[MLUG - DISCUSSION] it will be a long night if...

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 08:26:05 -0600, Spurling, Shannon <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> Well, is the Nickelodeon poll just an online poll? Do they have to hold
> a membership? Is there a possibility of some adult going in and skewing
> the results?

All of the above, I think. :-)  Seriously, I don't have time to
research it, but I'm pretty sure the "turn-out" in the Weekly Reader
poll was lower than previous years, while Nickelodeon turn-out was
larger.  But in *both* cases, the power of the polls is not that they
aren't skewed (they are) but that they are sampling from what often
turns out to be a swing demographic: children with voting age parents
who send not-so-subtle cues about who the kids should like.  Any
pollster who knows anything knows how you actually predict a race: you
don't waste time sampling all kinds of people who will vote in some
predictable fashion once you've established that, yes, they will vote
in that predictable way *yet again*.  You sample from groups that have
shown *high variance* in their voting patterns, and try to find the
trend there.  This is the power behind the "key precincts" approach to
exit polling, which almost always "works".  This is also why people
spend any time thinking about the what "soccer moms" think; they
helped elect Clinton twice, but pretty much split down the middle in
2000.

In fact, the single biggest reason why a Bush supporter should be
feeling ill at ease at this moment is the finding that Kerry will
apparently take a lead among independent voters (registered w/o party
affiliation) into Election Day.  No Republican has ever won the
presidency without a lead among that group (even Bush won it narrowly
in 2000).  The second biggest reason why a Bush supporter should be
feeling ill at ease is that projections are for a rather large
turn-out.  More Republicans vote all the time than do Democrats, so
the Democratic share of the vote almost always increases with
turn-out.

While I'm on a roll here, the single biggest reason why a Kerry
supporter should be feeling ill at ease is that the election is won in
the EC, which means that Kerry either has to surprise people in places
like Colorado and/or Virginia (not the way to bet, I don't think) or
win either Ohio or Florida.  To the extent that campaigning does
anything, neither of these are safe for anybody matter what anybody
says.

If you're talking about individual early state returns, we know this:

It will be a long night for Bush if:

1) He loses New Hampshire by more than 5 points.
2) He wins North Carolina by fewer than 5 points.
3) He wins Kentucky by fewer than 10 points.

...and a very long night for him indeed if he loses Virginia.

It will be a long night for Kerry if:

1) He loses New Hampshire
2) He trails in early returns from Pennsylvania
3) People fixate on how Maine's 2nd congressional district will go.

...an a very long night for him indeed if he loses any Gore 2000 state.

So now we'll just have to see.

jking
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