(Note: I've updated to Kerry 263 - Bush 275.)

The Groundhog (George Axiotakis) (10/12 - new):
Kerry 301 - Bush 237
(new to survey)

Hardball Horserace (10/13):
Kerry 200 - Bush 217 - ?? 121
(no change)

Matthew Hubbard (10/16):
Kerry 277 - Bush 227 - ?? 34 (FL, IA)
(was: 284-254)

LA Times (10/18 - updated):
Kerry 170 - Bush 148 - ?? 220
(was: 153-167-218)

Dave Leip's Atlas (500 "most recent" user predictions - updated):

• state by state medians (10/18)
  Kerry 284 - Bush 254
  (was: 254-284)
  
  
• overall medians (10/18)
  Kerry 274 - Bush 264
  (was: 269-269)
  
  
• state polls aggregate (10/16)
  Kerry 203 - Bush 240 - ?? 95
  (was: 217-250-71)

E. Alan Meece (10/17 - new):
Kerry 246 - Bush 228 - ?? 64 (FL, IA, OH, WI)
(new to survey; was 246-265-27 on 10/13)

Mind the Gap (10/7 - new):
Kerry 270 - Bush 268
(new to survey; was 249-289 on 9/28)

Andrea Moro (was "Amoro"; 10/18 - updated):
Kerry 270.5 - Bush 267.5
(was: 262-275-1)

MyDD (10/18):
Kerry 291 - Bush 247
(was: 274-264)

My Election Analysis (10/16):
Kerry 247 - Bush 288 - ?? 3
(was: 238-300)

National Journal's Hotline (via C-SPAN @ 0:58:00; 10/15):
Kerry 221 - Bush 245 - ?? 72
(was: 218-245-75)

New York Times (10/18):
Kerry 221 - Bush 213 - ?? 104
(was: 221-232-85)

Political Oddsmaker (10/18 - updated):
Kerry 243 - Bush 279 - ?? 16
(was: 248-279-11)

Pollbooth (10/18 - updated)
Kerry 246 - Bush 287 - ?? 5 (ME-1, CO-4)
(was: 242-287-9)

Pollkatz (10/18):
Kerry 282 - Bush 256
(was: 277-261)

President Elect 2004 (10/14):
Kerry 255 - Bush 283
(was: 245-293)

Race2004 (10/18):

• current poll status
  Kerry 218 - Bush 196 - ?? 124
  (was: 243-196-99)
  
  
• election held today
  Kerry 284 - Bush 254
  (was: 264-274)

Rasmussen (10/15):
Kerry 194 - Bush 213 - ?? 131
(was: 194-240-104)

Real Clear Politics (10/18 - updated):
Kerry 220 - Bush 227 - ?? 91 (IA,ME-1,FL,NM,OH,PA,WI)
(was: 220-269-54)

Red State Blue State (10/15):
Kerry 237 - Bush 301
(was: 227-311)

Larry Sabato (10/19 - updated):
Kerry 254 - Bush 284
(no change)

Samboni's State-by-State (10/16):
Kerry 263 - Bush 253 - ?? 22 (IA, NJ)
(was: 291-247)

Alcon San Croix (10/18 - updated):
Kerry 241 - Bush 255 - ?? 42 (IA, NM, OH, WI)
(was: 241-292-5)

SF Chronicle (10/15 - news report):
Kerry 179 - Bush 202 - ?? 157
(new to survey)

(Note: One of the numbers given in the Chronicle article is not correct. The toss-up states they list represent 157 electoral votes, not 153.)

Benjamin Schak (10/17):
Kerry 264 - Bush 274
(was: 244-294)

(Note: I believe there is a arithmetical error in Schak's numbers, because his votes add up to more than 538. I've taken his list of states and added up their electoral votes to come up with the numbers here.)

Search The Links (10/15):
Kerry 238 - Bush 261 - ?? 39 (NH, NM, OH, WI)
(was: 254-266-18)

Robert Silvey (10/14):
Kerry 247 - Bush 291
(was: 243-295)

Slate (10/18):
Kerry 272 - Bush 266
(was 265-273)

Tradesports/intrade (10/18):

• Fitzgerald conversion [50 = toss-up]
  Kerry 247 - Bush 291
  (no change)
  
  
• Geekmedia conversion [45-55 = toss-up]
  Kerry 247 - Bush 274 - ?? 17 (IA, WI)
  (was: 243-287-11)

(Note: For further information on converting Tradesports data see here and here.)

Tripias (10/14):
Kerry 250 - Bush 288
(was: 274-264)

TruthIsAll (10/18):
Kerry 327 - Bush 211
(was: 325-213)

Sam Wang's Meta-Analysis (10/19 - updated):
Kerry 298 - Bush 240
(was: 269-269)

Washington Dispatch (10/17):
Kerry 235 - Bush 303
(was: 269-269)

Washington Times (10/17 - news report):
Kerry 203 - Bush 254 - ?? 81
(new to survey)

Wayne in Missouri (10/15):
Kerry 238 - Bush 300
(was: 243-295)

David Wissing (10/18 - updated):
Kerry 271 - Bush 267
(was: 268-270)

Zogby/WSJ (10/6 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 322 - Bush 216
(not updated)

(Note: See "Updates" below for Zogby info.)

2.004k.com (10/18):
Kerry 279 - Bush 252 - ?? 7 (IA)
(was: 275-259-4)


STATS

62 PROJECTIONS FROM 58 SITES
(was: 57 from 53 - 2 dropped, 1 restored, 4 new, plus 2 news reports)

Kerry winning: 19 (was: 13)
Kerry ahead: 8 (3)

Tied: 0 (3)

Bush winning: 20 (25)
Bush ahead: 15 (13)

        gained      lost     no change
Kerry   29 (38)    15  (4)    14 (6)
Bush     7  (5)    38 (37)    13 (6)
??      22  (8)     2 (10)     3 (2)

Site no change: 8 (4)
Site not updated: 1 (4)

New: 4 (5)
News reports: 2 (4)

Restored: 1 (2)
Dropped: 2 (3)


AVERAGES
MEAN: Kerry 250 - Bush 253 - ?? 35
(was: 249-261-28)

MEDIAN: Kerry 247 - Bush 254.5 - (remainder: 36.5)
(was: 247-266-25)

MODE: Kerry 247 [n=6] - Bush 291 [n=4]
(was: 247-264-27)

JOINT MODE: Kerry 247 - Bush 291 [n=4]
(was: 247-291)

• "Mean" is what is colloquially called "average." All items are added up and divided by the number of items.
  
  
• "Median" is the center point, the middle value in a list. There are as many values larger than the median as there are values that are smaller.
  
  
• "Mode" is the number in a list which appears the most times. The "n=" number indicates how many times the number listed appears.
  
  
• "Joint Mode" is the combination of Kerry and Bush counts which appears most frequently in the survey. The "n=" number indicates how many times it appears.

RANGE
Kerry max: 327 (325)
Kerry min: 164 (153)

Bush max: 303 (311)
Bush min: 157 (167)

SUMMARY

The gap between Bush and Kerry continued to close this week, but at a slower rate than last week, and primarily due to losses by Bush and not gains by Kerry. Kerry stayed essentially where he was, with 247 to 250 electoral votes, but Bush lost around 8 to 11 votes and ended up at 253 to 255. The net result is that Bush's roughly 50 vote lead of two weeks ago (which had been reduced down to about 15 votes last week) shrank once again, and Bush now leads Kerry by only 5 or 6 votes. However, neither candidate has enough votes to be the clear winner at this point.

Bush and Kerry are basically tied in the number of sites that list each as winning (20 for Bush, versus 19 for Kerry), but Bush has an edge in the number of sites listing him as ahead (15, versus 8). The 27 sites that showed Kerry ahead or winning was an improvement over last week for him (when he had 16 sites), while Bush's 35 sites was a slight drop from last week (38).

(Please see the note in "Updates" below concerning the original text of this summary.)







UPDATES & CORRECTIONS

• For a few days after I publish the survey, I'll update figures, make corrections, and add new sites that come to my attention. I'll note these changes here, and mark the entry for each altered site when appropriate.
  
  
• As I wrote in the introduction, my hope is to go biweekly, so the next iteration of the survey is planned to be on Thursday 21 October.
  
  
• (10/18) A number of sites updated after I originally posted earlier this evening, so as I've come across them I've marked them as updated, changed their numbers, refigured the averages and re-written the summary to match.
  
  
• (10/18) If I may interject an editorial comment, one wonders what, exactly, has to happen for Larry Sabato to make a change in his projection.
  
  
• (10/18) I made an egregious error in the original text of my summary (and then Blogger compounded it by somehow swallowing the correction I wrote) -- I wrote that approximately equal numbers of sites showed Bush and Kerry ahead or winning. This was not true at the time I wrote it (before the various sites were updated), nor is it true now. Bush at the time of the original posting had 24 sites showing him winning and 12 showing him ahead, for a total of 36. Kerry, on the other hand, had 17 showing him winning and 10 showing him ahead, a total of 27. Somehow I took 17 and 10 and added them in my head to come up with 37, which just ain't right. I've now rewritten the summary to correct the error (for the second time), and I apologize for the mistake.
  
  
• (10/19) Sam Wang has started to include the effect of the split of undecideds into his meta-analysis, and apparently I inadvertantly took the wrong set of numbers (without undecideds) off his site. Since this is in the nature of a correction, I've updated his entry and revised the averages and summary.
  
  
• (10/19) The new Zogby interactives came out today, and their analysis puts things at Kerry 264 - Bush 274. This will be included in the next iteration of the survey, just a few days from today.
  
  
• (10/20) Here's something interesting: back when I first started providing averages, I posted two sets, one for all sites, and one for sites without unassigned states (i.e. no ties or toss-ups). Later I dropped the second set, but I'm toying with the idea of bringing it back, in order to give more of a sense of where we stand once "leaners" have been accounted for. Looking at this particular survey, the "sites without ??" mean is Kerry 269 - Bush 269, and the median is Kerry 267 - Bush 271, which, I think, underlines what we already knew, that the race at this point is all but tied, with Bush very slightly ahead.

PREVIOUS SURVEYS

11-Oct / 4-Oct / 27-Sept / 19-Sept / 13-Sept / 6-Sept / 29-Aug / 22-Aug / 15-Aug / 7-Aug / 1-Aug / 25-July / 20-July / 6-July / 25-June


NOTES

From each website I've taken the most comprehensive set of numbers offered, if possible without a "toss-up" category or other caveats, just Kerry versus Bush. Many of them differentiate between "solid" or "strong", "slightly" or "weak", and "leaning" or "barely" states, but I've combined them all together in order to present numbers which are as comparable as possible.

I encourage everyone to use the links and check each site for the specifics of that site's methodology and presentation.

My convention is that Kerry is listed first and Bush second, bold type indicates a winning candidate (i.e. 270 electoral votes or more), and italics or underlining indicates a leading candidate.

Sites which haven't updated in a while will be temporarily removed from the list until they're freshened. For the first half of October I'll keep a "stagnant" site in the survey about 2 weeks. From the middle of October until the election, that will tighten up to a week at most, and perhaps less.

One-time Electoral College analysis articles from the news media (as opposed to ongoing features) will be included, but only for a single iteration of the survey (or one week, if I ever start doing it more often than once a week), unless replaced by a new article.

As always, if anyone has links for any other sites that regularly track Electoral
College status, please feel free to send them my way and I'll be glad to add them to the list. I'm also more than happy to hear from the proprietors of any of the sites surveyed here, should they have any complaints, comments, or suggestions for improvements.


NOT INCLUDED

The following sites from the last survey have been removed for the reasons indicated:

ABC (The Note) (10/11 - news report):
Kerry 231 - Bush 213 - ?? 94
(one-time news report)

The Gadflyer (average of 18 predictions; 9/30 - news report):
Kerry 284 - Bush 254
(one-time news report)


A list of sites removed in previous weeks is here