Polimetrics

What's coming up at Polimetrics?

I am currently working on compiling a county list of all votes in 2004 to compare them to the 2000 election. Of particular interest to me are:

1. Why were the exit polls so wrong on this election?

Earlier I posted on a possible explanation as to the reason (Voters who are more afraid of terrorism were more likely to vote for Bush and also more likely to avoid exit polls) but I admit there are other possibilities:

a. Bush voters are less likely to talk to pollsters than Bush voters in 2000. This would be a major change from 2000 where the margins of error were random.

b. Kerry voters were more motivated to talk to exit pollsters than Gore voters were. Again, this would be a first.

c. The sample precincts used by exit pollsters to cluster sample have changed radically from 2000. Based on some counties I have already looked at, this seems unlikely - but results need to be finalized.

d. The exit polls were correct, but there was an error in the vote count. This seems the less likely occurrence of all (unlike Florida 2000 where many Gore votes were either made incorrectly or counted incorrectly) but this is the first election that incorporated major use of the paperless ballot. Fortunately, this is easily tested after the 2004 votes are completed by seeing if the change from 2000 for paperless electronic voting counties is significantly different than the other counties.

2. What is the battleground for 2008?

My preliminary analysis shows that the extreme states (NY, HI, ID, etc) became less extreme, contrary to my model. My model preformed well in ranking the states but could not predict the dramatic movement by the extreme states. Most of the battleground moved to the left, the middle state was Ohio in this election. This may be good news for the Democrats in the future as it now appears they can win the election without winning the popular vote (assuming they can be competitive), a major switch from 2000. Again, there are many absentee and provisional votes to be counted which may affect the final results.

Why were the exit polls so wrong?

After reading the 6PM exit polls, it seemed clear that my projection and Zogby's were dead on - that we were heading to a close Kerry victory - instead we get not only a close Bush electoral victory but about a 3 million popular vote victory - a popular vote much different than 2000 - different in that if Ohio had shifted 150,000 votes, the popular vote would have shifted only 2 million - Kerry would have been the one who won the electoral vote and lost the popular vote. What happened?

I will research this thouroughly once I have all the final numbers. Here are my preliminary thoughts.

First, the exit polls and the actual vote:

6PM exits Vote Result
Kerry Bush Kerry Bush Diff
PA 53 46 51 49 -2.5
FL 51 49 47 52 -3.5
NC 48 52 43 56 -4.5
OH 51 49 49 51 -2
MO 46 54 46 54 0
AR 47 53 45 54 -1.5
MI 51 47 51 48 -0.5
NM 50 49 49 50 -1
LA 43 56 42 57 -1
CO 48 51 46 53 -2
AZ 45 55 44 55 -0.5
MN 54 44 51 48 -3.5
WI 52 47 50 49 -2
IA 49 49 49 50 -0.5

Every exit poll in every battleground state erred in favor of Kerry. The odds of this occuring randomly is about 1 in 16000. Clearly, the exit polls had a systemic problem.

At Mystery Pollster there is a discussion as to possible reasons as to why the polling was wrong. Blumenthal suggests that the Incumbent Rule may not have held up in this election because of the war. That may be true, but that doesn't explain the bad exit polls where there are no undecideds. There is somethign else at work here.

One of the commenters (a New Yorker) said he was a closet Bush supporter but didn't want to tell anyone becuase of the anti Bush sentiment. Perhaps that played a role.

During the election night, I was comparing 2004 to 2000 county returns of the key states. I noticed that the increase in turnout in the Bush counties was higher than the increase in turnout in the Gore counties. Additionally in Florida, although the blue counties voted for Kerry at approximately the same percentage as 2000 for Gore, the red counties voted more heavily for Bush than they did in 2000. This combination of greater increase in turnout and higher percentage for Bush in the Red counties explains explains Bush's 370,000 vote win in Florida.

How did the exit polls miss this? It's not early voting as exit polls account for that in independent sampling and includes them in their projections. I have a theory that I will test later when I have more data:

Fear won this election for Bush.

1. Conservative Christians voted in much larger numbers than they ever have driven to the polls by two gut issues: fear of terrorism and fear of gay marriage. Also, this group is more distrustful of pollsters and was therefore undersampled.

2. A quick analysis of the returns also showed the reason that the popular voted was so skewed. Some blue states - particularly NY - did much better for Bush than the expected Partisan Index for a 3% Bush victory. I will do a county by county analysis later. NY of course was deeply affected by 9/11 and may have been more swayed by Bush's campaign of fear.

3. The gender gap decreased significantly from 2000 - scared moms?

Fear is a powerful tool - it built the Pyramids. I believe the data will show Bush's brilliant campaign of fear successfully brought out of his silent base - the secret army that the pollsters missed.

My projection shows Kerry will not catch up in Ohio.

The popular vote will be close - the elctoral vote is over.

My model had the states ranked correctly, the exit polls were again all wrong.

LATE EXIT POLLS

Kerry Bush

PA 53 46
FL 51 49
NC 48 52
OH 51 49
MO 46 54
AR 47 53
MI 51 47
NM 50 49
LA 43 56
CO 48 51
AZ 45 55
MN 54 44
WI 52 47
IA 49 49




SENATE AK: Knowles 50 - Murk 47 CO Salazar 51, Coors 47 FL Castor 51, Martinez 48 KY Bunning 52, Mongiardo 48 LA Vitter may get the 50 percent that would elect him, 51 percent NC Burr 50 Bowles 48 OK Coburn 51 Carson 46 SC DeMint 50.2 - Tenenbaum 49.8SD Thune 50 Daschle 50

ZOGBY PREDICTION MATCHES POLIMETRICS!!!

The top pollster in the country has called the election for Kerry 311 to 213 with NV and CO too close to call. Yesterday, we made exactly the same call on the 48 states he called, plus we didn't wimp out on two states. Our call gave NV to Kerry and CO to Bush making our prediction 316-222.

Thank you John for seeing the light.

Update: More evidence of a Kerry victory. Both the tradesports and Iowa Future Markets have dramatically moved towards Kerry. Gamblers know.

Afternoon Exit Polls

FL: 50/49 - KERRY
OH: 52/47 - KERRY
MI: 51/48 - KERRY
PA: 58/42 - KERRY
IA: 50/48 - KERRY
WI: 53/47 - KERRY
MN: 57/42 - KERRY
NH: 58/41 - KERRY
ME: 55/44 - KERRY
NM: 49/49 - TIE
NV: 48/49 - BUSH
CO: 49/50 - BUSH
AR: 45/54 - BUSH
NC: 47/53 - BUSH

I will not vouch for these from mydd.com but they look good for Kerry.

Another indicator that change is the air is the Florida Latino Vote:

Hispanics 53-46 Bush (2000 was 65-35 Bush)
Cubans 68-32 Bush (2000 was 82-17 Bush)

early exit poll numbers

For what they're worth:

State
Kerry
Bush

AZ CO LA PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH
45 48 42 60 52 51 51 50 58 52 49 57
55 51 57 40 48 48 47 48 40 43 49 41

With all the early voting, I have no idea how to interpret these numbers. 4 years ago, they were wrong, but I would rather be Kerry than Bush with these numbers.

Senate and House Projections

from easiest to hardest:

Things have imprioved for the GOP, mainly because the contested seats are in red states.

Illinois: Democrat pick-up. Sure thing

Georgia: Republican "pick-up" Nearly sure thing

South Carolina: Republican pick-up - state is just too GOP for even a moron like DeMint to throw away.

Louisiana: Runoff in December. No one will get 50%

Kentucky: Republican Hold - Bunning will resign sometime after the election and be replaced with a Republican who is not ill.

Alaska: Democrat pick-up - Knowles is popular.

Colorado: Democratic pick-up - Salazar looks good here

Florida: Democratic Hold - Kerry's win will give Castor the edge.

Oklahoma: Republican hold - Another GOP stronghold

South Dakota: Republican pick-up - The Incumbant rule works against the minority leader.

North Carolina: Democratic Hold - this is just a guess because I won't pick a tie.

That makes it 51-47-1 with LA to be resolved. The GOP holds as states have recently been breaking their way. I believe the GOP will hold the House, but not gain seats so Kerry will have a GOP congress. With Delay in charge, the House will be extremely unfriendly to Kerry, but the new President will have a much better relationship with his stomping grounds. He is well respected by several GOP senators: Hagel, McCain, Luger, Spector, Chafee, Snowe to name a few. He knows how the Senate works. Expect new Kerry legeslation to be negotiated with his buddy GOP Senators.

Final Projection 11/1 6:00 PM
Kerry 60,502,000 50.0% 291 EV
Bush 58,524,000 48.4% 247 EV
Other 1,936,000 1.6%

click here for electoral map

Probability Bush wins each state:
NM 24.9%
IA 29.7%
FL 29.8%
OH 54.0%

Overall Winning Probability:
Kerry 83.8% Bush 16.1%

Bush -/+ Today (Yesterday)

-75.8 (-75.8) District of Columbia
-32.3 (-32.2) Massachusetts
-28.1 (-28.0) Rhode Island
-27.8 (-27.6) New York
-20.9 (-20.8) Connecticut
-19.1 (-18.7) New Jersey
-18.0 (-18.9) Maryland
-17.8 (-17.7) Delaware
-17.5 (-17.4) Vermont
-14.1 (-14.0) Hawaii
-14.0 (-13.7) California
-13.6 (-14.4) Illinois
-10.6 (-12.2) Maine
-9.1 (-8.5) Washington
-6.4 (-6.4) Michigan
-6.1 (-6.3) Pennsylvania
-5.4 (-4.6) Minnesota
-5.4 (-5.4) Oregon
-4.7 (-3.4) New Hampshire
-3.7 (-3.6) Wisconsin
-1.7 (-1.6) New Mexico
-1.3 (-1.4) Iowa
-1.3 (-1.0) Florida
0.3 (1.0) Ohio
2.0 (0.6) Nevada
3.4 (3.4) Missouri
4.6 (4.7) Virginia
5.3 (4.8) Colorado
5.6 (7.9) West Virginia
7.1 (7.2) Arkansas
8.2 (4.4) Arizona
10.7 (10.8) Louisiana
12.3 (11.8) North Carolina
13.0 (12.6) Georgia
13.3 (10.8) Tennessee
14.1 (14.2) Mississippi
15.2 (17.8) Alabama
16.2 (17.4) South Carolina
18.0 (9.4) Indiana
19.3 (18.1) Kentucky
21.9 (22.0) Kansas
22.0 (22.1) Texas
22.4 (22.5) South Dakota
22.7 (22.8) Alaska
23.5 (23.6) Montana
23.9 (24.0) North Dakota
27.1 (27.2) Nebraska
28.3 (27.9) Oklahoma
35.9 (36.0) Idaho
37.0 (37.1) Wyoming
43.4 (43.5) Utah

Current Battleground Chart
Polimetrics Partisan Index
Polimetrics Partisan Index - Electoral Vote Analysis

This is my final run which again shows little change from yesterday as undecided voters continue to break towards Kerry as expected. Ohio is nearly tied now which makes Kerry a 5-1 Favorite tomorrow.

MY PREDICTION

Kerry will win, and my model is probably conservative:

If I go by only the polls, Kerry adds Ohio and increases his margin in Florida for a 311-227 win.

Every poll and early voting has shown turnout will be high. I rarely believe the turnout predictions, but empirical evidence supports that claim. For example:
1/3 of Florida voters have already voted.
There are 6 million more registered voters than my original projection based on US Census data. Heavy turnout is bad for Bush. As Sabato says, "most of those new voters will not be coming out to say, 'Good job Mr. President.'.

Conservatives have Kerry ahead or tied. Sabato predicts a 269-269 tie. Fox poll has Kerry ahead in the nation and Florida using conservative likely voter screens. Gallup has the race a tie with another sample that is plus 5 GOP.

My final prediction: Kerry wins 51.5%-47.0%-1.5%, 121 million total votes. He will add Nevada for a 316-222 win. There will be no lawsuits.