Stability (of a Sort)

Things finally seemed to have calmed down in the U.S. presidential election over the past several days, if polls released during the last 48 hours are to be believed. Sure, Barack Obama has inched up yet one more tick at the national level according to my model:

But McCain seems to have gained a tick or two in several swing states in spite of further gains by Obama at the national level:

Note that West Virginia is now in the swing state column. The addition of West Virginia to this exclusive club is due to a single poll put out over the past 24 hours giving Obama a wide lead in the state. I personally think that this is unlikely to be the case but one does need to give some consideration to this poll and so, West Virginia is now in the swing state column. The reader may also note that North Carolina is now off the list. The reason is that I've removed all polls taken by organizations affiliated with a political party. Polls by a Democratic party affiliated organization appear to be biased and this bias was having a particularly strong effect in North Carolina. As a result, the map below shows the revised electoral map:

Tamino's Bet Month Nine - 2008

Tamino's "bet" has made a turn for an inconsequential result in 2008, the first year of his "bet". The September global anomaly was, according to NASA's GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies), .49 degrees Celsius bringing the total average global temperature anomaly for 2008 for the first nine months of the year to 0.3978 degrees Celsius. According to Tamino, the critical value for 2008 is 0.3946 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the average global temperature anomaly for the year thus far is .0032 degrees Celsius over the critical value under which the "not warming" side wins one point. One big point on the downside thus hangs in the balance in the first year of the bet. Is the earth warming or not? Stay tuned.

Game, set . . . .

. . . . and maybe match. I didn't watch the second presidential debate but the trading on Intrade suggested that Obama got the upper hand, even if that wasn't clear until the debate was over. The general verdict was that Obama won by risking nothing and making no blunders and that McCain lost because he failed miserably in his efforts to make any serious inroad into Obama's pre-debate edge. A more cynical view was provided by Tom Belvan of RealClearPolitics:

"Ninety minutes later, both John McCain and Barack Obama departed the plush, red-carpeted stage at Belmont University having sleepwalked through one of the most boring, least informative, most poorly moderated debates in recent memory."

It is amazing that America can spend so much time selecting the person to their highest office and yet go through the whole process without seriously discussing monumentially pressing issues. America is about to elect a man with astonishingly little experience and who has revealed little of substance about what he really thinks and about what he really will do when he occupies the highest office in the land. So much for the process.

At any rate, Barack Obama's popular vote lead inched up yet again according to a plethora of polls released over the past 24 hours:

The small day-to-day change means that there was little change among the current swing states:

Nevada Falls

There are no falls in Nevada, a bone dry state from top to bottom where hardly a river runs through it. John McCain's lead in the state has dried up to nothing and Barack Obama now has a slender lead. This switch of this five electoral vote state into the Democratic column (for the moment anyway) means that Obama now has 322 electoral votes under his belt:

Although the big picture in the election has changed but a fraction, blue shadows are steadily being cast over the electoral map. Ohio and Missouri have moved into the dark blue category (Obama 52%+ vote share) while North Carolina has turned pink:

McCain's lead in Florida is close enough that he will be forced to devote resources to the state to try and hold back the Obama tide. North Carolina may not be too far behind:

Oh yes, Obama now has a 4.6 percentage point lead nationally:

Drip, Drip

John McCain's chances of winning the election are slowing dripping away - drop by drop, day by day. The latest national tracking polls suggest that Barack Obama is now nearing the 52% mark and the point at which he stands a good chance to earn a substantial victory in the Electoral College. My model suggests that Obama now has 51.9% of the two party popular vote:

Obama's electoral vote margin remains unchanged at 317-221. However, McCain is hanging on by surface tension in Nevada and his lead in Florida is just a tad over 100,000 votes:

The electoral map shows that New Hampshire has turned dark blue during the last several days. However, Missouri and Ohio are two ticks away from turning dark blue as well:

The polling over the next 24 hours should tell us whether Sarah Palin's generally well-received performance in the vice presidential debate with Joe Biden will help to stem the flow towards Obama. My guess is that we are now at Obama's short-term high water mark and that the next few days will see some modest movement towards McCain.

Running Out of Time

The presidential race has entered the fourth quarter and Barack Obama is slowly pulling away from John McCain. Day after day Obama scores baskets on McCain by simply doing nothing and letting the financial meltdown melt down Republican resistance to his becoming president. We are near the point where Obama will simply begin to hold on to the ball, avoid mistakes and try to run out the clock.

At that point, of course, the race will begin to tighten again and Obama's overly cautious nature will become a liability. But that seems far off in the future and this is the picture of the election right now:

The lead has ticked up to 3.6 percentage points. While the lead seems small, it translates into a significant 317-221 lead in the Electoral College, a margin that has not changed for a few days. The table of current conditions in the swing states shows, for the most part, continued movement towards Obama over the past 24 hours:

Pulling Away

[Note: The electoral vote figure for McCain below has been corrected from 222 to 221.]

Which is what Barach Obama is doing right now. The polls suggest that Obama's lead has lengthened over the past 48 hours. This movement represents both the full effect of the first debate as well as the public's negative reaction towards the $700 billion financial industry bailout proposal. The victims of this negative reaction appear to be Republicans in general and their own General McCain in particular. This may or may not be fair, but fairness is a virtue never in over supply during presidential election camapigns.

My own model suggests that Obama's lead is now 3.4 percentage points:

The national polls suggest that Obama's lead is about 5.5 percentage points while state polls are in general showing a somewhat tighter race. The state polls are however beginning to reflect the national trends and so my model may well continue to trend in the direction of Obama over the next several days.

In spite of the continued shift towards Obama, the Electoral College vote totals have shown no change over the past 48 hours. Obama continues to maintain a 317-221 vote lead over McCain in the College. While there has been no further electoral vote shift, McCain's lead in Florida and Nevada continue to diminish:

The clock may be beginning to run out on John McCain in this election. He probably has a week or so to begin shifting the undecideds back in his direction.