Traveling in a light chilly rain past trees shedding their last leaves of autumn red and gold, he reached out to fellow Republicans. For his part Tuesday, Senator Kerry questioned the president's leadership on foreign affairs, referring once again to revelations about 350 metric tons of explosives which have disappeared from a former Iraqi military installation. Mr. Bush has not responded personally to the news, although his aides have downplayed the matter, saying large stores of ammunitions have been destroyed in Iraq and that the missing material does not pose a nuclear proliferation threat.... 64@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Wisconsin 2004-10-27T16:27:52-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000063.html Oct 27, 2004 Washington As the US Presidential election entered the final seven days before the November 2nd election, both candidates campaigned in the Midwestern state of Wisconsin. During the previous four presidential elections, Wisconsin's 10 electoral college votes were won by the Democratic party candidate, but this year, the race is a statistical dead heat. Republican President George W. Bush campaigned for Democratic votes during his three stop bus tour in the Midwestern state of Wisconsin Tuesday. He said the Democratic Party was no longer led by men of strength and resolve and that in moments of challenge and decision his democratic Party opponent, Senator John Kerry, has consistently chosen a position of weakness and inaction. Senator John Kerry accused the President of hiding bad decisions on Iraq. Despite the bad news coming out of that country, Mr. Kerry said, the Bush administration has glossed over the reality of the situation there. Mr. Kerry campaigned Tuesday on a theme of protecting homeland security and pledged to invest an additional 60 million dollars to screen cargo at ports and on planes and hire more border patrol agents over the next ten years. President Bush focused on domestic issues such as family security, the family budget, and the quality of life, all of which he hoped would resonate with voters on election day. This article uses material from VOA.... 63@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Wisconsin 2004-10-27T16:24:45-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000062.html In Tuesday's episode of "The Nominees Just Keep On Coming," Sen. John Edwards, plus two rock musicians, an MTV star and John Kerry's stepsons, implored a University of Minnesota audience to turn out on Election Day and bring all their friends with them. Polls show the Kerry-Edwards ticket with a lead among the youngest voters. The Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, taken Oct. 9-11, showed voters aged 18-24 preferring the Democrats by 57-37 percent. Edwards told the mostly young audience of about 2,000 that the surest sign of a Kerry victory on Election Day would be long lines at the polling places and a lot of young people standing in those lines. Source: Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune... 62@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Minnesota 2004-10-26T18:20:17-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000061.html The price of gasoline in the Twin Cities has cracked the $2 barrier again, weeks after crude oil prices climbed to record levels. Many retailers raised gas prices as much as 20 cents overnight Monday, boosting the average price for a gallon of unleaded to $2.07 on Tuesday, according to the Web site Twincitiesgasprices.com. Prices haven't been that high since late May. The U.S. average this week is $2.04, according to the Lundberg Survey, which tracks prices at more than 8,000 stations nationwide. The price of a 42-gallon barrel of crude oil closed Tuesday at $55.17, up 63 cents. Source: Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/... 61@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Minnesota 2004-10-26T18:18:32-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000059.html After two previous visits to Nevada this month, Laura Bush attended a fundraiser in Lake Tahoe on Thursday, October 18.... 59@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Nevada 2004-10-25T00:27:14-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000058.html Who could have predicted two years ago that Bush and Kerry would spend time stumping in Nevada? But Nevada is unpredictable. Part of the reason the state keeps swinging back and forth is that more people keep moving in—this has been the fastest growing population for the past 15 years. Most of the state is empty, except for two big population centers: Reno, with Carson City and Lake Tahoe not far away, and Las Vegas, the biggest thing in the state. In 2000, 62% of votes cast in Nevada came from Clark county, home to the Las Vegas strip. While the rest of the state went for Bush in large numbers, Gore won here by 6.5%. Kerry will try to increase that margin and take the state's 5 electoral votes. As the October deadline for new voter registration passed, more Democrats were registered in the state than Republicans for the first time since 1999. One key issue—Yucca Mountain—Bush has endorsed the idea of putting a national nuclear waste storage site at the location, less than 100 miles away from Vegas. Kerry says he opposes the idea. With less than three weeks left, neither side was giving up on the state, making it one of their top ten battlegrounds.... 58@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Nevada 2004-10-25T00:25:40-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000057.html The President spoke at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus on UNLV in the morning and to about 16,000 supporters at Rancho San Rafael Park in the afternoon. In both speeches Bush touted his record on job creation, healthcare and the war on terror while attempting to draw a strict contrast between his record as president and Kerry's Senate record. The President said, "I'm proud of my record, my opponent seems to want to avoid his." He said that under his watch the nation has weathered recession and a terror attack and has created 1.9 million new jobs over the past 13 months. Bush pointed to the fact that the nation's unemployment rate stands at 5.4 percent, better than the average from the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. Bush also pointed to Nevada's unemployment rate, which currently stands at 4.0 percent. http://www.time.com/time/election2004/battleground/nevada.html... 57@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Nevada 2004-10-25T00:16:16-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000056.html Ray Hagar Reno Gazette Journal Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, outlined a national heath-care plan Thursday in Reno, calling for heath insurance for all U.S. children, lower prescription drug prices for seniors and national catastrophic health insurance coverage. Heinz Kerry singled out U.S. drug companies for gouging seniors, saying that if her husband were elected, he would lift the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on the importation of drugs from Canada. “If they (drug companies) want to keep the cost of drugs, up, let them,” she said. “We will play the market. That is what Americans do.” http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/10/14/82832.html... 56@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Nevada 2004-10-25T00:03:32-08:00 http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/archives/000055.html Ken Ritter First lady Laura Bush and Democrat John Kerry received warm welcomes at an AARP convention Thursday, where in separate appearances both recalled the group's key backing for a Medicare prescription drug law and promised benefits for seniors in the next four years. Last year, the 35 million-member organization of Americans 50 and older backed the Medicare legislation, drawing strong criticism from Democratic opponents and prompting 60,000 people to resign their membership. Kerry, who opposed the Bush Medicare plan, followed Mrs. Bush to the podium about 90 minutes later and took a jab at the president's decision not to speak to the AARP convention. Instead, Bush spoke to a rally in Las Vegas with Republican governors.... 55@http://www.stanford.edu/group/predict2004/ Nevada 2004-10-24T23:57:29-08:00