The Election

No secret I'm in the tank for Obama and have been since even before he started this run for the Presidency two years ago! It was something I heard about him on NPR shortly after it was announced that he would be giving the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. So naturally I've been following the campaigns closely, almost obsessively. To tell the truth, I've pretty much reached the limit of what I can handle--I want this to be over! Enough, already!

Yet I remain very confident about tomorrow. FiveThirtyEight.com has been using some very interesting statistical methods to predict the outcome. Their latest set of 10,000 simulations based on poll data shows Obama winning 98.1% of the time. From the site:

McCain's chances, in essence, boil down to the polling being significantly wrong, for such reasons as a Bradley Effect or "Shy Tory" Effect, or extreme complacency among Democratic voters. Our model recognizes that the actual margins of error in polling are much larger than the purported ones, and that when polls are wrong, they are often wrong in the same direction.

However, even if these phenomenon are manifest to some extent, it is unlikely that they are worth a full 6-7 points for McCain. Moreover, there are at least as many reasons to think that the polls are understating Obama's support, because of such factors as the cellphone problem, his superior groundgame operation, and the substantial lead that he has built up among early voters.

McCain's chances of victory are estimated at 1.9 percent, their lowest total of the year. (source)

What's more, the vast majority of simulations that have McCain winning require him to win Colorado, which appears unlikely given Obama's lead in early voting and his 5.5 point lead in the latest polls. So I think this is going to be a convincing victory.

Betsy and I will be at a friend's house for an Election Night party to watch the results come in....

**UPDATE: As of Tuesday morning, the simulations are showing a 98.9% chance of Obama victory**

-t