Today's Numbers - September 28
Not much movement today:
From yesterday, the FiveThirtyEight EV numbers have changed, as have the Intrade (Leaning) numbers and the RCP numbers with tossups allocated. (Note that the FiveThirtyEight numbers actually skipped a day--they hadn't posted yesterday's simulations by the time I updated, but they've already posted today's.)
The FiveThirtyEight movement comes almost entirely from Obama's improved numbers in the national polls; their simulations incorporate national polls in producing their state-by-state results. The Intrade movement is the product of small changes in their market prices.* And the RCP change comes from one state poll, in North Carolina, that moves that state from just barely McCain to just barely Obama. It's still a tossup, however, so that's why their "with tossups omitted" number doesn't change. Otherwise, everything else stays much the same, mostly because there are very few state-level polls released on the weekend, and this weekend is no exception--nothing remarkable at all. Prepare for a good number of new polls tomorrow, though, that should impact the numbers over the next couple days, probably in Obama's direction.
On the popular vote front, all three numbers move in Obama's favor, owing to another good day in the national trackers.** One interesting note from these polls is that today is the first day that post-debate interviews have been included. Though most of the trackers do not break down the day-by-day results, Obama's strong performance (maintaining or increasing his lead in all of them) strongly suggests that voters' preferences were either not affected by the date or else shifted moderately in his favor.
* - For those who don't know, Intrade is an electronic market where users bet (real) money on the outcome of specific states and of the nation as a whole by purchasing shares which pay a fixed amount if a specific candidate wins. The price of those shares, like the price of a stock, changes as the perceived value of the share (which is the likelihood of that outcome occuring) changes. The "Leaning" figure allocates states in full to the candidate who's favored in that state. The "Average" figure awards each state's electoral votes in proportion to the predicted likelihood of each candidate winning that state. So, for example, if Obama were considered 60% likely to win North Carolina and McCain 40%, the Leaning figure would allocate all 15 electoral votes to Obama, while the Average figure would award 9 to Obama and 3 to McCain.
However, and I don't know why nobody's noticed this yet, a quick count of the states on the Intrade homepage seems to suggest that they have the numbers reversed. 311 is the Average figure and 297 the Leaning for Obama EVs, but if you count up all the blue states on their map, it sums to 311 EV. Somebody should get on that, but for our purposes it doesn't matter--they're both included in our average, so the overall numbers don't change.
** - As Nate at FiveThirtyEight noted today, their popular vote numbers are most likely always going to be closer to 0 than the other sites', because their model specifically includes an adjustment that predicts the race is likely to tighten over time. He notes that if the election were held today, their model would predict a 4.2% Obama victory, as opposed to the 3.3% victory predicted for 37 days from now. The 4.2% figure falls nicely in line with both the Pollster and RCP figures shown above.
From yesterday, the FiveThirtyEight EV numbers have changed, as have the Intrade (Leaning) numbers and the RCP numbers with tossups allocated. (Note that the FiveThirtyEight numbers actually skipped a day--they hadn't posted yesterday's simulations by the time I updated, but they've already posted today's.)
The FiveThirtyEight movement comes almost entirely from Obama's improved numbers in the national polls; their simulations incorporate national polls in producing their state-by-state results. The Intrade movement is the product of small changes in their market prices.* And the RCP change comes from one state poll, in North Carolina, that moves that state from just barely McCain to just barely Obama. It's still a tossup, however, so that's why their "with tossups omitted" number doesn't change. Otherwise, everything else stays much the same, mostly because there are very few state-level polls released on the weekend, and this weekend is no exception--nothing remarkable at all. Prepare for a good number of new polls tomorrow, though, that should impact the numbers over the next couple days, probably in Obama's direction.
On the popular vote front, all three numbers move in Obama's favor, owing to another good day in the national trackers.** One interesting note from these polls is that today is the first day that post-debate interviews have been included. Though most of the trackers do not break down the day-by-day results, Obama's strong performance (maintaining or increasing his lead in all of them) strongly suggests that voters' preferences were either not affected by the date or else shifted moderately in his favor.
* - For those who don't know, Intrade is an electronic market where users bet (real) money on the outcome of specific states and of the nation as a whole by purchasing shares which pay a fixed amount if a specific candidate wins. The price of those shares, like the price of a stock, changes as the perceived value of the share (which is the likelihood of that outcome occuring) changes. The "Leaning" figure allocates states in full to the candidate who's favored in that state. The "Average" figure awards each state's electoral votes in proportion to the predicted likelihood of each candidate winning that state. So, for example, if Obama were considered 60% likely to win North Carolina and McCain 40%, the Leaning figure would allocate all 15 electoral votes to Obama, while the Average figure would award 9 to Obama and 3 to McCain.
However, and I don't know why nobody's noticed this yet, a quick count of the states on the Intrade homepage seems to suggest that they have the numbers reversed. 311 is the Average figure and 297 the Leaning for Obama EVs, but if you count up all the blue states on their map, it sums to 311 EV. Somebody should get on that, but for our purposes it doesn't matter--they're both included in our average, so the overall numbers don't change.
** - As Nate at FiveThirtyEight noted today, their popular vote numbers are most likely always going to be closer to 0 than the other sites', because their model specifically includes an adjustment that predicts the race is likely to tighten over time. He notes that if the election were held today, their model would predict a 4.2% Obama victory, as opposed to the 3.3% victory predicted for 37 days from now. The 4.2% figure falls nicely in line with both the Pollster and RCP figures shown above.
posted by Andrew at
4:38 PM
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