Presidential election minus 17 days

Two states have moved to the McCain column on my weighted aggregates: Ohio, where polling for McCain remains surprisingly strong, and West Virginia, where a 50-42 result from Public Policy Polling puts the state back where it should probably have been all along. Obama’s lead in North Dakota is largely based on what was probably a rogue poll. For all that, Obama retains leads of over 5 per cent in enough states to win the election (note that the table below will be updated as new polls become available, so the aforementioned might be out of date at the time you read this).

Obama McCain Sample D-EV R-EV
Michigan 56.0 37.0 3215 17
Maine 54.8 38.9 2185 4
Washington 55.1 40.5 2149 11
Iowa 54.0 39.7 1160 7
Minnesota 53.4 40.5 3177 10
Wisconsin 52.2 39.5 3567 10
Pennsylvania 52.7 40.3 3604 21
New Hampshire 53.3 42.1 3360 4
Ohio 51.8 40.8 3024 20
Virginia 51.5 43.1 3324 13
New Mexico 50.1 42.0 2427 5
Colorado 51.9 45.7 3038 9
North Carolina 50.7 45.5 4769 15
Nevada 49.5 45.4 3221 5
Indiana 48.8 45.0 3128 11
Missouri 49.2 45.4 3063 11
North Dakota 45.8 43.6 1206 3
Florida 46.6 45.9 3420 27
Montana 45.5 47.5 2003 3
Georgia 45.6 49.5 3533 15
West Virginia 43.0 50.0 3022 5
Others – – – 175 137
RCP/Total 50.2 42.8 – 378 160

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

925 comments on “Presidential election minus 17 days”

Comments Page 18 of 19
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  1. Well I agree with states rights to a certain extent. That in no way extends to matters relating to national parliament, which logically should remain solely within the powers of the national parliament to legislate in relation to. The election of President is something which effects the nation, so as such the national parliament, clearly should determine the way the President is elected.

  6. [The election of President is something which effects the nation, so as such the national parliament, clearly should determine the way the President is elected.]
    Well I guess it does via the constitution. But the actual administration is left to the states.

    I think it is a terrible system. They should have a single body so that voting conditions are uniform including the nature of the ballots! They should also have uniform voting times, of course the times will be different because of the time zones, but some states close their polls at 6 PM and others 10 PM local time. That is a ridiculous variation, it should be the same everywhere.

  7. jj,

    [
    jjulian1009
    Posted Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 10:03 am | Permalink
    Julie,
    You’re on fire this morning!
    You’ve already done all the posts I was intending to do, and it goes without saying, done them better than I can.
    ]

    Spent the day bushwalking near Charlotte’s Pass so we got up early and yes, the closer it gets to the election, the more on fire I will become 😉 ….. I am an early bird not a night owl, so you will always see my first post of the day (unless I’ve something going on where I can’t get on for some reason) with a 5 or a 6 in the hour slot of the time. gotta dash for now, will catch up on this topic and more after I put my kids to bed …….

  8. Dio @ 826,

    [
    I’m a cold-hearted bastard but even I loved this story.

    Anyone who doesn’t think that African-American turnout will absolutely SHATTER every existing record is in for a very rude surprise.

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Early_voting_in_Evansville.html?showall
    ]

    Dio, I give you more credit than that 😉 …. but geez thanks for that story, thats a winner …. and I totally totally agree with that suggestion about turnout too 🙂

  9. Darn @ 827,

    [
    The Repubs may not be politically dead if they lose, but trust me, for a long time they’ll feel like they are.
    ]

    The value of the US system as vs the Australia one (in this particular instance) is that the party who LOSES can’t march around still pretending like they are leading the parade. The Republicans won’t be able to do a bloody thing about it and it couldn’t be sweeter music to my ears 😉 ……

  11. The problem is that it would not be possible to put presidential elections under the control of a national elections commission without abolishing the Electoral College, which would require amending the Constitution, a process nearly as difficult in the US it is here. When people vote in presidential elections they do not actually vote for McCain or Obama. They vote for their state’s delegates to the Electoral College. That is clearly a state election, and a bill which “nationalised” a state election would undoubtedly be unconstitutional.

  12. jj @ 838,

    Glad that some Cuban officials are coming on board, you would think that this will help bring the demographic as a whole into the fold. I think that with this and the Great Schlep, etc. that Florida is going to go Obama’s way in the end. However, I understand people’s fears in this regard. The blot of FL 2000 is a stain that will sit on history books forever. I must admit, myself, a tiny bit of fear in this regard.

    However, the nice thing about this year? We don’t NEED Florida to put a Democrat in the WH this time so they can go get stuffed if they don’t want to party with the majority of the country LOL …..

  13. Wasn’t the New York Times supposed to have been publishing some amazing expose today? I see nothing controversial on their website…

  14. ltep,

    [
    ltep
    Posted Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 8:13 pm | Permalink
    I still don’t understand why there’s no national independent electoral commission in the US and a uniform system of voting. Surely there’s no basis for allowing 4 hour queues to vote and if there’s that problem the national government should be able to take direct action to rectify it.
    ]

    Voting is one of the responsibilities given to the states. The Federal government can’t legally step in to do anything with it or about it. The US constitution specifically mentions certain things, ex. right to free speech. Ammendments 9 and 10 to the constitution note the following (from Wikipedia):

    [
    Ninth Amendment: declares that the listing of individual rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not meant to be comprehensive; and that the other rights not specifically mentioned are retained elsewhere by the people.
    Tenth Amendment: provides that powers that the Constitution does not delegate to the United States and does not prohibit the States from exercising, are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
    ]

    It is one of the other of those 2 claused in the Constitution that legally give voting powers and organizations to the states. The constitution was written that way so that all things would be covered by someone and nothing would be left out. Since voting directions and regulations weren’t mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution, that means they default to the states. I don’t know the wording of the Aussie constitution but I don’t know if this country has a similar “default” clause in it?

  15. ltep @ 842, I’ve answered this question for you but there was some word in it that William’s filter didn’t like so you will have to wait to read the answer, sorry …..

  16. Grant @ 863, someone posted this yesterday or the day before (earlier on this thread). Just look back to Thursday and Friday posts for some URL that has NYT as its source ….. I know this as I read it from someone else’s post just can’t be bothered at present to search back to find it …..

  17. Just as a matter of interest, has any delegate elected to the electoral college ever reneged and voted for the other candidate (presumably, there is nothing to legally prevent them from doing so if they wish). .

  18. [
    From touch-down on Thursday to take off on Friday, Mr. Obama spent nearly 22 hours on the ground in Honolulu visiting his ailing grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. He did not say how Mrs. Dunham was feeling and campaign aides did not disclose her condition, but he believes this could be his last time seeing her. He had expressed worry in interviews that she may not live until Election Day, and explained that he suspended his campaign schedule to see her, and recalled how he had not been able to get to his mother’s bedside before she died. His grandmother’s 86th birthday is this Sunday.

    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/obama-leaves-hawaii-bidding-goodbye-to-his-ailing-grandmother/
    ]

  19. [ust as a matter of interest, has any delegate elected to the electoral college ever reneged and voted for the other candidate (presumably, there is nothing to legally prevent them from doing so if they wish). .]

    I believe one did it as recently as 2004

  21. Perhaps this was what Evan was alluding to earlier today? As the link that you posted, Evan, I didn’t find anything outright in that story, but this one does go further …

    [
    TPM’s Greg Sargent reports:

    John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the “B” carved into the victim’s cheek stood for “Barack,” according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/24/ashley-todd-story-pushed_n_137710.html
    ]

  23. RCP has moved Indiana at some point today into Obama’s column in the no tossup states map 🙂 🙂 🙂

    What will be the next one to fall? I reckon Georgia and if that goes, I’m changing my EV guess as right now, this state of the RCP no tossup states map is my guess @ 375 …..

  24. [Just as a matter of interest, has any delegate elected to the electoral college ever reneged and voted for the other candidate (presumably, there is nothing to legally prevent them from doing so if they wish). .]

    It happens quite often, they are called “faithless electors”, they are delegates who vote for someone else when the votes are tallied in the Senate:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

    In 2004 the faithless elector wrote down “John Edward” which was accepted as a vote for “John Edwards”, instead of John Kerry.

    Let’s say Obama wins, I wonder if a Republican delegate will vote for Palin instead of McCain.

  25. [What will be the next one to fall? I reckon Georgia ]
    If you go by Intrade it should be North Dakota, which is currently on 38% for Obama.

    Indiana has shot up to 60% for Obama, which is the highest it has ever been. It was on 55% this morning.

  26. Julie, Thanks for your insights about Florida.

    Regarding America’s voting system. It’s complicated in that each County in California has its own Registrar of Voters overseen by a Board of Governors. I missed out on voting in the 2006 Congressional election because of a clerical error, and it took me a visit in person last March plus three phone calls from Oz since to get absentee ballot mailed. Their tiny office was back of a mail-centre in San Bernardino and only open mornings with a handful of staff. San Bernardino County is the largest in America, roughly the geographical size and population of South Australia. All levels of government in California have been under heavy financial stress for many years. The election system is a County administration responsibility which cops state-wide budget cuts.

    They must have the same County election structure in Florida because in 2000 the County Official in charge of the famous chad-counting was a Democrat who kept on counting, even though the Sec. of State Republican had ordered it to cease.

  27. Even worse is the fact that ballot papers are designed at county level. Thus it was that a Palm Beach county official, a Democrat, designed the infamous “butterfly ballot” that caused 6,000 elderly Jewish voters to vote for Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Al Gore, thus costing Gore the presidency and giving us all the horrors of the Bush (mal-)Administration, culminating in the current GFC.

  28. One further question on the “faithless electors”, is it possible to identify them so the party can deal with them, or is it a secret ballot.

  30. Today McCain will be in New Mexico in the morning, and Iowa in the afternoon / evening. This is further proof his campaign is a disorganised joke. According to Pollster.com, Obama is up by 7 in N.M. and 11.5 in Iowa.

    At this stage he has to just HOPE he wins Nevada, Colorado and Missouri, and instead has to concentrate on Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida. There is no point campaigning in any states that have less than 12 votes. N.M. only has 5!

  31. Good call, Adam. I’d forgotten how terrible it must have been for that woman to know she’d cost Gore the Prez.. Well, to be more accurate, she and Jed Bush and Ralph Nader (who’s out there again doing his best to hand to the Repubs this election, trying to break Ross Perot’s record for shafting a major party).

  33. Darn, I believe voting in the EC is done by show of hands. In fact the EC never meets as a body. Its members meet in their state capitals and vote there. (These rules were written in 1788, when travel from say NH to Philadelphia, in winter, was quite difficult.)

  34. New Mex. is at least understandable, if unwise, because he’s from bordering state. However, Iowa is hopeless because he didn’t compete in their Primary. Obama’s nomination is due largely to his excellent organisation to win the Iowa caucuses, and doubtless it’s still significantly larger than McCain’s there.

  36. [Darn, I believe voting in the EC is done by show of hands. In fact the EC never meets as a body. Its members meet in their state capitals and vote there. (These rules were written in 1788, when travel from say NH to Philadelphia, in winter, was quite difficult.)]
    I have a memory of Democrats protesting in the Senate in 2000 as the votes were counted. The President of the Senate (the then V.P.) conducts the vote, i.e. Gore conducted the vote to elect Bush President.

  38. I gave mine to my nephew because he dug the neat black onyx carving in the centre of it and didn’t care that the date was during the Punic Wars!

  42. Here’s an interesting transcript of the actual counting of the electoral votes in 2000. This is normally a formality, but many of the Democrats attempted to challenge the Florida vote, but Gore couldn’t allow them to do it. Part of the transcripts of the proceedings is at the bottom, this is what I watched back in 2000:
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/06/se.02.html

    [ WATERS: I rise to object to the fraudulent 25 Florida electoral votes.

    GORE: Is the objection in writing and signed by member of the House and a senator?

    WATERS: The objection is in writing, and I don’t care that it is not it is not signed by a member of the Senate.

    REP. BOB FILNER (D), CALIFORNIA: I have an objection to the electoral votes from Florida.

    GORE: Is the objection in writing? Is it signed by a member of the House of Representatives and a senator?

    FILNER: No, it is not in writing, but I rise in solidarity with my colleagues who have previously expressed their objection.

    GORE: The chair thanks the gentleman from Illinois, but — hey.]

    That last part “but hey”, was Gore essentially saying “This hurts me as much as it hurts you, but at this stage there is simply nothing I can do.”

  43. Back on Dio’s story about turn-out, I have always been mystified why some of the Southern states with large black populations, even if traditionally (post-Reagan, anyway) very Republican, would not be in play for Obama?

    Considering the Georgia figures, maybe I was right.

  44. Adam

    Those 6000 Jewish were especially incensed that they mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan given his history as a Holocaust denier, apologist for Hitler and general anti-Semitism. At one time, Buchanan was referred to by the Journal of Historical Review (more appropriately known as the Journal of Holocaust Revision) as the most prominent Holocaust revisionist in the US.

  47. ShowsOn @ 892,

    This is covered in Farenheit 9/11.

    As the transcript implies, without the support of a US Senator (and no Democratic Senators were willing to be part of it), no objection could be considered.

  48. Apparently it is OK that Palin spent $150,000 on clothes, because she didn’t KNOW that they cost that much! So in elitistville where she resides, that makes it fine!

    […the final straw for Palin and her allies was the news that the campaign had reported spending $150,000 on her clothes, turning her, again, into the butt of late night humor.

    “She never even set foot in these stores,” said the senior Republican, saying Palin hadn’t realized the cost when the clothes were brought to her in her Minnesota hotel room.]
    That’s a great excuse SHE DIDN’T KNOW. Like how she doesn’t know how old the Earth is, or how humans evolved. She just DOESN’T KNOW, it’s not her fault!
    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14929_Page2.html

  49. [This is covered in Farenheit 9/11.]
    Yuck, keep that thing away from me.
    [As the transcript implies, without the support of a US Senator (and no Democratic Senators were willing to be part of it), no objection could be considered.]
    Um, yeah. My point was that the votes are counted in the Senate, and it is the President of the Senate – the V.P. – that over sees the count.

    I look forward to Cheney over seeing the count to confirm Obama’s victory. Having said that, it is possible he will schedule another heart attack or shooting incident to avoid it.

  50. ShowsOn

    I love Mike Moore so watch out! The left needs someone like him to stir things up.

    On Cheney having a heart attack while counting the votes for Obama, it reminds of the story of one of Stalin’s generals who pretended to die so he could be carried out during one of Stalin’s five hour harangues. That was the only way you could leave before the end. I was a party tonight and thought of using the trick myself.

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