Electoral Vote Predictor 2004:   Kerry 307   Bush 231

Data in Excel format Battleground states Info about the states Previous report Next report News   Strong Kerry (185) Weak Kerry (68) Barely Kerry (54) Exactly tied (0) Barely Bush (45) Weak Bush (52) Strong Bush (134) Needed to win: 270

Aug. 9

New polls: (none)

News from the Votemaster

All quiet on the polling front. Polls are rarely released on Sundays.

But all is not lost. Selwyn Hollis pointed out an interactive map tool that lets you be Karl Rove or Mary Beth Cahill. Pick an election as base and then click on states you plan to win or expect to lose and see the electoral college totals change. You can do the same thing with our spreadsheets, but this site offers a way for the Excel challenged to play the game.

Ever wondered how much a poll costs? According to this article (registration required) a 600-person state poll costs $15,000, which gives a 4% MoE. If you double the sample size (and the cost) you get a 3% MoE. Does this explain why there are no 2000-person state polls?

Salon has an interesting article on polling today. It points out that doing a good poll is expensive (see above) so some guys cut corners. They single out Zogby and Rasmussen as particularly bad and Fox News as a model of how it should be done. My experience is precisely the reverse. My metric is does a pollster produce results that are in agreement with other polls or are they way out in left field (or in right field for Republican pollsters). Worth reading.

For another mock election see the AOL straw poll. Either AOL has the same demographics as the famous 1936 Literary Digest poll or it has been hacked. In a way, both this poll and the "President Badnarik" poll of yesterday demonstrate a point I have made repeatedly: electronic voting is not ready for prime time yet and certainly not internet voting.

I have modified the states file to replace the 2000 election results, now available in the More data file with the party affiliation of each state's governor, senators, and representatives. Links to the data in Excel format (.xls and .csv) are also on that page. It is sometimes a bit surprising. Here's a little quiz:

Q1: All the senators from Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Dakota are from the same party. Which one?

Q2: Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Virginia and Wyoming have governors from the same party. Which one?

If you answered "Democratic" to both, you score 100%. Would have expected that a deep south state like Louisiana would have two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor, or that all six of the New England states except Maine would have a Republican governor?

-- The votemaster

WWW www.electoral-vote.com