Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth

Category Archives: US Presidential Election 2008

Long live the king

Best of luck to Barack Obama as well. However, the truly momentous and inspirational aspect of yesterday’s result was my almost perfect prediction of it, as published in Crikey last Friday. Obama has carried the erstwhile red states of Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, Florida and Indiana, with two states coming down to [...]

US election live

10.48pm. Oregon Senate race still close: Republican incumbent Gordon Smith leads Democrat Jeff Merkley 47.7 per cent to 46.7 per cent with 74 per cent of precincts reporting. Coleman now leads Franken by 676 votes (0.02 per cent) with 99.9 per cent reporting.
9.25pm. An extra 0.3 per cent of precincts in Minnesota have widened Coleman’s [...]

Presidential election minus two days

Or possibly one day, depending on what time zone you’re in. This will in any case be the final thread for presidential fat-chewing purposes prior to the live blogging of the count, which will begin an hour or two before the first states close their polls. Firstly we have the latest polling aggregate figures, in [...]

Presidential election minus five days

With less than a week ago to the big day, the polls are showing only a fractional narrowing in Barack Obama’s formidable lead. Such narrowing has been enough to move North Carolina to the John McCain column on my polling aggregates while making Indiana line-ball, but Obama is retaining his tight grip on the rust-belt [...]

Presidential election minus 10 days

Since our previous episode we’ve had individual polls from red states Georgia and Montana showing Barack Obama narrowly in front, so they’re now included in the polling aggregates. However, John McCain leads in both due to the overall polling picture from the past few weeks. The other remarkable development has been an Obama blowout in [...]

Presidential election minus 17 days

Two states have moved to the McCain column on my weighted aggregates: Ohio, where polling for McCain remains surprisingly strong, and West Virginia, where a 50-42 result from Public Policy Polling puts the state back where it should probably have been all along. Obama’s lead in North Dakota is largely based on what was probably [...]

Presidential election minus 21 days

A new swing state has come on to the radar courtesy of the Public Affairs Institute at Minnesota State University Moorhead, which has conducted a poll of 606 voters in North Dakota showing Barack Obama leading John McCain 45 per cent to 43 per cent. That might not be much to go on – the [...]

Presidential election minus 26 days

I’ve added a new item of methodology for state polling aggregates: as many days’ worth of polling will be included from a given state as is necessary to produce a sample of more than 3000. The base line remains October 1. Apart from that, polls are being adjusted to incorporate the shift in the [...]

McCain versus Obama debate thread

A thread for discussion of the US presidential debate as it happens. As with last week’s vice-presidential debate, I won’t tell you shut up if you indulge in partisan name-calling. The other thread remains open for those wishing to discuss the presidential race more broadly.

Presidential election minus 29 days

As much for personal amusement as anything else, I will henceforth be doing my own polling aggregates for swing states. To account for the fact that state polling lags behind the nightly national tracking polls, each result is adjusted according to the change in the Real Clear Politics national average since the date of the [...]