Who Will Win the Election?

[Ming]

Good news for Kerry... In the last three elections, if the Washington Redskins lose on the Sunday before the election, the incumbent doesn't win.

They are currently getting killed 17 - 0 to the Packers.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Right, and how many Conservatives believe that the Democrats will also employ dirty tricks in order to retain power?

The only way you can justify making a differential, is to say that more people see through the dirty tricks of the Dems, rendering their effectiveness much less than the Republicans.

Of course, this assumes that both sides employ dirty tricks, which may not be the case.

You seem to be forgetting Florida 2000, but Dems aren't. That's why they are more inclined to feel that way (because their guy got the short end of that deal). The GOP hasn't suffered any recent comparable situations. It's about perception.

And I'm talking about this one poll here. I'm not surprised to see US polls show that Bush voters are less confident, given the overall media backing of Kerry. I'd only be surprised if they would admit the latter.

Ah, the "liberal media" trope gets trotted out again. I can assure you, the left wingers are making the opposite accusations that the media is clearly backing Bush. The truth is that the media backs whatever makes the most news, plain and simple.

But the point of me bringing up the U.S. polls was to prove that confidence in who will win does NOT correlate to voting preference. That's why I pointed out, quite specifically, that level of confidence in Bush's winning was at dramatic odds with voter preference polls.

Yet, you say most are not confident of Bush winning? Seems to me if most believe Bush will win in the national polls, than he should win in the election.

Where did I say "most are not confident of Bush winning?" I distinctly made the opposite point: Most are confident he will win.

Bu no, you're wrong, as confidence doesn't equate to actual vote numbers, as I demonstrated above. They do not correlate.

I'm saying that people's confidence in a candidate affects their voting patterns. You seem to believe the two do not influence each other.

Not to a significant degree, and certainly not in this election. Undecideds, who are a very small number, are the only people for whom this may be true. Otherwise, both sides this time around are deeply entrenched. That's usually who referendum's on incumbent's work.

Three weeks is nothing in your elections process.

You clearly know nothing of our elections then. Three weeks is an eternity in an election, because things can change pretty quickly based on recent news and the like. And remember that the 3 weeks we were talking about encompassed the debates, which made a big change in the dynamic.

Seeing as Bush held his ground, I can see why you are not that confident in Kerry.

Bush didn't hold his ground. He had big leads going into the debates. Kerry erased them and gained a good deal of momentum. Had Bush held his ground, we'd still be looking at Kerry being behind in all the polls, not a dead heat like it is.

Kerry was viewed as the winner in all three debates, and the first debate got media play as a disaster for the president. I don't see how you can delude yourself that the debates were somehow Bush holding his ground. The debates were Bush shooting himself in the foot and then barely being able to staunch the bleeding.

Shouldn't Kerry have been able to tear Bush to shreds in both debates, especially given that the original knock against Bush was his unfamiliarity with foreign policy? Isn't that supposed to be Kerry's strong suit, his ability to obtain the support of the UN, and various unnamed foreign leaders from across the world?

Are you just making stuff up now? The media spin before the first debate was that foreign policy was going to be Bush's strong point, not Kerry's. That's why Rove wanted that debate to be first, thinking it would be to Bush's advantage. Everyone thought it was his strong suit, and Kerry's was domestic policy.

And what happened? Kerry not only won, he DID clean Bush's clock. Even a majority of Republicans said Kerry won the first debate handily.

For most people it is. It was for me, and I don't think I'm that prone to blow in the wind.

You've yet to offer any evidence for this assertion. As I said above, in this election, there aren't many wind-swayers, thanks to the high emotional stakes involved. Both sides have their entrenched 45%, and the remaining 10% are the volatile ones.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Go Green Bay!

Yeah, Ming, I saw that as well .

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Didn't Kerry say that OBL means nothing to him?

He's going to cut and run on National security when he gets in.

So you've been proven wrong on the first statement already.

But the second one is too funny. Now you're resorting to Bush's canned stump speech language. I never figured you for a dittohead.

If anyone's poised to cut and run, it's Bush. There's no other explanation for the rush for elections in a country that is clearly not ready for them. There's a huge war going on, and they think they can hold a vote?

That's because they intend to have the elections as a pretty little show that Iraq is all better now, and then Bush will pull out with a short "see ya later!" so he can save himself from the rampant and growing unhappiness with the fiasco.

[ixnay]

You guys are fast; I was just coming in to report the Packers score.

TOUCHDOWN FOR DEMOCRACY

[Boris Godunov]

And more interesting news from Salon:

The GOP's own Nader nightmare

In a final pre-election push, Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik may have a shot at derailing Bush the way Nader did Gore in 2000.

Badnarik is spending $500,000 on advertising in select swing states, and by his campaign's own admission, he's targeting conservatives with commercials on Fox News Channel. One TV spot begins with a man at his kitchen table throwing down a newspaper in disgust and telling his wife "That's it! There's no way I'm voting for Bush again. He claimed to be a compassionate conservative, but what kind of conservative runs half-trillion dollar-a-year deficits, or gets us into an unwinnable war?"

The campaign's communications director, Stephen Gordon, expects Badnarik to siphon a substantial number of Republican votes. "There's a lot of disconnect between true conservatives and the Bush government over deficit spending and the war," Gordon told War Room. "Bush's support is very weak, and I think the Libertarian factor is going to be pretty significant this year. People are dying, and our supporters are very, very, opposed to the war in Iraq."

Of course, it's not that the libertarians are fond of Kerry. "We hate 'em both," Gordon says, speaking for himself and his wife. Badnarik's platform opposes welfare, most taxation and virtually any infringement on individual liberties; his official position on gun control is, "Don't even THINK about taking my guns!"

But Republicans have more reason than Democrats to be worried. Badnarik is on the ballot in nearly every state, while Nader has only qualified for 35. And while polls show that Nader's support has declined since the last election, Badnarik is likely to do better than the Libertarians did in 2000: In the few voter surveys that bother to include him as a candidate, some have shown him pulling in one percent support nationally. A Rasmussen poll commissioned by the Badnarik campaign showed him with 2 percent of the vote in Wisconsin, 1 percent in Colorado, 3 percent in Nevada, and as much as 5 percent in New Mexico. And that was before the Libertarians started their advertising blitz. The expectation that Badnarik will nab more votes from Bush than Kerry has led to some alliances with Democrats, such as "Operation Wisconsin Blue" -- an effort to raise Democratic money for ads targeting Wisconsin conservatives.

"In as many swing states as possible," Gordon says, "we'd like to have our vote total be greater than the margin of difference between Bush and Kerry." Playing the role of Bush spoiler would finally get the Libertarians some big press coverage, Gordon says -- and if the election is as close as the polls are showing, they may get their chance.

Considering that Nader is only on the ballot in 35 states, his poll numbers are 1% or less, and his former backers have all defected to Kerry (including LaDuke, Nader's 2000 VP nominee), I'd say he's going to have a minimal impact this time around.

[Guynemer]

Speaking as a devout Detroit Lions fan, who has seen the Green Bay Packers eviscerate and destroy and punish and spank my beloved Leos repeatedly for 26 years, including the outright theft of two playoff games within the past decade, I'd just like to say:

GO PACK GO!


And I thought that the streak was that if Redskins lost their last home game before the election, the incumbent party lost. And this goes back all the way to the birth of the franchise, or at least to for as long as they've been in DC.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Libertarians . If they can swing the election for Kerry then perhaps they can get the media coverage that they have deserved for all these years.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I've always trusted simplicity rather than elegance. Honesty rather than rhetoric.

There's a difference between being simple and being, well, "simple."

And honesty? Bush has been pretty damned dishonest, as have his handlers and cohorts. That's a funny line!

[Boris Godunov]

Fox News Poll excerpt:

NEW YORK -- The presidential race is dead even among likely voters -- 46 percent back both President George W. Bush (search) and Sen. John Kerry (search), a new FOX News poll conducted Friday and Saturday finds. Independent candidate Ralph Nader (search) receives one percent.

The Democratic challenger has a two-point edge among registered voters, receiving 47 percent to Bush's 45 percent (Nader receives one percent). The poll's margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

In mid-October, Bush held a seven-point lead over Kerry among likely voters overall. Since then, independent voters have shifted from giving an 18-point lead Bush to giving a slim five-point edge to Kerry today.

You know if it says this on Fox, Bush is in deep doo-doo.

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

You know if it says this on Fox, Bush is in deep doo-doo.

Actually, it helps Bush by increasing the numbers of those who think Bush might lose if they don't vote. Pretty bright on their part. If they present a rosy picture, Bush supporters might stay home thinking they've got it in the bag.

[dojoboy]

Bush takes slim lead in early voting - poll
27/10/2004 - 15:28:59

Nearly one in 10 voters in the US election have already cast ballots – and George Bush has taken a narrow early lead over Senator John Kerry, according to a poll out today.

Nine per cent of likely voters have already filled out ballots, with 51% backing the President for re-election and 47% supporting Mr Kerry, according to the ABC News survey.

Most of the country will go to the polls next Tuesday, but people in some states are able to vote early and others have cast absentee ballots.

The result reflects most national opinion polls of recent days, which have shown Mr Bush with a slim lead over the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts.

However, ABC cautioned that the result of its latest poll is essentially a dead heat within the margin of error.

A Los Angeles Times survey also pointed to a national dead heat, with Mr Bush and Mr Kerry even at 48% each.

The election race has been so tight for so long that some in Washington are now fearing that the result could be an even split.

The close outcome of the last election created chaos when the fate of the nation hinged on the result in Florida, and a month of recounts ensued.

Eventually the Supreme Court ordered an end to the recount, meaning that Mr Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by just 537 votes in the state.

Under the US system, the President is not elected by the popular vote, rather by an electoral college system.

Each state carries a certain number of electoral college votes (ECVs), and the first candidate to pass the 270 ECV marker wins.

But numerous scenarios could see both men evenly tied on 269 ECVs each.

In the event, the House of Representatives would decide the outcome. Each state would get a vote in the Republican-heavy House, guaranteeing victory for Mr Bush.

But there is another twist. Voters in Colorado will also be asked on election day whether they want to change the way the state casts its ECVs.

If approved, the change would mean that, rather than giving all its votes to the candidate that the majority of the state backed, it would spread them proportionally between the rivals.

This could tip one man over the 270 mark.

Despite the complex scenarios, the race is likely to be decided in fewer than a dozen swing states.

Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania have the greatest number of ECVs and are therefore the most bitterly contested.

Latest polls have found the candidates in a dead heat in the three states.

Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign has released a new television advert, accusing the Bush administration of failing to secure nearly 380 tons of explosives that disappeared from a military installation in Iraq.

Mr Kerry pressed the point at rallies, telling supporters in Wisconsin on Tuesday that the explosives “could be in the hands of terrorists, used to attack our troops or our people”.

“We’re in a bigger mess by the day and this President can’t see it or can’t admit it – but, either way, America is less safe,” he said.

But Vice-President Dick Cheney seized on reports that the explosives may have vanished before US troops even arrived in Baghdad.

Campaigning in Florida, he called Senator Kerry an “armchair general”.

“If our troops had not gone into Iraq, as John Kerry apparently thinks they should not have, that is 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that would be in the hands of Saddam Hussein, who would still be sitting in his palace instead of jail,” he said.

Meanwhile, fears that the election could descend into the chaos of 2000 were fuelled by a number of ballot-related court cases already under way.

Lawyers are already deep in courtroom entanglements in a variety of states over problems either anticipated or already experienced in states with heavy early voting.

In one example, a federal judge in Miami ruled against Democrats in saying that Florida election officials will not be required to process incomplete voter registration forms

[Boris Godunov]

And one more note from CNN:

Wolf Blitzer had Ed Gillespie, the RNC chairman, on his program and mentioned that all of the early voting so far in the battleground states had heavily favored the Democrats. Gillespie responded that it didn't mean anything, since on Tuesday the Republicans would "swarm" the polls and they would win.

Memo to Gillespie: Early voting has always, always favored the Republicans. That you're losing badly here now is a bad sign, whether you want to admit it or not.

[Ramo]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/26/18411/226

Supposedly, there are some very happy wingers over at Free Republic who noticed an internal of today's ABC News tracking poll:

Nine percent of "likely" voters in the ABC News tracking poll say they've voted for president, either by absentee ballot or early voting, a number that's jumped in the last week. Fifty-one percent say they went for George W. Bush, 47 percent for John Kerry.

Sound like good news for Bush, right? Well, I have done some quick analysis of the states where early voting at polling places (not no fault absentee balloting) is taking place, plus Oregon where all voting is early via mail, and the opposite appears to be true. Twenty-five states fit this category: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, HI, IN, IA, KS, ME, NE, NV, NM, NC, ND, OR, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT and WV. According to Dave Leip, in 2000 Bush received 24,464,219 votes in these states, while Gore received 21,029,384. In other words, Bush won 54.0% of the two-party in these states, while Gore only won 46.0%. Thus, if the ABC poll is accurate, Bush is under-performing his 2000 levels by 2-3 points, while Kerry is over-performing Gore’s level by 1-2 points. This is actually horrendous news for Bush. If Kerry is losing in Republican areas by four points less than Gore was in 2000, then things look very good for Kerry indeed.

Before we get too excited, the margin of error on this subset of the ABC poll was plus or minus eight percent, so a difference of four points might not be significant. Further, some of the voting was done by absentee ballots, which could be from everywhere. However, 51-47 is clearly lower than Bush's margin among early voters in 2000, which according to NAES actually was in the double digits with Bush hovering just above 55%. Further, Kerry's over-performance on Gore among early voters also seems to be real, as Democrats in Florida and Iowa are voting at a rate higher than their share of registered voters. These are definitely reason to be chipper.

[dojoboy]

For Bush to be leading, in the wake of what pro-Kerry people profess about new voters and etc., is pretty telling about how LV/RV feel about Kerry. I don't think the Democrats are going to catch the Republicans off guard. That doesn't necessarily mean Bush will win, however.