Florida was a little bit more normal. Turnout was equal to 48 percent of John Kerry's vote; the average in other closed primary states was 59 percent.
5.31.2008
Michigan's turnout
@ 6:54 PM
Harold Ickes keeps shouting about 600,000 votes in Michigan being thrown out. But as I've pointed out before, the turnout situation in Michigan wasn't remotely normal. According to Jay Cost's spreadsheet, turnout in Michigan was equal to 24 percent of John Kerry's vote in 2004. However, the average in other states with open primaries was 79 percent. In other words, turnout was only about one-third as much as it should have been. The judgment of two-thirds of the voters in Michigan was essentially that the primary didn't matter and wasn't worth their time.
Florida was a little bit more normal. Turnout was equal to 48 percent of John Kerry's vote; the average in other closed primary states was 59 percent.
Florida was a little bit more normal. Turnout was equal to 48 percent of John Kerry's vote; the average in other closed primary states was 59 percent.
Obama's new magic number: 63? 64?
@
5:52 PM
Chuck Todd is reporting that the Rules and Bylaws Committee is very near to a decision. It seems based on his reporting that:
- Florida will be seated based on the primary results and treated as half-delegates.
- Michigan will be seated 69-59 (the state's compromise plan) and treated as half-delegates, meaning a split of 34.5-29.5 for accounting purposes. Since the 69-59 would represent a departure from the primary results, that would imply that uncommitted delegates would explicitly be designated as Obama delegates. Obama will also receive Michigan's two add-on superdelegates.
If I'm doing the math correctly, this would give Obama 2,054 delegates, with2,117 2,118 required to clinch the nomination. That would leave him 63 64 delegates away. Obama should pick up something like 41 pledged delegates between Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana, meaning that he'll need around 20-25 more superdelegate endorsements to clinch the nomination.
This assumes, by the way, that Michigan and Florida *super*delegates are also treated as half-votes, which is something I'm not certain about. Also, Todd seems to think that a bunch more of the Florida Edwards delegates are for Obama than I'd seen reported elsewhere.
- Florida will be seated based on the primary results and treated as half-delegates.
- Michigan will be seated 69-59 (the state's compromise plan) and treated as half-delegates, meaning a split of 34.5-29.5 for accounting purposes. Since the 69-59 would represent a departure from the primary results, that would imply that uncommitted delegates would explicitly be designated as Obama delegates. Obama will also receive Michigan's two add-on superdelegates.
If I'm doing the math correctly, this would give Obama 2,054 delegates, with
This assumes, by the way, that Michigan and Florida *super*delegates are also treated as half-votes, which is something I'm not certain about. Also, Todd seems to think that a bunch more of the Florida Edwards delegates are for Obama than I'd seen reported elsewhere.
"A fair reflection of a flawed primary"
@ 1:41 PM
The Clinton campaign appeared to have lost the Ickes-Levin exchange, and there's a pretty good reason why. You can't argue for being a stickler for the rules, as Ickes claimed to be on the disposition of the Michigan uncommitted delegates, at the same time you're arguing to override the rules by seating the delegates period.
The choose-your-own-adventure primary
@ 1:19 PM
I've already weighed in on what I think would have happened in Michigan based on the results of similar congressional districts in other states. Michigan looks like it would have been a toss-up, perhaps leaning slightly to Obama. But this analysis did not consider the timing of the elections, and how that might have played out in terms of momentum and campaign strategy. What if the DNC had said to Michigan and Florida: "go right ahead!", and they held officially-sanctioned early primaries just as Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina did?
There are two possibilities that I find interesting to contemplate. First, if Florida and Michigan were on the calendar, might the Clinton campaign have skipped Iowa, as it was thinking about doing last summer? And secondly, with another state (Michigan) with a relatively large African-American population on the calendar, might the Clinton campaign have been a little more delicate in the way that it handled the race issue? If Clinton had held on to one-third of the black vote, the nomination would very probably have been hers.
There are two possibilities that I find interesting to contemplate. First, if Florida and Michigan were on the calendar, might the Clinton campaign have skipped Iowa, as it was thinking about doing last summer? And secondly, with another state (Michigan) with a relatively large African-American population on the calendar, might the Clinton campaign have been a little more delicate in the way that it handled the race issue? If Clinton had held on to one-third of the black vote, the nomination would very probably have been hers.
5.30.2008
Today's Polls, 5/30
@ 6:33 PM
We're a little late with today's polling thread. These have been the most hectic 24 hours I've had since book season. If you've sent me an e-mail, I probably haven't had the chance to respond to it, but I sincerely appreciate all the support and I'll be catching up over the weekend.
Four polls today, and they all look like pretty good news for Barack Obama. In California, the highly respected Field Poll has both Obama and Clinton leading John McCain by 17 points. The poll also shows that Obama is now preferred over Clinton among California democrats by a margin of 51-38, a reversal from the state's primary result (a similar finding had previously been reported by SurveyUSA). As much as I tend to convey the impression that demographics have been destiny in the primaries, this is some of the strongest evidence that the race has in fact been dynamic.
Another deep blue state also looks safe for the Democrats: Clinton leads by 30 points and Obama by 19 in Rasmussen's poll of New York. The poll also suggests that about half of New Yorkers want Hillary Clinton to drop her Presidential bid. While home-state advantage is an electoral blessing, it should also be remembered that a candidate's home constituency has conflicting incentives. New Yorkers would love to see Hillary as President, but they'd also like to see her get back to representing them in the Senate.
SurveyUSA shows Obama 6 points ahead in Wisconsin; no poll for Clinton. SurveyUSA's results have consistently shown Obama ahead in Wisconsin, while other polls like Rasmussen see the state as more of a toss-up.
Finally, in Wyoming, Research 2000/Daily Kos has Obama trailing McCain by a relatively modest 13 points. While Obama is not going to win Wyoming, this improves our regression model's impression of his prospects in somewhat more moderate states like North Dakota.
I've also noticed that the regression model seems to be giving progressively less and less weight to the fundraising numbers, which is causing some weird things like Obama not having quite the home-state advantage in Illinois and Hawaii that he probably should. It may be the case that the fundraising numbers are somewhat out of date, and that we should be focusing more specifically on how a candidate has fundraised over his past couple of months. Something else to explore when we can find a little bit of time.
Four polls today, and they all look like pretty good news for Barack Obama. In California, the highly respected Field Poll has both Obama and Clinton leading John McCain by 17 points. The poll also shows that Obama is now preferred over Clinton among California democrats by a margin of 51-38, a reversal from the state's primary result (a similar finding had previously been reported by SurveyUSA). As much as I tend to convey the impression that demographics have been destiny in the primaries, this is some of the strongest evidence that the race has in fact been dynamic.
Another deep blue state also looks safe for the Democrats: Clinton leads by 30 points and Obama by 19 in Rasmussen's poll of New York. The poll also suggests that about half of New Yorkers want Hillary Clinton to drop her Presidential bid. While home-state advantage is an electoral blessing, it should also be remembered that a candidate's home constituency has conflicting incentives. New Yorkers would love to see Hillary as President, but they'd also like to see her get back to representing them in the Senate.
SurveyUSA shows Obama 6 points ahead in Wisconsin; no poll for Clinton. SurveyUSA's results have consistently shown Obama ahead in Wisconsin, while other polls like Rasmussen see the state as more of a toss-up.
Finally, in Wyoming, Research 2000/Daily Kos has Obama trailing McCain by a relatively modest 13 points. While Obama is not going to win Wyoming, this improves our regression model's impression of his prospects in somewhat more moderate states like North Dakota.
I've also noticed that the regression model seems to be giving progressively less and less weight to the fundraising numbers, which is causing some weird things like Obama not having quite the home-state advantage in Illinois and Hawaii that he probably should. It may be the case that the fundraising numbers are somewhat out of date, and that we should be focusing more specifically on how a candidate has fundraised over his past couple of months. Something else to explore when we can find a little bit of time.
No, I'm not Chuck Todd
@ 9:48 AM
There are certain pleasures in writing anonymously. Particularly in the political world, where there is a whole mythology associated with anonymity -- think Deep Throat or Primary Colors or Atrios. But I'm fortunate enough to have been granted the opportunity to develop some relationships with larger outlets (you should see these coming to fruition very soon). And it just ain't very professional to keep referring to yourself as a chili pepper.
My real name is Nate Silver and my principal occupation has been as a writer, analyst and partner at a sports media company called Baseball Prospectus. What we do over there and what I'm doing over here are really quite similar. Both baseball and politics are data-driven industries. But a lot of the time, that data might be used badly. In baseball, that may mean looking at a statistic like batting average when things like on-base percentage and slugging percentage are far more correlated with winning ballgames. In politics, that might mean cherry-picking a certain polling result or weaving together a narrative that isn't supported by the demographic evidence.
So if you catch me overusing baseball metaphors in my political writing or political metaphors in my baseball writing -- this is my excuse.
My real name is Nate Silver and my principal occupation has been as a writer, analyst and partner at a sports media company called Baseball Prospectus. What we do over there and what I'm doing over here are really quite similar. Both baseball and politics are data-driven industries. But a lot of the time, that data might be used badly. In baseball, that may mean looking at a statistic like batting average when things like on-base percentage and slugging percentage are far more correlated with winning ballgames. In politics, that might mean cherry-picking a certain polling result or weaving together a narrative that isn't supported by the demographic evidence.
So if you catch me overusing baseball metaphors in my political writing or political metaphors in my baseball writing -- this is my excuse.
Turnout in Puerto Rico
@ 12:05 AM
The new Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll of Puerto Rico provides some hints at what turnout might be on the island.
In the survey, Puerto Rican adults were asked to rate their likelihood of voting in Sunday's primary on a scale of 1 to 10. 46 percent rated themselves as at least a 6 out of 10. How many voters is this?
Puerto Rico had a July 2007 population estimate of 3.94 million. However, Puerto Rico is a young country; roughly 30 percent of Puerto Ricans are under age 18. That leaves 2.76 million Puerto Ricans who are old enough to vote; 46 percent of that total would be 1.27 million.
But saying you are going to vote is different than actually doing so -- particularly when the primaries are held on a Sunday afternoon and the polls are only open until 3 PM. What percentage of voters who say they're going to vote actually do?
We can get some clues about this from SurveyUSA polling in recent primaries. Characteristically, SurveyUSA discloses a lot of information about the way that they conduct their surveys, including the proportion of adults who wind up getting classified as "likely voters". In Pennsylvania, for example, SurveyUSA classified 39.4 percent of Pennsylvanian adults as likely voters in the Democratic primary, whereas in practice, 23.9 percent of Pennsylvanian adults actually voted. The ratio between these two numbers (23.9/39.4) is 60.7 percent, which is what we'll call the follow-through rate.
The follow-through rates have ranged from 34.7 percent in New York to 64.0 percent in Indiana (they have tended to be higher in recent primaries). Does this mean, by the way, that SurveyUSA is identifying too many likely voters? Not necessarily, because unless you know which voters to screen out, you might throw the wrong voters out of your sample and wind up doing more harm than good.
In any event, the fact that SurveyUSA uses a relatively lax likely voter screen is helpful because that's also what GQR is using; there are no questions, for example, about prior voting behavior. In fact, GQR did not even ask voters whether they were registered, so their screen was probably too lax. But this is more or less an apples to apples comparison.
And as such, taking the high and low end of the range, we'd estimate that somewhere between 34.7 percent and 64.0 percent of Puerto Rico's 1.27 million "likely voters" will actually turn out to vote. That would represent a turnout of between 441,000 and 813,000.
Intuitively, this seems like a pretty reasonable range. Puerto Rican officials expect a turnout of about 500,000. Joe Sestak, who might be echoing the expectations of the Clinton camp, says 450,000 to 500,000. Puerto Rican elections expert Manuel Alvarez-Rivera guesses 600,000. The record for turnout in a Democratic primary is 870,000, when Ted Kennedy made a visit to the island in his challenge to Jimmy Carter. So there are a lot of numbers coming up in that mid-to-high six figures range.
Unfortunately for Clinton, this is probably not the margin she would need to win the +Florida version of the popular vote count. Presently, Obama holds a lead of 273,877 votes if Florida (but not Michigan) is counted for Senator Clinton. Obama is likely to net about 25 or 30 thousand votes between Montana and South Dakota, so we'll round that number up to 300,000. That's how many votes Clinton will need to win in Puerto Rico to lay a claim on this version of the popular vote.
The problem is that if turnout is only 500,000, Clinton would need to win by 60 points (e.g. 80-20) in order to secure that margin. And that just ain't going to happen. 20 points? 25 points? Possible, considering how little anyone knows about this primary. 30 points? Who knows. But 60 points isn't going to happen.
Even if turnout got up to the 870,000 number from the Kennedy-Carter election, Clinton would still need to win by about 34 points to net 300,000 votes out of her effort. That seems like a stretch.
Moreover, there may be something of an inverse relationship between turnout and Clinton's performance. The GQR poll says that Clinton's margin is 19 points among likely voters, but only 13 points among all voters. She's also outfundraised Obama in Puerto Rico about 2:1, which suggests that she has more support among the island's mainland-connected elites. So if Clinton wants to maximize her percentage of the vote, she might hope for a lowish turnout. However, Clinton not only needs to maximize her percentage of the vote; she also needs to maximize turnout. And that could be a problem for her because it looks like the percentage of Obama voters goes up as you drill down deeper into the population.
In the survey, Puerto Rican adults were asked to rate their likelihood of voting in Sunday's primary on a scale of 1 to 10. 46 percent rated themselves as at least a 6 out of 10. How many voters is this?
Puerto Rico had a July 2007 population estimate of 3.94 million. However, Puerto Rico is a young country; roughly 30 percent of Puerto Ricans are under age 18. That leaves 2.76 million Puerto Ricans who are old enough to vote; 46 percent of that total would be 1.27 million.
But saying you are going to vote is different than actually doing so -- particularly when the primaries are held on a Sunday afternoon and the polls are only open until 3 PM. What percentage of voters who say they're going to vote actually do?
We can get some clues about this from SurveyUSA polling in recent primaries. Characteristically, SurveyUSA discloses a lot of information about the way that they conduct their surveys, including the proportion of adults who wind up getting classified as "likely voters". In Pennsylvania, for example, SurveyUSA classified 39.4 percent of Pennsylvanian adults as likely voters in the Democratic primary, whereas in practice, 23.9 percent of Pennsylvanian adults actually voted. The ratio between these two numbers (23.9/39.4) is 60.7 percent, which is what we'll call the follow-through rate.
The follow-through rates have ranged from 34.7 percent in New York to 64.0 percent in Indiana (they have tended to be higher in recent primaries). Does this mean, by the way, that SurveyUSA is identifying too many likely voters? Not necessarily, because unless you know which voters to screen out, you might throw the wrong voters out of your sample and wind up doing more harm than good.
In any event, the fact that SurveyUSA uses a relatively lax likely voter screen is helpful because that's also what GQR is using; there are no questions, for example, about prior voting behavior. In fact, GQR did not even ask voters whether they were registered, so their screen was probably too lax. But this is more or less an apples to apples comparison.
And as such, taking the high and low end of the range, we'd estimate that somewhere between 34.7 percent and 64.0 percent of Puerto Rico's 1.27 million "likely voters" will actually turn out to vote. That would represent a turnout of between 441,000 and 813,000.
Intuitively, this seems like a pretty reasonable range. Puerto Rican officials expect a turnout of about 500,000. Joe Sestak, who might be echoing the expectations of the Clinton camp, says 450,000 to 500,000. Puerto Rican elections expert Manuel Alvarez-Rivera guesses 600,000. The record for turnout in a Democratic primary is 870,000, when Ted Kennedy made a visit to the island in his challenge to Jimmy Carter. So there are a lot of numbers coming up in that mid-to-high six figures range.
Unfortunately for Clinton, this is probably not the margin she would need to win the +Florida version of the popular vote count. Presently, Obama holds a lead of 273,877 votes if Florida (but not Michigan) is counted for Senator Clinton. Obama is likely to net about 25 or 30 thousand votes between Montana and South Dakota, so we'll round that number up to 300,000. That's how many votes Clinton will need to win in Puerto Rico to lay a claim on this version of the popular vote.
The problem is that if turnout is only 500,000, Clinton would need to win by 60 points (e.g. 80-20) in order to secure that margin. And that just ain't going to happen. 20 points? 25 points? Possible, considering how little anyone knows about this primary. 30 points? Who knows. But 60 points isn't going to happen.
Even if turnout got up to the 870,000 number from the Kennedy-Carter election, Clinton would still need to win by about 34 points to net 300,000 votes out of her effort. That seems like a stretch.
Moreover, there may be something of an inverse relationship between turnout and Clinton's performance. The GQR poll says that Clinton's margin is 19 points among likely voters, but only 13 points among all voters. She's also outfundraised Obama in Puerto Rico about 2:1, which suggests that she has more support among the island's mainland-connected elites. So if Clinton wants to maximize her percentage of the vote, she might hope for a lowish turnout. However, Clinton not only needs to maximize her percentage of the vote; she also needs to maximize turnout. And that could be a problem for her because it looks like the percentage of Obama voters goes up as you drill down deeper into the population.
5.29.2008
Six versus half-a-dozen
@ 10:41 PM
OK, I think I've finally figured out what Chuck Todd and the First Read guys are talking about:
But now suppose that this district only has 2 delegates because Florida's delegation has been cut in half. With her 70 percent of the vote, Clinton wins 1.4 fractional delegates, and Obama 0.6. However, Clinton's number now rounds down to 1 delegate, whereas Obama's rounds up to 1 delegate. So the same district that went 3-1 for Clinton with four delegates (+2) instead is split 1-1 if it has 2 delegates. On the other hand, if the district had four half-delegates, Clinton would win it 1.5-0.5, for a one-delegate advantage.
To be clear, there's nothing intrinsic about halving the number of delegates that works to one or another candidate's advantage. But I tried to re-create Todd's math in Florida, and it indeed appears to be the case that the delegate thresholds just so happen to fall such that Clinton loses a few extra delegates due to what amounts to rounding error. This does not appear to be the case in Michigan; in fact, it looks like Clinton might make out a delegate or two better in that state if this method is applied.
As for the actual meeting itself, there's one more angle you ought to be aware of: a 50% cut and a halving of the delegates is not the same thing. For instance, if Florida delegates are seated in their entirety, but only have their vote counted as a .5, then Clinton will net approximately 19 delegates out of the state. But if the delegation is cut in half, that's done in every congressional district as well as statewide, then suddenly Clinton's advantage is only a net of six. That's right, the complicated nature of the DNC delegate selection process will be a good reminder to math majors everywhere that a 50% cut is not the same as a halving of an individual number. Go figure...The distinction is in the way that the delegates are divided up in individual congressional districts. Take for example a district that Clinton won 70-30, and that originally had 4 delegates. If you do the multiplication, you get 2.8 fractional delegates for Clinton and 1.2 for Obama, which rounds up to a 3-1 delegate take for Clinton.
But now suppose that this district only has 2 delegates because Florida's delegation has been cut in half. With her 70 percent of the vote, Clinton wins 1.4 fractional delegates, and Obama 0.6. However, Clinton's number now rounds down to 1 delegate, whereas Obama's rounds up to 1 delegate. So the same district that went 3-1 for Clinton with four delegates (+2) instead is split 1-1 if it has 2 delegates. On the other hand, if the district had four half-delegates, Clinton would win it 1.5-0.5, for a one-delegate advantage.
To be clear, there's nothing intrinsic about halving the number of delegates that works to one or another candidate's advantage. But I tried to re-create Todd's math in Florida, and it indeed appears to be the case that the delegate thresholds just so happen to fall such that Clinton loses a few extra delegates due to what amounts to rounding error. This does not appear to be the case in Michigan; in fact, it looks like Clinton might make out a delegate or two better in that state if this method is applied.
Today's Polls, 5/29
@ 6:05 PM
A strange mix of polling data today:
The most significant result is probably the EPIC-MRA poll in Michigan, which shows the same four-point margin for McCain that SurveyUSA showed yesterday. Also like the SurveyUSA poll, this one had a conspicuously high number of undecideds. My sense is that this probably has something to do with Obama not having campaigned in Michigan during the primary cycle and that the state will probably lean his way in the long run. At the same time, Michigan is a state that has a significant amount of affection for John McCain, and his fundraising has been strong there.
I'm quite honestly at a loss as to how to explain the couple of Rasmussen results in Alabama and Mississippi. Demographically, the states are nearly identical. The Obama campaign has made some overtures about wanting to compete in Mississippi specifically, and it rarely hurts a candidate to call out the importance of a particular state. There might also be some lingering bitterness among Mississippians directed at the Republican Party over Trent Lott. But in the long-run, I don't see how you're going to get a 6-point margin in one state and a 28-point margin in the other.
Finally, for those of you wondering what in the hell that Texas poll is, that survey (from Baselice & Associates, Inc.) can be found here.
The most significant result is probably the EPIC-MRA poll in Michigan, which shows the same four-point margin for McCain that SurveyUSA showed yesterday. Also like the SurveyUSA poll, this one had a conspicuously high number of undecideds. My sense is that this probably has something to do with Obama not having campaigned in Michigan during the primary cycle and that the state will probably lean his way in the long run. At the same time, Michigan is a state that has a significant amount of affection for John McCain, and his fundraising has been strong there.
I'm quite honestly at a loss as to how to explain the couple of Rasmussen results in Alabama and Mississippi. Demographically, the states are nearly identical. The Obama campaign has made some overtures about wanting to compete in Mississippi specifically, and it rarely hurts a candidate to call out the importance of a particular state. There might also be some lingering bitterness among Mississippians directed at the Republican Party over Trent Lott. But in the long-run, I don't see how you're going to get a 6-point margin in one state and a 28-point margin in the other.
Finally, for those of you wondering what in the hell that Texas poll is, that survey (from Baselice & Associates, Inc.) can be found here.
Instant Coffee
@ 9:48 AM
1. It's interesting that the Scott McClellan story is the first real Washington story to intrude on the campaign coverage. I find the story fascinating, but I also consume way more political coverage than most people do, and it's possibly the case that the confessions of a former press secretary are liable to be treated with outsized importance by the press pool he was engaging with.
2. In the credit-where-credit's-due department, that was a clever little boxout the McCain campaigned performed on Barack Obama's visits to Iraq.
[UPDATED] 3. If you have the time and the tolerance for legalese, the DNC lawyer memo prepared for the Rules & Bylaws Committee is worth a read. The particular section to pay attention to is "Issue 3", which is covered on pages 5-6. The memo hints that the preferred solution to Michigan's "uncommitted" delegate problem would be to give the four candidates whose names did not appear on the ballot (Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Biden) the collective right to vet and approve the uncommitted delegate slate, through a means they "could work out among themselves". Since Edwards and Richardson have endorsed Obama, this would very amount to the equivalent of giving Obama control over the uncommitted delegate slate.
One thing the RBC won't do is to apportion the uncommitted delegates based on extrapolated exit polling results -- based on my reading of this document, there is no legal authority to do something like that. They will either effectively hand those delegates to Obama (through the means described above) or they will let the selection of the individuals to fill those delegate slots fall to the state of Michigan, which has already selected its district-level delegates, all but a couple of whom are officially or unofficially committed to Obama.
2. In the credit-where-credit's-due department, that was a clever little boxout the McCain campaigned performed on Barack Obama's visits to Iraq.
[UPDATED] 3. If you have the time and the tolerance for legalese, the DNC lawyer memo prepared for the Rules & Bylaws Committee is worth a read. The particular section to pay attention to is "Issue 3", which is covered on pages 5-6. The memo hints that the preferred solution to Michigan's "uncommitted" delegate problem would be to give the four candidates whose names did not appear on the ballot (Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Biden) the collective right to vet and approve the uncommitted delegate slate, through a means they "could work out among themselves". Since Edwards and Richardson have endorsed Obama, this would very amount to the equivalent of giving Obama control over the uncommitted delegate slate.
One thing the RBC won't do is to apportion the uncommitted delegates based on extrapolated exit polling results -- based on my reading of this document, there is no legal authority to do something like that. They will either effectively hand those delegates to Obama (through the means described above) or they will let the selection of the individuals to fill those delegate slots fall to the state of Michigan, which has already selected its district-level delegates, all but a couple of whom are officially or unofficially committed to Obama.
Incoming!
@ 2:07 AM
It's hard to come up with an objective measure of which candidates are being attacked the most, but this ought to be a reasonably interesting proxy.
I looked at the press releases from five sources: the Clinton campaign, the Obama campaign, the McCain campaign, the RNC, and the DNC, and counted the number of times that McCain, Clinton or Obama was mentioned in the headline of the press release. (For Obama press releases, which tend to have vague headlines like "Barack Obama Statement on Iran", I also counted hits in the press release abstract). Then I sorted the hits by the month of the campaign from September onward.
These figures were tallied by hand and so may be slightly imprecise, but you should certainly get the general idea. Also, this should be obvious, but the idea was to account for attacks only, so I didn't count instances in which say a DNC press release mentioned Clinton, or a McCain release mentioned McCain himself.
Let me also give you that data in tabular form, and then a few observations.
Observations:
1. It's manifest that the big break in the Democratic campaign came in February. Obama took just 10 incoming hits in January, but 51 in February, as both the RNC and the Clinton campaign significantly ramped up their efforts against him.
2. Clinton's incoming hits peaked in January, and have since dwindled basically to nothing. She hasn't been the subject of either an RNC or a McCain press release since March. Overall, since March 1st, Obama has taken 151 incoming hits, McCain has taken 144, and Clinton has taken 9.
3. The Obama campaign does very, very little attacking (quite possibly too little), at least in the form of press releases. That doesn't mean that they won't go negative, but they prefer to wait for an opportunity to counter-punch and/or to do so somewhat surreptitiously. But what they won't usually do is to try and dictate the course of a news cycle with an attack.
4. In contrast, the Clinton press shop is always operating at a fever pitch, and much of that involves attacking their opponents. During March and April, the Clinton press shop was hitting Obama nearly once a day. But the Clinton campaign has also delivered considerably more hits on McCain than the Obama campaign has (at least through its press releases). Also, note that Clinton has considerably cut down on her hits on Obama for the past several weeks.
I looked at the press releases from five sources: the Clinton campaign, the Obama campaign, the McCain campaign, the RNC, and the DNC, and counted the number of times that McCain, Clinton or Obama was mentioned in the headline of the press release. (For Obama press releases, which tend to have vague headlines like "Barack Obama Statement on Iran", I also counted hits in the press release abstract). Then I sorted the hits by the month of the campaign from September onward.
These figures were tallied by hand and so may be slightly imprecise, but you should certainly get the general idea. Also, this should be obvious, but the idea was to account for attacks only, so I didn't count instances in which say a DNC press release mentioned Clinton, or a McCain release mentioned McCain himself.
Let me also give you that data in tabular form, and then a few observations.
Observations:
1. It's manifest that the big break in the Democratic campaign came in February. Obama took just 10 incoming hits in January, but 51 in February, as both the RNC and the Clinton campaign significantly ramped up their efforts against him.
2. Clinton's incoming hits peaked in January, and have since dwindled basically to nothing. She hasn't been the subject of either an RNC or a McCain press release since March. Overall, since March 1st, Obama has taken 151 incoming hits, McCain has taken 144, and Clinton has taken 9.
3. The Obama campaign does very, very little attacking (quite possibly too little), at least in the form of press releases. That doesn't mean that they won't go negative, but they prefer to wait for an opportunity to counter-punch and/or to do so somewhat surreptitiously. But what they won't usually do is to try and dictate the course of a news cycle with an attack.
4. In contrast, the Clinton press shop is always operating at a fever pitch, and much of that involves attacking their opponents. During March and April, the Clinton press shop was hitting Obama nearly once a day. But the Clinton campaign has also delivered considerably more hits on McCain than the Obama campaign has (at least through its press releases). Also, note that Clinton has considerably cut down on her hits on Obama for the past several weeks.
5.28.2008
A Senior Surge?
@ 3:44 PM
Perhaps I'm a little sore that Hillary Clinton cited Karl Rove's electoral map analysis in her letter to superdelegates and not ours here at 538, but there's one passage in that letter that's particularly misleading.
At the end of this article is a comparison of the composition of the Democratic electorate in the 23 states in which exit polling data was available in both 2004 and 2008. The key findings are as follows:
* The share of the electorate aged 65 and older decreased in 21 states, increased in one state (Wisconsin), and was unchanged in one state (New Hampshire).
* The share of the electorate aged 45 and older, likewise, decreased in 21 states, increased in one state (Delaware), and was unchanged in one state (New Hampshire).
* The share of the electorate aged 18-29 increased in all 23 states.
* Weighted by the turnout in each state, voters aged 65+ made up 18.0 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared with 23.3 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 22 percent decrease.
* Weighted by the turnout in each state, voters aged 45+ made up 60.9 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared with 67.9 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 10 percent decrease.
* Weighted by the turnout in each state, voters aged 18-29 made up 14.5 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared with 9.4 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 53 percent increase.
Did the number of older voters increase in absolute terms? Of course -- since something like three times as many Democrats cast ballots in the primaries this year. The turnout of midgets of mixed French Creole/Albanian ancestry also increased in absolute terms. But the average age of a Democratic voter decreased from about 52 in 2004 to 49 in 2008.
I don't know who runs the Clinton communications shop these days, but there is a certain amount of bottom-feeding in their argumentation that tends to impeach their credibility on other issues. Why not make the argument about women and Latinos -- which ain't a bad argument at all -- and leave it at that?
The increase in participation in the primaries has been driven by core groups favoring Hillary, led by women, Latinos and older voters.There is no doubt that the share of Latino voters increased dramatically in the primaries, nor that the share of women voters increased somewhat. But older voters?
Overall, more than 22 million Democratic primary voters were over the age of 45 this year, as compared to less than 10 million who voted in the 2004 Democratic primaries.
At the end of this article is a comparison of the composition of the Democratic electorate in the 23 states in which exit polling data was available in both 2004 and 2008. The key findings are as follows:
* The share of the electorate aged 65 and older decreased in 21 states, increased in one state (Wisconsin), and was unchanged in one state (New Hampshire).
* The share of the electorate aged 45 and older, likewise, decreased in 21 states, increased in one state (Delaware), and was unchanged in one state (New Hampshire).
* The share of the electorate aged 18-29 increased in all 23 states.
* Weighted by the turnout in each state, voters aged 65+ made up 18.0 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared with 23.3 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 22 percent decrease.
* Weighted by the turnout in each state, voters aged 45+ made up 60.9 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared with 67.9 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 10 percent decrease.
* Weighted by the turnout in each state, voters aged 18-29 made up 14.5 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared with 9.4 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 53 percent increase.
Did the number of older voters increase in absolute terms? Of course -- since something like three times as many Democrats cast ballots in the primaries this year. The turnout of midgets of mixed French Creole/Albanian ancestry also increased in absolute terms. But the average age of a Democratic voter decreased from about 52 in 2004 to 49 in 2008.
I don't know who runs the Clinton communications shop these days, but there is a certain amount of bottom-feeding in their argumentation that tends to impeach their credibility on other issues. Why not make the argument about women and Latinos -- which ain't a bad argument at all -- and leave it at that?
Today's Polls, 5/28
@ 1:32 PM
In Michigan, SurveyUSA has John McCain leading Barack Obama by 4 points. Hillary Clinton was not surveyed, except as part of an Obama-Clinton ticket (that ticket trailed McCain-Romney by 5 points, picking up support from Democrats but losing a fair amount of support from independents).
While Michigan cannot quite be described as a "must-win" for Obama, it's safe to say that unless he wins two out of the three big rust belt states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio -- he will have a tough electoral row to hoe.
It is interesting to contemplate whether Obama is hurt in Michigan by the dispute over its primary. Our regression model thinks that Michigan ought to be a fairly decent state for Obama, favoring him by about 4 points. Perhaps noteworthy in the SurveyUSA poll was the relatively high number of undecideds (21 percent) among Democrats; Obama also lost 18 percent of Democrats to John McCain.
While Michigan cannot quite be described as a "must-win" for Obama, it's safe to say that unless he wins two out of the three big rust belt states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio -- he will have a tough electoral row to hoe.
It is interesting to contemplate whether Obama is hurt in Michigan by the dispute over its primary. Our regression model thinks that Michigan ought to be a fairly decent state for Obama, favoring him by about 4 points. Perhaps noteworthy in the SurveyUSA poll was the relatively high number of undecideds (21 percent) among Democrats; Obama also lost 18 percent of Democrats to John McCain.
Pollster Ratings, v3.1.1
@ 1:35 AM
Following are our updated pollster ratings, accounting for the Democratic contests in North Carolina, Indiana, West Virgina, Kentucky and Oregon. We've also updated to include the final, state-certified voting margin in a couple of states like Ohio where the numbers changed from the unofficial estimates. Apart from refreshing this data, the methodology is entirely identical to Version 3.1.
Moving up: Zogby (who did much better than the consensus in Indiana and North Carolina) and Public Policy Polling (who made up for their poor result in Pennsylvania with a spot-on call in Oregon).
Most of the hit appears to have been absorbed by SurveyUSA, which by no means performed badly in this cycle, but had been so far ahead of the curve that even an average performance drags their numbers downward somewhat. The mathematics of the ratings calculation are also such that the ratings tend to be especially sensitive for those pollsters toward the top of the chart.
Even the pollsters who did not poll in this cycle may have seen their ratings affected slightly, as everything is taken relative to the performance of other pollsters. For example, since our opinion of Zogby improved in this version of the ratings, a pollster now gets more credit for beating Zogby in a particular state than it had gotten before.
The new version of the ratings will be incorporated beginning with our refresh of the polling data tomorrow morning. As I doubt that we'll get much polling data in Montana and South Dakota, this may well be the final version of the ratings until the general election takes place.
Moving up: Zogby (who did much better than the consensus in Indiana and North Carolina) and Public Policy Polling (who made up for their poor result in Pennsylvania with a spot-on call in Oregon).
Most of the hit appears to have been absorbed by SurveyUSA, which by no means performed badly in this cycle, but had been so far ahead of the curve that even an average performance drags their numbers downward somewhat. The mathematics of the ratings calculation are also such that the ratings tend to be especially sensitive for those pollsters toward the top of the chart.
Even the pollsters who did not poll in this cycle may have seen their ratings affected slightly, as everything is taken relative to the performance of other pollsters. For example, since our opinion of Zogby improved in this version of the ratings, a pollster now gets more credit for beating Zogby in a particular state than it had gotten before.
The new version of the ratings will be incorporated beginning with our refresh of the polling data tomorrow morning. As I doubt that we'll get much polling data in Montana and South Dakota, this may well be the final version of the ratings until the general election takes place.
5.27.2008
Today's Polls, 5/27
@ 2:40 PM
Not much to look at today, but we have two somewhat contradictory results from the heartland.
In Iowa, SurveyUSA has Obama 9 points ahead of John McCain; Hillary Clinton was not surveyed. Obama has held a lead over McCain in all 12 Iowa polls released since the first of the year, and the state would appear to be about as safe as can be for a state that went for George W. Bush in 2004.
But in Nebraska, a Research 2000/Daily Kos poll has McCain up by huge margins: he leads Obama by 28 points and Clinton by 30. Nebraska awards some of its electors by Congressional District, but this poll doesn't have Obama particularly close in any of Nebraska's three CDs. In NE-2, the Omaha-based district that we thought might be relatively competitive for Obama, he trails McCain by 30 (small sample size caveats apply).
Other Nebraska polling has shown that state closer -- sometimes a lot closer -- so it's too early to discard the possibility that Obama can pick off an electoral vote or two. Nevertheless, the Obama-McCain map continues to consolidate itself, and look more like the one that most people were expecting from the outset. While Obama's polling situation has improved recently in states like Missouri and Virginia, more exotic plays like Montana and Nebraska appear to be less likely for him.
In Iowa, SurveyUSA has Obama 9 points ahead of John McCain; Hillary Clinton was not surveyed. Obama has held a lead over McCain in all 12 Iowa polls released since the first of the year, and the state would appear to be about as safe as can be for a state that went for George W. Bush in 2004.
But in Nebraska, a Research 2000/Daily Kos poll has McCain up by huge margins: he leads Obama by 28 points and Clinton by 30. Nebraska awards some of its electors by Congressional District, but this poll doesn't have Obama particularly close in any of Nebraska's three CDs. In NE-2, the Omaha-based district that we thought might be relatively competitive for Obama, he trails McCain by 30 (small sample size caveats apply).
Other Nebraska polling has shown that state closer -- sometimes a lot closer -- so it's too early to discard the possibility that Obama can pick off an electoral vote or two. Nevertheless, the Obama-McCain map continues to consolidate itself, and look more like the one that most people were expecting from the outset. While Obama's polling situation has improved recently in states like Missouri and Virginia, more exotic plays like Montana and Nebraska appear to be less likely for him.
Defeat with Dignity?
@ 1:39 PM
Ambinder:
So why hold back on unfurling these endorsements until after South Dakota and Montana? Wouldn't it look better to have the voters put you over the top?
Maybe -- if your opponent weren't someone as popular (and uncompromising) as Hillary Clinton. If these endorsements came in before all states had voted, Obama would risk looking as though he'd shoved Clinton aside. But that's not really a problem after Montana and South Dakota are finished voting.
Moreover, holding back gives Clinton perhaps a 48-hour window to withdraw from the race on her own terms -- particularly if she knows that the flood is coming. In this respect, I'd expect Obama's avalanche of endorsers to become one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington, and to see more "leaks" to well-placed sources like Ambinder.
To prepare for that eventuality, the Obama campaign has, for the first time, really, begun to bank delegates. Sources close to the campaign estimate that as many as three dozen Democratic superdelegates have privately pledged to announce their support for Obama on June 4 or 5. The campaign is determined that Obama not end the first week in June without securing the support of delegates numbering 2026 -- or 2210, as the case may be.We had noted last week that Obama wasn't all that many superdelegates away from a scenario where he could clinch on the night of the South Dakota and Montana primaries on June 3rd. Although the mathematics depend greatly on what happens with Michigan and Florida on Saturday, under the most likely scenario -- that Florida and Michigan's delegations are cut in half, and that Obama gets all of Michigan's uncommitted delegates -- he will in fact be about three dozen superdelegates away following next week's primaries, exactly the number that Ambinder cites. (I presently show Obama's magic number under this scenario at 31, accounting for his projected totals in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana).
So why hold back on unfurling these endorsements until after South Dakota and Montana? Wouldn't it look better to have the voters put you over the top?
Maybe -- if your opponent weren't someone as popular (and uncompromising) as Hillary Clinton. If these endorsements came in before all states had voted, Obama would risk looking as though he'd shoved Clinton aside. But that's not really a problem after Montana and South Dakota are finished voting.
Moreover, holding back gives Clinton perhaps a 48-hour window to withdraw from the race on her own terms -- particularly if she knows that the flood is coming. In this respect, I'd expect Obama's avalanche of endorsers to become one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington, and to see more "leaks" to well-placed sources like Ambinder.
Adventures in Lannyland
@ 12:28 AM
Lanny Davis, annotated:
It is unclear, however, what any of this has to do with the Clinton and Obama campaigns. At best it is an argument for seating Michigan's delegates. It isn't an argument about how to seat them.
According to Davis's preferred source, the Green Papers, the largest share of the vote that Kucinich + Dodd collectively received in any one congressional district was 6.7 percent, in MI-15. However, this percentage would have fallen far short of the 15 percent threshold required for a candidate to receive delegate representation out of a congressional district.
I would also note that Davis's arithmetic is wrong. He suggests that Michigan had 130 delegates: 73 for Clinton, 50 uncommitted, and these 7 phantom delegates he assigns to Kucinich and Dodd. But in fact, Michigan had been assigned 128 pledged delegates before its sanctions, and not 130.
If Davis is arguing that public polls should be used to assign delegates, he opens up a whole can of problems, not least of which are that:
(i) The last public poll taken in Michigan that had Obama's name listed as an option was in the field from November 30th through December 3rd -- more than six weeks before the Michigan primary. (After that point, all polls pit Clinton against uncommitted). According to Real Clear Politics, Clinton held a 19.2 point lead over Obama in national polling on December 1st. But by January 15th, when the Michigan primary took place, that lead was down to 10.4 points. A lot had changed after Iowa, and it would probably have changed in Michigan.
(ii) For that matter, why not instead use a Michigan poll conducted six weeks after the primary, like the one Rasmussen conducted on March 6th? In that poll, Clinton and Obama were tied at 41 percent.
(iii) If the Clinton campaign thinks that polls are an accurate measure of the popular will of the electorate, it has trouble claiming the moral highground on the popular vote argument, when current polling shows Obama ahead of Clinton by an average of 10.2 percent.
If Davis insists on using polling to allocate the Michigan delegates, it would seem logical to use the exit poll from the day of the election, which has the virtues of being contemporaneous with the election and consisting of people who actually voted in it. What does the exit poll reveal? If all candidates had been on the ballot, support would have broken down: Clinton 46, Obama 35, Edwards 12, Kucinich 2, Richardson 1.
The exit poll also suggests that very little of the uncommitted support was intended for Clinton. By doing some very simple algebra, we find that uncommitted supporters would have given 77.1 percent of their support to Obama, 19.1 percent to Edwards, and 3.8 percent to Clinton had all names been on the ballot.
And interestingly, some significant fraction of Clinton's support would have gone to Edwards and Obama had their names been on the ballot. Specifically, 11.6 percent of Clinton voters indicated that their first choice was in fact Obama, and another 6.6 percent John Edwards.
I took the liberty of reassigning Michigan's vote based on the exit poll results. In accordance with the exit polls, the Uncommitted vote was assigned 77.1/19.1/3.8 to Obama/Edwards/Clinton, and the Clinton vote was assigned 81.8/11.6/6.6 to Clinton/Obama/Edwards. The vote that went to the other candidates (Kucinich, Dodd, Gravel) is a little tricker to figure, but it appears that 33.2 percent of the "other" vote would have gone to Edwards, 22.3 percent to Obama, 44.5 percent would have stayed with one of the minor candidates (essentially none would have gone to Clinton). Using these figures and the district-by-district results prepared by thegreenpapers.com, we come up with the following reallocated Michigan vote.
If one accepts Davis's argument that polls are an accurate way to evaluate the voters' intent in Michigan (and uses the election night exit poll -- the only poll conducted within a three-month window surrounding the Michigan primary) then Clinton would have beaten Obama by about 50,000 votes in Michigan.
We can also use these reallocated vote totals to assign delegates based on the usual formulas. Note that John Edwards failed to achieve 15 percent viability in any congressional district, so all of the delegates are assigned to Clinton and Obama.
According to this procedure, 69 delegates should be assigned to Clinton and 59 to Obama; none to the other candidates. Interestingly, the 69-59 split exactly matches the one now proposed by Michigan's Democratic Party.
Moreover, it is hardly clear that voters are directing their anger on the issue particularly at Obama. While Clinton has outfundraised Obama in Florida ($9.02 million to $5.66 million), the opposite is true in Michigan, where Obama has outfundraised Clinton $1.39 million to $1.15 million. (In the April fundraising period, Obama roughly doubled Clinton's take in Michigan, raising $305,794 to Clinton's $164,187). Also, while Clinton has tended to perform stronger in general election polling in Florida, Obama has usually had the edge in Michigan.
It would seem from looking at these figures that Florida voters are directing most of their ire at Obama, and Michigan voters most of it at Clinton. As such, both sides have an incentive to compromise.
Lanny Davis' solution is not a compromise. On the contrary, it is so intellectually dishonest as to render a compromise more difficult.
Here are two important neutral principles that should guide the Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee when it meets May 31 to decide whether to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations — and, if so, how to allocate them between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.Record numbers? Not in Michigan. According to the Michigan Bureau of Elections, the record for participation in a Democratic Presidential Primary came in 1972, when 1,588,073 Michigan Democrats cast ballots. That is nearly one million more ballots than were cast this year. (On the other hand, had Michigan held an "official" primary, and had the voters had behaved approximately as they did in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Ohio, about 2,000,000 voters would have cast ballots, easily breaking the record).
One principle is based in law, the second in pragmatic politics. Both principles result in the same solution: in some rough approximation, honoring the results expressed by almost 600,000 Michigan Democrats and more than 1.7 million Florida Democrats, who turned out in record numbers though they were told their votes didn't count, were not responsible for the rules violations, and don't want to be disenfranchised.
The legal principle supporting that solution is pretty simple. In U.S. contract law, the party breaching a contract usually has the right to "cure" the violation during the term of the contract. But if the other party stands in the way of that cure, the breaching party cannot be further sanctioned — and certainly, as a matter of fairness, the party preventing the cure should not stand to benefit.If the breach in question is Michigan's decision to advance the date of its primary beyond what the DNC permitted, it would seem that the parties to that dispute are (i) the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP), and (ii) the DNC. Therefore, if the MDP sought to cure the breach (that is, hold a do-over election), the principle that Davis articulates would suggest that the "breaching party" -- a.k.a. the MDP -- could not be further sanctioned.
It is unclear, however, what any of this has to do with the Clinton and Obama campaigns. At best it is an argument for seating Michigan's delegates. It isn't an argument about how to seat them.
That is, in fact, what happened in 2008 to Michigan and Florida. Those states violated the party rules when they scheduled their primaries before Feb. 5. But then in March, elected officials and party leaders in both states were willing to "cure" — i.e., to hold new primaries and raise the money privately to pay for them. In Michigan, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Carl Levin proposed a "fire house" primary in June, in which voters could revote at local fire houses or libraries. In Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson and others supported a revote by mailed ballots and perhaps also offering the fire house alternative for those voters who preferred to vote in person.While Obama might have run the clock out on Michigan and Florida revotes, he probably would not have had the opportunity to do so had the Clinton campaign decided to start playing offense a little sooner. In a US News interview dated March 6th -- two days after the Ohio and Texas primaries -- Clinton stated her opposition to Florida and Michigan revotes:
DNC Chairman Howard Dean said at the time that such revotes were permissible and would bring Michigan and Florida back into compliance. And there was precedent: In 1996, Delaware Democrats held a party caucus earlier than the permissible date, resulting in a rule violation. But state Democrats were allowed to hold another caucus later on and were then found to be back in compliance.
In March and April 2008, Clinton publicly supported the revote proposals of Michigan's Granholm and Levin and Florida's Nelson. She repeatedly invited Obama to join her and do the same. He never did — and the revotes never occurred.
Now the Obama campaign would say that they neither objected nor approved; they just raised "concerns." That is a fact. But here is an unavoidable inference from other undeniable political facts: Had Obama instructed those supporters in Michigan and Florida who were opposed to the revotes to support them, and joined with Clinton in endorsing the revotes, the new rounds of voting would have occurred.
Can anyone seriously argue against that inference? Or that the Obama campaign, by referring to vague concerns for weeks about the revote proposals without offering to sit down with Clinton campaign, Florida, and Michigan Democratic officials to work them out, was more intent on playing out the clock and killing the chance of any revotes than finding solutions to permit the revotes to occur?
I would not accept a caucus. I think that would be a great disservice to the 2 million people who turned out and voted. I think that they want their votes counted. And you know a lot of people would be disenfranchised because of the timing and whatever the particular rules were. This is really going to be a serious challenge for the Democratic Party because the voters in Michigan and Florida are the ones being hurt, and certainly with respect to Florida the Democrats were dragged into doing what they did by a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature. They didn't have any choice whatsoever. And I don't think that there should be any do-over or any kind of a second run in Florida. I think Florida should be seated.Moreover, as late as March 13, the Clinton campaign opposed a Bill Nelson type vote-by-mail primary in Michigan. But at some point in mid-March, the Clinton campaign changed its position. This would appear to have been motivated by the fact that the Clinton campaign had not significantly cut into Barack Obama's delegate margin in Ohio and Texas, and needed some way to add time to the clock.
Money was certainly not an issue. Sufficient funds — estimated at between $15 million to $20 million for both states — could have been privately raised. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and many other big Democratic donors publicly offered to raise this much. Moreover, does anyone doubt that had Obama joined Clinton in supporting these revotes, there would have been any difficulty in raising this sum just from their joint appeal on their campaign web sites alone? Hardly.I can agree with Davis on this point: money was the least of the barriers to Michigan and Florida revotes.
So what is the fairest solution for the Rules Committee, taking into account Michigan's and Florida's willingness to revote but for the failure of the Obama campaign to sit down and work out details to solve their "concerns"?Stop right there. What are these "7 [delegates] collectively cast for Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich" that Davis refers to? He appears to have invented them out of thin air.
It is rather simple. Go back, in effect, to the status quo ante and make some reasonable and fair adjustments.
In Michigan, Clinton received 55 percent of the vote. According to Thegreenpapers.com, she thus should receive 73 pledged delegates based on that percentage.
What about the 50 remaining uncommitted delegates, and 7 collectively cast for Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, who were also on the ballot?
According to Davis's preferred source, the Green Papers, the largest share of the vote that Kucinich + Dodd collectively received in any one congressional district was 6.7 percent, in MI-15. However, this percentage would have fallen far short of the 15 percent threshold required for a candidate to receive delegate representation out of a congressional district.
I would also note that Davis's arithmetic is wrong. He suggests that Michigan had 130 delegates: 73 for Clinton, 50 uncommitted, and these 7 phantom delegates he assigns to Kucinich and Dodd. But in fact, Michigan had been assigned 128 pledged delegates before its sanctions, and not 130.
Some of those 50 delegates might have been for Clinton as a second choice to candidates other than Obama, so it would be totally unfair to award all 50 delegates to Obama.It isn't quite clear to me what Davis is arguing here. That some voters who voted for "uncommitted" did so as a proxy for John Edwards, but would have voted for Clinton had Edwards withdrawn from the election? Notwithstanding that the number of such voters was probably very small, Democratic primaries make no provision for instant-runoff voting. Should we also go back to New Hampshire and South Carolina and assign John Edwards votes in those states to Clinton and Obama? No; Edwards should get credit for all his presumptive votes, and if he gets any delegates out of them, those delegates should be free to behave as other Edwards delegates do.
One little known fact: Clinton complied with party rules by allowing her name to remain on the ballot, as did Dodd and Kucinich. Obama was not forced by party rules to remove his name — he chose to do so.Actually, this is debatable. The pledge letter signed by Hillary Clinton did not merely prevent Clinton from campaigning in Michigan and Florida, but also from "participating" in those contests.
The Rules Committee has several options. The fairest would be to allocate those 57 pledged delegates, to Clinton and Obama by the same ratio of their standing to one another in the average of the most recent Michigan statewide polls prior to the Jan. 15 primary. Or perhaps one Solomonic compromise, more generous to Obama than to Clinton, would be to divide the remaining delegates approximately 50-50 between the two of them, 28-27 (giving Clinton the extra delegate since she led in all the latest statewide polls prior to Jan. 15).I don't even know where to begin. Davis is arguing that Clinton should be given all of her delegates and the lion's share of the uncommitted delegates based on her standing in pre-election Michigan polling. Or, he might be so kind as to let Obama have (almost) half of Michigan's uncommitted delegates. Such magnanimity has not been seen since last night's season finale of The Tudors.
If Davis is arguing that public polls should be used to assign delegates, he opens up a whole can of problems, not least of which are that:
(i) The last public poll taken in Michigan that had Obama's name listed as an option was in the field from November 30th through December 3rd -- more than six weeks before the Michigan primary. (After that point, all polls pit Clinton against uncommitted). According to Real Clear Politics, Clinton held a 19.2 point lead over Obama in national polling on December 1st. But by January 15th, when the Michigan primary took place, that lead was down to 10.4 points. A lot had changed after Iowa, and it would probably have changed in Michigan.
(ii) For that matter, why not instead use a Michigan poll conducted six weeks after the primary, like the one Rasmussen conducted on March 6th? In that poll, Clinton and Obama were tied at 41 percent.
(iii) If the Clinton campaign thinks that polls are an accurate measure of the popular will of the electorate, it has trouble claiming the moral highground on the popular vote argument, when current polling shows Obama ahead of Clinton by an average of 10.2 percent.
If Davis insists on using polling to allocate the Michigan delegates, it would seem logical to use the exit poll from the day of the election, which has the virtues of being contemporaneous with the election and consisting of people who actually voted in it. What does the exit poll reveal? If all candidates had been on the ballot, support would have broken down: Clinton 46, Obama 35, Edwards 12, Kucinich 2, Richardson 1.
The exit poll also suggests that very little of the uncommitted support was intended for Clinton. By doing some very simple algebra, we find that uncommitted supporters would have given 77.1 percent of their support to Obama, 19.1 percent to Edwards, and 3.8 percent to Clinton had all names been on the ballot.
And interestingly, some significant fraction of Clinton's support would have gone to Edwards and Obama had their names been on the ballot. Specifically, 11.6 percent of Clinton voters indicated that their first choice was in fact Obama, and another 6.6 percent John Edwards.
I took the liberty of reassigning Michigan's vote based on the exit poll results. In accordance with the exit polls, the Uncommitted vote was assigned 77.1/19.1/3.8 to Obama/Edwards/Clinton, and the Clinton vote was assigned 81.8/11.6/6.6 to Clinton/Obama/Edwards. The vote that went to the other candidates (Kucinich, Dodd, Gravel) is a little tricker to figure, but it appears that 33.2 percent of the "other" vote would have gone to Edwards, 22.3 percent to Obama, 44.5 percent would have stayed with one of the minor candidates (essentially none would have gone to Clinton). Using these figures and the district-by-district results prepared by thegreenpapers.com, we come up with the following reallocated Michigan vote.
If one accepts Davis's argument that polls are an accurate way to evaluate the voters' intent in Michigan (and uses the election night exit poll -- the only poll conducted within a three-month window surrounding the Michigan primary) then Clinton would have beaten Obama by about 50,000 votes in Michigan.
We can also use these reallocated vote totals to assign delegates based on the usual formulas. Note that John Edwards failed to achieve 15 percent viability in any congressional district, so all of the delegates are assigned to Clinton and Obama.
According to this procedure, 69 delegates should be assigned to Clinton and 59 to Obama; none to the other candidates. Interestingly, the 69-59 split exactly matches the one now proposed by Michigan's Democratic Party.
Florida's compromise solution is even easier. Clinton won 50 percent of the vote, while Obama won 33 percent of the 1.7 million Democratic votes cast. According to Thegreenpapers.com, that would give Clinton 105 delegates and Obama 69 delegates. That leaves 11 elected John Edwards delegates yet to decide, as well as 13 still unpledged superdelegates. (Eight supers have already decided for Clinton and five have decided for Obama).Although I have fewer objections to counting the Florida vote as is, I fail to see how this in any way qualifies as a "compromise", since it's Clinton's strongest possible position.
Practical politics: Winning the November electionBut which campaign is blocking a compromise now? Which campaign is not amenable to the 69:59 split proposed by the Michigan Democrats, or the solution to count Florida as half-delegates, as proposed by Clinton supporter Bill Nelson? The answer, in each case, is the Clinton campaign.
Such solutions for the seating of Michigan and Florida, rooted as they are on neutral and long-standing principles of law and equity, are also required by practical political realities if the Democrats want to win the White House in 2008.
If more than 2.3 million Democrats in Michigan and Florida are told their votes didn't count even though their party leaders were willing to revote, that could anger them, to put it mildly. If they blame Obama for not supporting the revote while still blocking a fair solution by the Rules Committee, essentially not permitting their January votes to count, they are likely to be angrier still — if, that is, he is the Democratic Party's nominee. In a close election that could mean the difference between the Democratic candidate carrying or losing Michigan and Florida.
Is it worth risking the White House in November by not accepting this fair solution?
I don't think so — too much, such as the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade, hangs in the balance.
Moreover, it is hardly clear that voters are directing their anger on the issue particularly at Obama. While Clinton has outfundraised Obama in Florida ($9.02 million to $5.66 million), the opposite is true in Michigan, where Obama has outfundraised Clinton $1.39 million to $1.15 million. (In the April fundraising period, Obama roughly doubled Clinton's take in Michigan, raising $305,794 to Clinton's $164,187). Also, while Clinton has tended to perform stronger in general election polling in Florida, Obama has usually had the edge in Michigan.
It would seem from looking at these figures that Florida voters are directing most of their ire at Obama, and Michigan voters most of it at Clinton. As such, both sides have an incentive to compromise.
Lanny Davis' solution is not a compromise. On the contrary, it is so intellectually dishonest as to render a compromise more difficult.
5.26.2008
The Libertarians' Big Tent
@ 8:35 PM
I sometimes describe myself as a "libertarian in theory, liberal in practice". At times, I've found the idea of a third party seductive, but I've never voted third party for a major office. But the whole Ron Paul phenomenon sufficiently piqued my curiosity that I attended his rally when Paul passed through town last August.
It was really something to see. The crowd was a relatively diverse mix of city-dwellers and yokels, hippies and hipsters and yuppies (it was, however, overwhelmingly white). The impression I was left with was that these were people who followed the news, but were generally disdainful of the political process itself, at least insofar as it involved the two major parties. It did not seem like Paul was "stealing" votes from anyone in particular.
What was more remarkable was the relative diversity of ideological opinion within the audience. When Paul said something about the war in Iraq, most everyone stood up to cheer. But there was a less enthusiastic response when he spoke of withdrawing back from the world stage generally. One part of the crowd stood up when Paul talked about the influence of corporate lobbyists, another when the subject was civil liberties, and a third when he spoke of monetarism and the Gold Standard. It was a bit like watching the State of the Union address, when Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney each do plenty of standing and clapping, but never quite in unison.
Such ideological diversity was also on display at the Libertarian Party National Convention this week, where candidates as diverse as Bob Barr (who authored the Defense of Marriage Act) and Mike Gravel (who advocates single-payer health care) sought its nomination. Barr was eventually nominated, receiving 54 percent of the delegates on the sixth ballot after Wayne Allen Root threw his support Barr's way.
The result will no doubt upset some capital-L Libertarians, particularly those on the libertarian left, who might feel as though Barr is a bit of an impostor. But it is a decision that opens up the Libertarians' tent. And if the Libertarian Party is ever to achieve viability at the national level, it will need to have a bigger tent. Just as the Democrats can accommodate a Travis Childers and a Pete Stark, or the Republicans an Olympia Snowe and a Rick Santorum, the Libertarians can accommodate a Mike Gravel and a Bob Barr. National parties require support which is both broad (spanning a fairly wide space on the ideological spectrum) and deep. The Libertarian Party has expanded its breadth; it will now need to work on its depth.
Indeed, the decision to nominate Barr may well have fewer implications in 2008 than it does in future election cycles. In particular, it seems to me that there is some chance that the Libertarian Party will become the de facto third party, remaining vaguely aligned with some core beliefs like the protection of civil liberties, but otherwise accommodating a fairly wide array of political thought. More fundamentally, it would become a party driven less by ideology and more by a desire to win elected office. The Libertarian Party has some infrastructure in place and a fairly decent brand name (hey, who doesn't like liberty?). And while Barr is not a terrific political athlete, he does come across as pragmatic and perhaps fairly mainstream, and is probably a better long-run spokesperson for the party than someone like Ron Paul.
Barr's goal this year -- and it must be considered a long-shot -- is to achieve the 15 percent support he'd need in national polling to be invited to participate in the presidential debates in September and October. If that happens, the Libertarian Party would literally be sharing the stage with the Democrats and the Republicans for the first time. While that probably wouldn't be enough to win them any electoral votes in 2008, it would certainly make their convention worth watching in 2012.
It was really something to see. The crowd was a relatively diverse mix of city-dwellers and yokels, hippies and hipsters and yuppies (it was, however, overwhelmingly white). The impression I was left with was that these were people who followed the news, but were generally disdainful of the political process itself, at least insofar as it involved the two major parties. It did not seem like Paul was "stealing" votes from anyone in particular.
What was more remarkable was the relative diversity of ideological opinion within the audience. When Paul said something about the war in Iraq, most everyone stood up to cheer. But there was a less enthusiastic response when he spoke of withdrawing back from the world stage generally. One part of the crowd stood up when Paul talked about the influence of corporate lobbyists, another when the subject was civil liberties, and a third when he spoke of monetarism and the Gold Standard. It was a bit like watching the State of the Union address, when Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney each do plenty of standing and clapping, but never quite in unison.
Such ideological diversity was also on display at the Libertarian Party National Convention this week, where candidates as diverse as Bob Barr (who authored the Defense of Marriage Act) and Mike Gravel (who advocates single-payer health care) sought its nomination. Barr was eventually nominated, receiving 54 percent of the delegates on the sixth ballot after Wayne Allen Root threw his support Barr's way.
The result will no doubt upset some capital-L Libertarians, particularly those on the libertarian left, who might feel as though Barr is a bit of an impostor. But it is a decision that opens up the Libertarians' tent. And if the Libertarian Party is ever to achieve viability at the national level, it will need to have a bigger tent. Just as the Democrats can accommodate a Travis Childers and a Pete Stark, or the Republicans an Olympia Snowe and a Rick Santorum, the Libertarians can accommodate a Mike Gravel and a Bob Barr. National parties require support which is both broad (spanning a fairly wide space on the ideological spectrum) and deep. The Libertarian Party has expanded its breadth; it will now need to work on its depth.
Indeed, the decision to nominate Barr may well have fewer implications in 2008 than it does in future election cycles. In particular, it seems to me that there is some chance that the Libertarian Party will become the de facto third party, remaining vaguely aligned with some core beliefs like the protection of civil liberties, but otherwise accommodating a fairly wide array of political thought. More fundamentally, it would become a party driven less by ideology and more by a desire to win elected office. The Libertarian Party has some infrastructure in place and a fairly decent brand name (hey, who doesn't like liberty?). And while Barr is not a terrific political athlete, he does come across as pragmatic and perhaps fairly mainstream, and is probably a better long-run spokesperson for the party than someone like Ron Paul.
Barr's goal this year -- and it must be considered a long-shot -- is to achieve the 15 percent support he'd need in national polling to be invited to participate in the presidential debates in September and October. If that happens, the Libertarian Party would literally be sharing the stage with the Democrats and the Republicans for the first time. While that probably wouldn't be enough to win them any electoral votes in 2008, it would certainly make their convention worth watching in 2012.
Limited Sample Size Department
@ 12:19 PM
I spoke this weekend wth a couple of people about Hillary Clinton's comments on RFK. At the risk of drawing conclusions from a sample size of two, I thought that their reactions might have been instructive.
The first person is a good friend of mine, a financial professional in his late 20s. He likes Obama, is lukewarm on McCain, and absolutely can't stand Clinton, to the extent that he'd consider voting for John McCain if Obama named Hillary as his running mate.
The second person was an older woman that I spoke with at a Memorial Day picnic. College professor, very progressive, big fan of Obama, indifferent about Clinton, hates Republicans of any stripe. She was probably in her early 60s, and her formulative political years would have coincided with the Kennedy tragedies.
Each of these people are politically astute, but not the obsessive consumers of political news that I am, or that many of you probably are. But they're also the sort of people who, for somewhat different reasons, you might expect to be greatly offended by Clinton's RFK comments.
But neither of them were. Instead, they reacted with indifference when the subject came up, wondering what the big deal was.
It is possible that there are some sort of regional considerations in play. I live in the Midwest, and while we have ample respect for the Kennedys, we perhaps don't have the same deep-rooted affection for them that you might find along the Eastern Seabord (or for that matter in much of the media establishment).
For the record, I found Clinton's comments to be sloppy and somewhat unbecoming. But I didn't find them instrinsically offensive in the way that, for example, Liz Trotta's comments on Fox News were, or for that matter something like Clinton's comments to USA Today on "hard-working" whites. Merely speaking of RFK's assassiantion is not offensive. It is all about the context, and the context in this instance was ambiguous.
That is not to suggest that Clinton can claim any particular moral highground by attempting to stoke the flames of media backlash around this incident. The Clinton camp is so dedicated to their particular brand of smallball politics that they have made it more difficult for their candidate to appear above-the-fray, accountable and Presidential (forgive me for applying the most overused term in the American political lexicon). At the same time, I think the Obama campaign may somewhat overplayed their hand. This is probably not more than a 24-hour story that can't be elongated without somebody looking craven.
But I'd be curious to hear what your friends and acquaintences are saying about Clinton and RFK at your Memorial Day barbeques.
The first person is a good friend of mine, a financial professional in his late 20s. He likes Obama, is lukewarm on McCain, and absolutely can't stand Clinton, to the extent that he'd consider voting for John McCain if Obama named Hillary as his running mate.
The second person was an older woman that I spoke with at a Memorial Day picnic. College professor, very progressive, big fan of Obama, indifferent about Clinton, hates Republicans of any stripe. She was probably in her early 60s, and her formulative political years would have coincided with the Kennedy tragedies.
Each of these people are politically astute, but not the obsessive consumers of political news that I am, or that many of you probably are. But they're also the sort of people who, for somewhat different reasons, you might expect to be greatly offended by Clinton's RFK comments.
But neither of them were. Instead, they reacted with indifference when the subject came up, wondering what the big deal was.
It is possible that there are some sort of regional considerations in play. I live in the Midwest, and while we have ample respect for the Kennedys, we perhaps don't have the same deep-rooted affection for them that you might find along the Eastern Seabord (or for that matter in much of the media establishment).
For the record, I found Clinton's comments to be sloppy and somewhat unbecoming. But I didn't find them instrinsically offensive in the way that, for example, Liz Trotta's comments on Fox News were, or for that matter something like Clinton's comments to USA Today on "hard-working" whites. Merely speaking of RFK's assassiantion is not offensive. It is all about the context, and the context in this instance was ambiguous.
That is not to suggest that Clinton can claim any particular moral highground by attempting to stoke the flames of media backlash around this incident. The Clinton camp is so dedicated to their particular brand of smallball politics that they have made it more difficult for their candidate to appear above-the-fray, accountable and Presidential (forgive me for applying the most overused term in the American political lexicon). At the same time, I think the Obama campaign may somewhat overplayed their hand. This is probably not more than a 24-hour story that can't be elongated without somebody looking craven.
But I'd be curious to hear what your friends and acquaintences are saying about Clinton and RFK at your Memorial Day barbeques.
Today's Polls, 5/26
@ 11:12 AM
Happy Memorial Day, everyone.
In Kentucky, Rasmussen has John McCain with a 25-point lead over Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton, however, leads McCain by 9 points.
This result is nothing new for Obama, who has trailed McCain in other Kentucky polls by margins ranging from 21 to 36 points. Hillary Clinton showing a lead, however -- and a fairly meaningful one at that -- is a new development. Significantly, this was the first Kentucky poll taken after that state's primary was completed. Clinton, I think, has tapped into some sort of anti-elite backlash in Kentucky, which might help her numbers against McCain (never much of a 'Bubba' himself) as much as they did against Obama. How much of this would hold up after a general election campaign, however, is anybody's guess.
In Kentucky, Rasmussen has John McCain with a 25-point lead over Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton, however, leads McCain by 9 points.
This result is nothing new for Obama, who has trailed McCain in other Kentucky polls by margins ranging from 21 to 36 points. Hillary Clinton showing a lead, however -- and a fairly meaningful one at that -- is a new development. Significantly, this was the first Kentucky poll taken after that state's primary was completed. Clinton, I think, has tapped into some sort of anti-elite backlash in Kentucky, which might help her numbers against McCain (never much of a 'Bubba' himself) as much as they did against Obama. How much of this would hold up after a general election campaign, however, is anybody's guess.
5.25.2008
McCain-Jindal?
@ 3:00 PM
One of the important functions that a party apparatus performs is to build its bench, shining a brighter light on candidates who might rise to prominence in future election cycles. Would Barack Obama have become the (presumptive) Democratic nominee if not for John Kerry giving him the keynote address at the 2004 convention? Very likely not.
As such, John McCain is smart to meet with Bobby Jindal at his ranch in Sedona this weekend, boosting Jindal's name recognition and placing him on the same pedestal as better-known candidates like Mitt Romney and Charlie Crist. However, it is hard for me to believe that Jindal is under serious considerataion to be McCain's running mate.
Part of the reason why, of course, is that Jindal would seem to take the ticket-balancing idea just a little too far, at least along the dimension of age. At 36, Jindal is literally half of McCain's age, and he has been governor of Louisiana for all of four months. Precisely because of McCain's age, there is likely to be a greater emphasis placed on the readiness of his running mate, and putting Jindal on the ticket would severerly constrain McCain's ability to draw contrasts of experience against Barack Obama.
But the larger reason is that the GOP has bigger things to worry about than pleasing its conservative base. The Republicans enter this election with something like a 10-point disadvantage in party identification. Turning out their base will not be a sufficient strategy for them to win the election. Instead, McCain will need to win the clear majority of independents, or a goodly number of Democrats.
Jindal, however, has a strongly right-wing position on abortion, stating that he is against abortion 100 percent of the time without exception. (Jindal has since sought to clarify his position in the instance where the life of the mother is threatened; this is the subject of an edit war right now on Wikipedia). According to data compiled by PollingReport.com, only 15-20 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases, such as in cases of rape or incest. Jindal's position would appear to be in that 15-20 percent, and is likely to scare the hell out of independent and moderate women in the suburbs. Without the "security mom" vote, McCain can't win this election.
That is not to categorically rule out the idea of McCain nominating a strongly pro-life conservative. Someone like Mike Huckabee, for instance, has formidable political gifts and is certainly worth his consideration. But given the mood of the electorate, that is more in spite of his position on abortion than because of it.
As such, John McCain is smart to meet with Bobby Jindal at his ranch in Sedona this weekend, boosting Jindal's name recognition and placing him on the same pedestal as better-known candidates like Mitt Romney and Charlie Crist. However, it is hard for me to believe that Jindal is under serious considerataion to be McCain's running mate.
Part of the reason why, of course, is that Jindal would seem to take the ticket-balancing idea just a little too far, at least along the dimension of age. At 36, Jindal is literally half of McCain's age, and he has been governor of Louisiana for all of four months. Precisely because of McCain's age, there is likely to be a greater emphasis placed on the readiness of his running mate, and putting Jindal on the ticket would severerly constrain McCain's ability to draw contrasts of experience against Barack Obama.
But the larger reason is that the GOP has bigger things to worry about than pleasing its conservative base. The Republicans enter this election with something like a 10-point disadvantage in party identification. Turning out their base will not be a sufficient strategy for them to win the election. Instead, McCain will need to win the clear majority of independents, or a goodly number of Democrats.
Jindal, however, has a strongly right-wing position on abortion, stating that he is against abortion 100 percent of the time without exception. (Jindal has since sought to clarify his position in the instance where the life of the mother is threatened; this is the subject of an edit war right now on Wikipedia). According to data compiled by PollingReport.com, only 15-20 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases, such as in cases of rape or incest. Jindal's position would appear to be in that 15-20 percent, and is likely to scare the hell out of independent and moderate women in the suburbs. Without the "security mom" vote, McCain can't win this election.
That is not to categorically rule out the idea of McCain nominating a strongly pro-life conservative. Someone like Mike Huckabee, for instance, has formidable political gifts and is certainly worth his consideration. But given the mood of the electorate, that is more in spite of his position on abortion than because of it.
The odds of a recount
@ 1:54 PM
The 2000 Florida recount, which has generated renewed interest in light of the HBO dramatization to debut tonight, seemed at the time like a once-in-a-lifetime fluke of probability, the electoral equivalent of being struck by lightning. But then just four years later, had John Kerry pulled a few thousand votes closer to George W. Bush, we might well have had an automatic recount in Ohio and a replay of the whole scenario, with Ken Blackwell playing the role of Katherine Harris.
So just how (un)likely are these recount things anyway? To evaluate the problem, I looked for all occurrences in my simulation when the following happened: there was some state, or some combination of states, that the candidate who lost the electoral college had lost by no more than 0.5 points. But if the candidate had won some or all of these states, he would have won the elecotral college.
For example, in simulation run #132 of 10,000, Barack Obama initially picked up 250 electoral votes. But that doesn't count Pennsylvania, which he lost by just 0.04 points. That's a very obvious recount scenario.
Or, in simulation run #336, Barack Obama won the election with 290 electoral votes -- but had carried Indiana and Missouri by just 0.4 points and 0.5 points, respectively, close enough to trigger recounts. If McCain had won both recounts, he would have gained 22 electoral votes, enough to give him a 270-268 electoral win.
Overall, the recount scenario was triggered 703 times out of 10,000 simulations -- slightly more than 7 percent of the time.
By one definition, that does qualify as a "once-in-a-lifetime" occurrence: 7 percent means once out of about every 14 elections, and the average American adult will have the opportunity to vote in roughly 14 presidential elections before they die. But that's still quite a bit more likely than I would have thought.
So just how (un)likely are these recount things anyway? To evaluate the problem, I looked for all occurrences in my simulation when the following happened: there was some state, or some combination of states, that the candidate who lost the electoral college had lost by no more than 0.5 points. But if the candidate had won some or all of these states, he would have won the elecotral college.
For example, in simulation run #132 of 10,000, Barack Obama initially picked up 250 electoral votes. But that doesn't count Pennsylvania, which he lost by just 0.04 points. That's a very obvious recount scenario.
Or, in simulation run #336, Barack Obama won the election with 290 electoral votes -- but had carried Indiana and Missouri by just 0.4 points and 0.5 points, respectively, close enough to trigger recounts. If McCain had won both recounts, he would have gained 22 electoral votes, enough to give him a 270-268 electoral win.
Overall, the recount scenario was triggered 703 times out of 10,000 simulations -- slightly more than 7 percent of the time.
By one definition, that does qualify as a "once-in-a-lifetime" occurrence: 7 percent means once out of about every 14 elections, and the average American adult will have the opportunity to vote in roughly 14 presidential elections before they die. But that's still quite a bit more likely than I would have thought.
Today's Polls, 5/25
@ 1:40 PM
In Montana, Mason-Dixon has John McCain 8 points ahead of Barack Obama and 11 points ahead of Hillary Clinton. These results might be considered mildly disappointing for Obama, which at times has looked like a potential swing state. But he may have the chance to improve on those numbers by campaigning in the state's primary. On that front, the news is good for him: he leads Clinton by 17 in their head-to-head matchup.
Also, in Minnesota, Rasmussen shows safe 15-point leads for both Democrats. Minnesota may not be a swing state this year, particularly if Obama is the nominee.
Also, in Minnesota, Rasmussen shows safe 15-point leads for both Democrats. Minnesota may not be a swing state this year, particularly if Obama is the nominee.
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