Like he did in 2008, when "Poblano" accurately predicted the result of 49 of the 50 states, and all 35 senate races.
The 2008 turnout anomaly is what is going to bite Silver and the poll takers in the behind this election.
WaPo The ‘momentum’ myth Republicans have been pushing hard this week to convince people that Mitt Romney is wrapping up the presidential election. Since he’s not actually, well, leading, Romney partisans have relied on the idea that Romney has momentum: Even if he isn’t actually ahead yet, he is certain to take a commanding lead any minute now. US News Mitt-mentum? Not So Fast. Add two more veteran political observers to the voices expressing skepticism about the notion that Mitt Romney is riding a surge of momentum to the White House. Speaking at the Aspen Institute this afternoon, Amy Walter, ABC News's political director, and Charlie Cook, who publishes the Cook Political Report both threw cold water on the idea, which has been carefully cultivated by the Romney campaign. Walter and Cook are two of the smartest nonpartisan people in D.C. when it comes to reading the lay of the political land. Asked who is winning, Walter answered that if "you look at the news coverage and you look at the data and you get two different answers." The news narrative involves Mitt-mentum: the October surge fueled by the first debate. The data tell a different story. "People don't elect the president, the Electoral College elects the president," Walter said. "And when you look at [state] polls, the underneath numbers suggest that it's still Obama's race right now, that fundamentally he has got the edge in the Electoral College map with some of those big states like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Nevada especially."
The myth is a 39/32 democrat/republican turnout. 2008 was an anomaly, a special election when the electorate was excited over electing it's first "black" president. The next big anomaly will occur when this country elects it's first woman president or perhaps it's first Hispanic president. But without something very unique and different to spark such a voter disparity, there won't be one. There won't be one this time around. This election is about the economy. Barack is already done. Goose is cooked. He's through. And Silver's predictor doesn't have it right yet. My point is what good is that predictor when the info going into it is garbage? Sure he's been accurate picking in the past. But it's because the polls were not skewed so much in favor of democrat turnout. In 08, the polls were using a more balanced voter split based on 04 and the past and therefore Nate got almost everything right. However, I do have to wonder, at what point in time did he get them right in 08? Was it the day or two days before the election? Because we are 11 days out in the midst of a shift to the right in this election cycle and his indicator still is not reflecting it. That is because the data behind his indicator are polls that are skewed based on the 08 turnout. GIGO-garbage in, garbage out. Now, I fully expect that his little data chart will start to slowly reflect the definitive shift that has already taken place. And it wouldn't surprise me if a day or two before the election that his indicator finally flips and shows Romney with over a 50% chance of being elected. But that's crap. Predicting means seeing into the future. 2 days before the election is not seeing into the future. His indicator will either flip late or it will be wrong on election night if nothing else changes between now and the election, in other words no major scandals or news against Mitt besides what is already out there. What did my indicator (my intuition) tell me in 08? It told me months before the election that Obama was probably going to win it and that never changed. Why? Very simply...Obama had momentum, he was a good-looking young black man that energized the left....and McCain was a left-leaning conservative that did not excite the Republican base. Compound that with the fact that Bush had just laid the first stimulus on the taxpayers and the Republicans were staring at a very moderate candidate and the independents were looking at a man (Barack) that was talking about being fiscally conservative and lambasting the previous administration because of their reckless spending and any sane, rational human being could see the handwriting on the wall early in that race. Now, skip forward to today. Barack has a trail of 4 years of broken promises, not accomplishing anything economically, and actually adding to our debt substantially, and offering no concrete plans for the next 4 years. That is going to swing the majority of the independent voters back to an alternative if they can find a better one. Guess what...it's staring them in the face. Now, the race factor. The excitement of electing our nation's first black president is in the rear-view mirror folks. There is no way we get a D+10 or even a D+5 in the 2012 election. Not happening. There's not that energy that comes from people not previously being apart of the process stepping up to get involved. There is no anomaly to this election to cause a certain section of the electorate to become crazily involved. There's not a woman running for president. There's not a Hispanic running for president. There's not a homosexual person running for president. There's not an extreme right tea-party zealot running for president. There's no personality anomaly here. What is left is an incumbent president who has presided over one of the worst 4 year economic periods in American history trying to get re-elected running against a very successful businessman and state governor who has an extremely successful record of fiscal accomplishments. And what is left right now is Momentum...not Omentum. Keep staring into the clouds and looking at biased pollsters that produce a garbage out indicator that Obama is a 77% chance of winning this election. Reality is...he has NO chance. He's done.
I don't know what you're sniffing....glue? Karl Rove's buttcrack?....but you've been off the reservation this year. I hope you're ready to go underground after Obama wins.
Sure, I'm ready. I've put myself out there. Are you ready to retract all your crap you've spewed if Romney wins the election? (I can already hear all the accusations of voter fraud and manipulation coming when the Obamaites realize it's over.)
Can't wait for Nov. 6, a jopat-free CF.net and basso, esteban, jorge, texxx, commodore comin up with sh!tty excuses and conspiracy theories.
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That is so incredibly low,stupid and irrelevant, you're embarassing yourself when posting that with a straight face.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>VA EARLY VOTE: Romney's best large county, Hanover, up 15.5% vs. '08. O's best (Arlington & Fairfax) down 14.8% & 9.4% <a href="https://t.co/39nbRt7L" title="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjYj9mXElO_QdGhrcnotRXU3SzZUcERPMW1JSWY5Q3c&pli=1#gid=0">docs.google.com/spreadsheet/cc…</a></p>— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) <a href="https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/262224940932145153" data-datetime="2012-10-27T16:11:12+00:00">October 27, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As someone who works in field during elections, a good field program will always give you a 2 percent bump and considering the polls are basically tied in multiple states, OFA's field program could put them over the top. Obama outperformed almost every poll by 2 or 3 points in 2008 and that was largely because of a superior turnout/GOTV operation. I expect the same this time around.
Why leave CF over this? I hope you guys would be willing to change it to a tip-jar bet instead. Losing old-timers in the CF community due to an election bet seems totally unnecessary.
RCP: Obama 201 Romneysia 191 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html
