Election Day is only three days away, and this is what could be the final edition of the unfutz survey of Electoral College tracking / prediction / projection / forecast / scoreboard / map sites. (I hope to do another on Monday, depending on the quality of web access I have in London.)
Since I've been publishing the survey, my traffic has increased tremendously (pushing it right up to #139 in the Truth Laid Bare listing), a situation I'm sure will be reversed once the election is over, if only because at least half of the people who drop by here are of the opposite political ideology from me. Still, I hope that a few folks will want to stop by again and see what's here once I return to normal blogging.
I'd like to thank everyone who linked to the survey or helped to promote it, including Larry Allen, Chris Bowers, Chuck Buckley, Dales, DavidNYC, Scott Elliot, Taegan Goddard, John Orr, Alcon San Croix, TruthIsAll, Sam Wang and David Wissing. (My apologies to anyone I may have inadvertantly overlooked.) My thanks also to those who offered tips, advice and opinions about the survey -- I appreciated them all.
Here's where we are as we come down the home stretch:
ELECTORAL COLLEGE TRACKING SITES
Larry Allen (10/27 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 243 - Bush 237 - ?? 58 (FL, IA, OH, NH) (not updated)
Boston Globe (10/29): Kerry 171 - Bush 218 - ?? 149 (was: 188-192-108)
Chris Bowers (10/29): Kerry 311 - Bush 227 (was: 291-247)
Brian Calhoun (10/30): Kerry 242 - Bush 296 (no change)
CBS (10/30): Kerry 190 - Bush 222 - ?? 126 (was: 190-227-121)
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.
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)
With less than a week to go, here's the third bi-weekly edition of the unfutz survey of Electoral College tracking / prediction / projection / forecast / scoreboard / map sites:
ELECTORAL COLLEGE TRACKING SITES
Larry Allen (10/27): Kerry 243 - Bush 237 - ?? 58 (FL, IA, OH, NH) (was: 247-274-17)
AP (10/23 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 207 - Bush 222 - ?? 109 (not updated)
Chris Bowers (10/25): Kerry 291 - Bush 247 (no change)
Business Week (10/22 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 242 - Bush 234 - ?? 62 (FL, OH, NM, WI) (not updated)
Brian Calhoun (10/27): Kerry 242 - Bush 296 (no change)
CBS (10/27): Kerry 190 - Bush 227 - ?? 121 (was; 217-222-99)
CNN (10/22 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 261 - Bush 277 (not updated)
Boston Globe: Kerry 188 - Bush 192 - ?? 108 (new to survey)
Philadelphia Inquirer: Kerry 168 - Bush 166 - ?? 204 (new to survey)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Kerry 207 - Bush 222 - ?? 109 (new to survey)
USA Today: Kerry 171 - Bush 205 - ?? 162 (new to survey)
Washington Post (restored): Kerry 179 - Bush 208 - ?? 151 (new to survey)
(Note: The Editor and Publisher roundup of media Electoral College tracking maps also includes the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which are included in this survey in their own entries.)
Sites without unassigned states MEAN: Kerry 269 - Bush 269 [tie] (no change)
MEDIAN: Kerry 267 - Bush 271 (was: 268-270)
(For what "mean", "median" and "mode" are, see "Notes" below.)
RANGE Kerry max: 321 (316) Kerry min: 153 (153)
Bush max: 310 (311) Bush min: 166 (158)
SUMMARY
It's quiet out there -- too quiet.
According to the averages, Bush dropped 4 votes from the last survey, while Kerry's change was +2 to -5. That left Bush with a 2 to 4 vote advantage over Kerry, a little less than last time, when he lead by 3 to 8 votes.
Bush currently has 252 to 257 votes, and Kerry has 248 to 255.
There was little movement in other statistics, none of which indicated a significant advantage for either candidate.
UPDATES & CORRECTIONS
For a few days after I publish the survey, I'll make corrections, note updates, 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.
Expected publishing schedule: Saturday 30 October (in the early a.m.), and, if possible, Monday 1 November (from London).
As of the next survey (which will either be the last or the penultimate), I'll be including only those sites which are current (i.e. updated within three or four days maximum). Stagnant sites will be ruthlessly purged.
(10/28) Thanks to Richard Martin for pointing out that I used the wrong numbers from Election Projection. I've corrected them and updated the stats and summary.
(10/28) The Zogby Interactives are out, dated 10/28 and representing polling from 10/25 to 10/28. The associated Electoral College count is Kerry 231 - Bush 286 - ?? 21.
(10/28) An informal walk-through of almost all the sites at just before 3am Eastern (Thursday-Friday overnight) shows no real signs of movement. Bush is at 252-255 votes (from 252-257) and Kerry is at 246-256 (from 248-255). That's anywhere from a 6 point lead for Bush to a 1 point lead for Kerry, as opposed to a 2 to 4 votes lead for Bush yesterday -- so each candidate could be said to be doing better, except that no one's managing to make any real headway, at least according to this metric.
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:
mattb25 (10/19 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 316 - Bush 222 (out of date)
Benjamin Schak (10/19 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 264 - Bush 274 (out of date)
Young Conservatives (10/20 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 214 - Bush 295 - ?? 29 (IA, MN, NM, OR) (out of date)
Zogby/WSJ (10/19 - not updated since last survey): Kerry 264 - Bush 274 (out of date)
(Note: The Zogby Interactives were updated on 10/28. See "Updates" above.)
A list of sites removed in previous weeks is here.
Ed Fitzgerald (10/24): Kerry 293 - Bush 245 (was: 266-272)
(Note: Updated on 10/27 to Kerry 300 - Bush 238. That's is my estimation of the current status. My Election Day prediction -- as of 10/23 and due for an update soon -- is Kerry 294 - Bush 244. Also, see "Notes" below.)
Sites without unassigned states MEAN: Kerry 269 - Bush 269 (was: 272-266)
MEDIAN: Kerry 268 - Bush 270 (was: 269.5-268.5)
(For what "mean", "median" and "mode" are, see "Notes" below.)
RANGE Kerry max: 316 (316) Kerry min: 153 (153)
Bush max: 311 (308) Bush min: 158 (168)
SUMMARY
The dead heat continues.
By the evidence of the collective wisdom of the Electoral College trackers, Bush and Kerry are still essentially tied, with perhaps a slight edge to Bush -- Bush has 256 to 261 votes, while Kerry has 253.
(Judging by the average of sites without unassigned states makes the tie even clearer: Bush has 269 to 270 votes, and Kerry has 268 to 269.)
Bush managed to improve his position a little from the last survey 3 days ago (by 3 to 5 votes), while Kerry remained about the same, leaving Bush with a 3 to 8 vote advantage on Kerry, not enough to be considered significant.
Bush is ahead on sites declaring him the winner (24 to 20), sites declaring him ahead (12 to 6) and sites declaring him winning or ahead (36 to 26), all just about the same or slightly less than in the last survey.
UPDATES & CORRECTIONS
For a few days after I publish the survey, I'll make corrections, note updates, 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.
Expected publishing schedule: Wednesday 27 October, Saturday 30 October (in the a.m.), and possibly Monday 1 November (from London).
(10/25) I had dropped the Business Week analysis because I couldn't find an update, but I finally ran across it, dated 10/22, so I restored it to the survey and updated the stats and summary.
(10/25) A new site, Ramblings on Uncertainty by a blogger named "risk_analyst" has Kerry 279 - Bush 259 as of 10/25. I'll be adding this site to the next iteration of the survey, scheduled for Wednesday (probably late night).
(10/25) Andrea Moro has added calculations using Real Clear Politics and Tradesports data to her site, joining her original calculations based on 2.004k.com data.
(10/25) In between iterations of the survey, I visit many of the sites on it to see what's going on, and I've lately starting keeping a running tally of their figures. Right now (as of about 3:30am Eastern on Monday-Tuesday overnight) it seems to indicate a bit of slippage for Kerry, with 251-253 votes (down from 253), while Bush stayed about the same, with 256-260 (from 256-261). Please note that these informal averages do not include updated figures from all the sites on the survey.
(10/26) Another informal walk-thru of most of the sites (about 2am, Tues-Wed) shows Kerry picking up a small number of votes, and Bush staying the same, but also staying ahead: Kerry 255 - Bush 256 to 259.
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:
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
guest-blogged for:
Be sure to visit them all!!
recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
E-mail
All e-mail received is subject to being published on unfutz without identifying names or addresses.
Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
