• current status:
  Kerry 243 - Bush 280 - ?? 15 (NJ)
  (was: 257-274-7)
  
  
• election day prediction:
  Kerry 289 - Bush 223 - ?? 26 (CO, MI)
  (was: 288-250)

Federal Review (10/28):
Kerry 261 - Bush 277
(was: 242-296)

First in the Nation (10/30):
Kerry 258 - Bush 280
(was: 263-275)

Ed Fitzgerald:

• current estimate (10/30):
  Kerry 283 - Bush 255
  (was: 273-265)
  
  election day prediction (10/28):
  Kerry 279 - Bush 259
  (was: 294-244)

The Groundhog (George Axiotakis) (10/29):
Kerry 279 - Bush 259
(was: 284-254)

LA Times (10/29):
Kerry 153 - Bush 168 - ?? 217
(was: 153-190-195)

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

• state by state medians (10/30)
  Kerry 262 - Bush 276
  (was: 267-271)
  
  
• overall medians (10/30)
  Kerry 269 - Bush 269 [tie]
  (was: 267-271)
  
  
• state polls aggregate (10/29)
  Kerry 203 - Bush 256 - ?? 79
  (was: 224-239-75)

E. Alan Meece (10/29):
Kerry 272 - Bush 266
(was: 246-262-30)

Mind the Gap (10/27 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 276 - Bush 262
(not updated)

Andrea Moro (10/30):

• 2.400k data:
  Kerry 247 - Bush 291
  (was: 276-262)
  
  
• Real Clear Politics data:
  Kerry 265 - Bush 273
  (was: 254-284)

MyDD (10/30):
Kerry 262 - Bush 276
(was: 281-257)

My Election Analysis (10/28):
Kerry 258 - Bush 280
(no change)

National Journal's Hotline (10/29):
Kerry 184 - Bush 217 - ?? 137
(was: 243-217-78)

New York Times (10/30):
Kerry 184 - Bush 217 - ?? 137
(was: 225-227-86)

Now Channel (was 2.004k.com) (10/30):
Kerry 238 - Bush 300
(was: 282-246-10)

Political Oddsmaker (10/27 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 238 - Bush 242 - ?? 58
(not updated)

Pollbooth (10/28)
Kerry 242 - Bush 276 - ?? 20 (OH)
(was: 238-276-24)

Pollkatz (10/26 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 287 - Bush 251
(not updated)

President Elect 2004 (10/28):
Kerry 255 - Bush 283
(was: 261-277)

Race2004 (10/30):

• current poll status
  Kerry 179 - Bush 207 - ?? 152
  (was: 194-243-101)
  
  
• election held today
  Kerry 264 - Bush 274
  (was: 273-265)

Ramblings on Uncertainty (10/29):
Kerry 275 - Bush 263
(was: 278-260)

Rasmussen (10/28):
Kerry 203 - Bush 222 - ?? 113
(was: 207-222-109)

Real Clear Politics (10/30):
Kerry 207 - Bush 232 - ?? 99 (FL,IA,MN,NH,OH,PA,WI)
(was: 228-234-76)

Red State Blue State (10/28):
Kerry 227 - Bush 311
(was: 228-310)

Larry Sabato (10/26 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 262 - Bush 276
(not updated)

Search The Links (10/29):
Kerry 254 - Bush 234 - ?? 50 (CO, FL, NH, WI)
(was: 234-248-56)

Robert Silvey (10/28):
Kerry 248 - Bush 290
(was: 277-261)

Slate (10/30):
Kerry 272 - Bush 266
(was: 262-276)

Strategisphere (10/27):
Kerry 264 - Bush 274
(was: 255-283)

Tradesports/intrade (10/30):

• Fitzgerald conversion [50 = toss-up]
  Kerry 262 - Bush 276
  (was: 242-296)
  
  
• Geekmedia conversion [45-55 = toss-up]
  Kerry 242 - Bush 254 - ?? 42 (IA, NM, OH, WI)
  (was: 242-276-20)

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

Tripias (10/28):
Kerry 257 - Bush 281
(no change)

TruthIsAll (10/30):
Kerry 321 - Bush 217
(no change)

USA Today (10/29):
Kerry 165 - Bush 205 - ?? 169
(was: 171-205-162)

Sam Wang's Meta-Analysis (10/30):
Kerry 281 - Bush 257
(was: 309-229)

Washington Dispatch (10/29):
Kerry 229 - Bush 309
(was: 247-291)

Washington Post (10/29):
Kerry 179 - Bush 208 - ?? 151
(no change)

Wayne in Missouri (10/29):
Kerry 259 - Bush 280
(was: 243-295)

David Wissing (10/30):
Kerry 238 - Bush 300
(was: 277-261)

Zogby/WSJ (10/28 - restored):
Kerry 231 - Bush 286 - ?? 21
(was: 264-274)


STATS

60 PROJECTIONS FROM 53 SITES
(was: 67 from 60 - 8 dropped, 1 restored, 0 new, 0 news reports)

Kerry winning: 18 (was: 21)
Kerry ahead: 2 (4)

Tied: 1 (0)

Bush winning: 25 (23)
Bush ahead: 16 (19)

        gained      lost     no change
Kerry   28 (15)    27 (23)    10 (11)
Bush    23 (27)    22 b(4)    10  (8)
??      11  (7)     9 (10)     2 (2)

Site no change: 5 (7)
Site not updated: 5 (11)

New: 0 (7)
News reports: 0 (0)

Restored: 1 (1)
Dropped: 8 (4)


AVERAGES
MEAN: Kerry 245 - Bush 256 - ?? 37
(was: 248-252-38)

MEDIAN: Kerry 245.5 - Bush 262.5 - (remainder: 21)
(was: 255-257-26)

MODE: Kerry 262 [n=4] - Bush 276 [n=5]
(was: 242-222-74)

JOINT MODE: Kerry 262 - Bush 276 [n=4]
(was: 207-222-107)

Sites without unassigned states
MEAN: Kerry 266 - Bush 272
(269-269)

MEDIAN: Kerry 264 - Bush 274
(was: 267-271)

(For what "mean", "median" and "mode" are, see "Notes" below.)

RANGE
Kerry max: 321 (321)
Kerry min: 153 (153)

Bush max: 311 (310)
Bush min: 168 (166)

SUMMARY

According to the evidence of the Electoral College trackers, the race continues to be quite tight, but Bush has managed to maintain and increase his lead over Kerry.

Bush has 256-263 votes (a gain of 4-6), while Kerry has 245-246 (a drop of 3 to 9 votes). Bush's lead over Kerry, which was 2-4 votes, increased to 11-17.

(They are more closely positioned when considering only the projections of sites which don't show unassigned -- i.e. toss-up or tied -- states: Bush 272-274 vs. Kerry 264-266.)

Bush continues to maintain an edge in sites showing him winning, sites showing him ahead, and sites showing him ahead or winning, but the margins are all almost precisely the same as last time. Bush was also, again, slightly ahead in sites where he gained votes from last time, and in sites where Kerry lost votes, but, again the margins are virtually the same as the survey done several days ago.

It begins to seem definitive, here quite near the end of things, that the collective wisdom of the Electoral College trackers is not going to give us a clear answer to the question of who is going to win the election. The evidence seems to be that the race is tied, with a modest advantage to Bush. The questions for partisans of both sides would then seem to be:

• Will Bush's incumbency be to his advantage, wielding the power of the status quo, fear of change, and not rocking the boat, or will the "incumbent rule" hold true and the bulk of the undecideds go for Kerry, giving him the margin he needs?
  
  
• Which party will be most successful at getting their people to the polls, and will the various factors which serve to suppress votes (complaceny, legal maneuvres and dirty tricks) play a significant part in determining the balance of voters?

UPDATES & CORRECTIONS

• I'm leaving for London later today, so I won't have a lot of opportunity to update this edition of the survey (although (I'll try to do a little before I go). This may or may not be the last edition of the survey, depending on the quality (and cost) of the web access I'll have. If possible, I'll put out another one on Monday 1 November from the U.K.
  
  
• (10/30 2pm) I've gone through all the sites and updated quite a few of them -- due to time contraints I'll list them here instead of marking them individually: Dales, DC's, Election Projection, Elector-vote, Leip, Moro, NYT, Race2004, TruthIsAll, Wang, Wissing, NowChannel. I've updated the averages and other states and rewritten the summary to reflect Bush's slightly larger gain over Kerry than before the updates.
  
  
• (10/31) Andrew Howard has a site, new to the survey, similar to Andrea Moro's, in which the user can specify what poll data to use to run simulations with. Using the data that Howard himself provides, on 10/31, the results are Kerry 280-284 - Bush 254-258. If I'm able to do an update tomorrow, I'll include this site in it.
  
  
• (10/31) After having some FTP problems, Alcon San Croix has updated his site. Results as of 10/30: Kerry 227 - Bush 284 - ?? 25 (OH, ME-2, NH). I'll restore his site in the next survey, if there is one.

PREVIOUS SURVEYS

27-Oct / 24-Oct / 21-Oct / 18-Oct / 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. Two weeks has been the allowance for keeping a "stagnant" site in the survey, but that changed to 10 days begining with this iteration. This will tighten to one week and then, just before the election, I may choose to make it even more restrictive.

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.

Averages

• "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.

A note on my own numbers

I want to make it clear, just in case it isn't already, that the numbers I publish here under my own name (Ed Fitzgerald) are the result of my own methodology, and are not in any way connected with the results of this survey, except that they constitute a single pair of data points in it. That is, neither my current estimation of the system's status, nor my prediction about its final state on Election Day, are meant to illustrate the collective wisdom of the Electoral College trackers, which can be found in the "Summary" section above and the graphs connected to it.


NOT INCLUDED

The following site which appeared in the previous edition of the survey were removed, for the reasons indicated:

AP (10/23 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 207 - Bush 222 - ?? 109
(out of date)

Business Week (10/22 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 242 - Bush 234 - ?? 62 (FL, OH, NM, WI)
(out of date)

Editor and Publisher (10/27 - new):

• Philadelphia Inquirer:
  Kerry 168 - Bush 166 - ?? 204
  (can't find URL)
  
  
• South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
  Kerry 207 - Bush 222 - ?? 109
  (can't find URL)

Hardball Horserace (10/25):
Kerry 207 - Bush 222 - ?? 109
(out of date)

Matthew Hubbard (10/23 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 270 - Bush 268
(out of date)

Samboni's State-by-State (10/24 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 280 - Bush 231 - ?? 27 (FL)
(out of date)

Alcon San Croix (10/24 - not updated since last survey):
Kerry 280 - Bush 253 - ?? 5 (NH, ME-2)
(out of date)

(Note: Updated now -- see "Updates" above.)

A list of sites removed in previous weeks is here.