I'm glad to see you joining the chorus on this one--it's a really important point. What we need to watch, though, is Obama's numbers within the states giving him the 300-plus electoral votes. He is currently losing his lead by significant percentages in a couple of deep blue states, several medium blue states are taking on an ice blue tinge, and several genuinely up for grabs states are presently in McCain's corner.

Only the state-by-state polls matter--but Obama losing ground in them is cause for some mild concern.

I have a couple questions about this:

1. If he projects a 99% chance of Obama winning, what does this really mean? Does this mean "99% chance of winning if all conditions remain exactly the same?" Or does it mean "99% chance of winning, regardless of whether condition changes". It's the first, right? Which makes me wonder why people even make these predictions. Sure, if conditions hadn't changed, Mike Dukakis would have been president. But they did change. So what's the worth of this, really?

2. I am not entirely sure national polls are worthless. They were showing a really tight race in 00' and 04' and the race ended up being ... really tight. I do agree that state polls are more important, given the electoral college, but I don't think it's true at all that we should just stop looking at national polls. If Obama is tied with McCain on election day, I am going to be worried. Much more worried than if he wasn't tied with them. I say national polls matter. They don't solely matter, but they matter.

99%? I'm confident Obama will win, too, but if anyone were to give me 99-1 odds on McCain, I'd take 'em. The smart money over at the Iowa futures market only gives Obama about a 2-1 shot.

It's also worth remembering that summertime polls are notoriously meaningless. That's even MORE true at a state level than at a national level.

"When are we going to stop paying attention entirely to the national poll numbers?....What matters are the numbers in the individual states, as translated into the electoral map. Period."

Well, no.

We get national numbers every day, courtesy of Rasmussen and Gallup. We get Ohio and Michigan numbers every few weeks.

In other words, from our POV, the state numbers follow the national numbers. Changes in the race are seen initially in the national numbers.

So if you're curious about movement in the race, national numbers are the way to monitor things.

Kevin, thanks so much for the mention.

Yes, a cage match may be in the offing. I am convinced that simple methods are best - therefore the straightforwardness of my approach. (However, I will say that I enjoy Nate's commentary.)

One caveat to what I am doing: state polls come out less frequently than national polls, especially this far from November. So it will take a few days for recent swings to make themselves fully felt. That will change as the election approaches.

On the up side, the Meta-Analysis has a very small margin of error (MoE), so even small changes are easy to identify.

Sam Wang
Princeton University

Kevin, don't know if you noticed the comments to your "Somerby" post, but the commenters were well nigh unanimous that you misunderstood Somerby's point. He wasn't calling on Democrats to ignore the Republican attack (the strategy that didn't work for Kerry), he was calling on them to hit back by mocking it. Your "laughing it off" gloss is rather different from what Somerby meant by "laughing at" the ad. Humor and aggressive attacks/pushback are quite consistent.

Surely, you know Somerby well enough to know that -- right or wrong -- he is all for "hit[ting] back often and hard". You're welcome to disagree with him on that of course, just don't attribute it to Bob "blow torch" Somerby.

It's not a prediction - it's a snapshot of where polls stand today.

As physicist Niels Bohr (and baseball player Yogi Berra) said, "Prediction is hard - especially of the future." For this reason I don't give probabilities explicitly - too misleading. As you probably know, Nate Silver feels differently.

My view is that a high-precision data-based snapshot is more useful than a low-precision prediction of the future. With the snapshot you can see where things have been headed lately. This is also possible with national-poll averages. My result is more precise and is given in the units that matter - electoral votes.

Yes, charts like this one are cheery to look at, but it's much too early to take them very seriously. Remember Dukakis' early huge lead in the polls? There is much too much complacency these days in the left blogosphere.

I have been wondering all day about the national numbers. If they are accurate I have no idea why they move so much and so quickly, always in the direction needed to fuel the daily narrative. I am have little faith in them. I know professionals don't pay much attention to them.

A couple of weeks ago there were three Gallups out on the same day, commissioned by different agencies, with totally different results. While the polling might be accurate the pithy one Obama 47 McCain 43 or some such is probably deceptive.

"As you can see by eyeballing the chart on the right, he basically projects about a 99% chance of Obama winning the presidency"

If memory serves, Wang made similar "99% chance" predictions of Kerry winning in 2004 when Kerry was narrowly up in the polls...

The Bell Curve strikes!
.

In 2004, the snapshot was extremely accurate: http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/wsj_4nov04_pollcalc-followup.pdf
...though I confess to making a guess about how undecided voters that turned out to be wrong. The experience left me convinced that a direct, unbiased presentation of data is best. This is one reason for the automation. See the article as well as another article by the same reporter, available on my site.

In general, the method is as close to transparent as can be. All code is posted, as are explanations. This year the calculation's effective Margin of Error is less than 1 percentage point.

If anyone still has questions, I can address them there.

So what's his bottom line?

No matter what McCain, or the polls, say now, McCain is going to have to stand beside Obama on three different nights on nation-wide TV. I know that opinions vary about Obama's performances in debates, but my god, McCain has shown no talent for that activity.

Even if aided by an amazingly compliant press, its gonna take more than what McCain has shown so far (like maybe a few workable policy suggestions) to take and hold a lead in this election.

I don't think Obama optimists factor in the months long effect of his elasticity as far as his convictions are concerned. Telecom immunity, tapping the oil reserve, offshore drilling, Griswold and a slew of other policy beliefs seem no more inviolable than a Pamela Anderson marriage. Sure, he's drastically preferable to any Republican but someone tell me just what in the hell he FIRMLY believes in. Other than he should be President? Even his "Out of Iraq in 16 months or bust" pledge was later qualified with a mumbled "taking into account conditions on the ground, of course".

Thanks, Kevin. You raised my spirits today. One demographic group that I see as overwhelmingly pro-Obama, and I don't think they are being weighted heavily enough, and that is young people. I have a son who is 20 and he and all his friends, even those from very Republican families, think John McCain is a crusty old turd who is way-y-y out of touch with what is going on in the world. They LOVE the new Ludacris rap song, which Obama disavowed, and which basically rips John McCain a new asshole. They are not at all impressed that McCain spent time in a Vietnamese prison, in fact they consider him a loser for not escaping.

When I told my son that McCain didn't even know how to use a computer, he replied, "What a dumbass!" I think Obama should bring that little fact up over and over again....

I hate to keep saying this, but we've got to push really really hard to win because: the "metrics" aren't good enough in the age of trashy corporate media culture (as documented so well by Brad DeLong with his classic lament "Why oh why can't we have a better press corps", the smear and fraud machine of the Republican/corporatist establishment, deep and maybe creepy psychosocial issues, etc.

Kevin, you almost seem disappointed.

"Thanks, Kevin. You raised my spirits today."

And that seems to be Kevin's aim in how he covers the polls.

Nate Silver's commentary seems to share that aim, though his actual methodology and numbers are quite useful.

Debates are an ignis fatuus -- the debate performance of each candidate will be, absent something of Stockdalean magnitude -- what the talking heads tell us the debate performance of each candidate was.

In 2000 -- it was either the Annenberg School, or the Pew Center for the People and the Press, but I can't find my bookmark -- polling found that people who watched the debates scored Gore the winner by roughly 60-40, but people who only watched the next-day coverage of the debates scored them 60-40 for Bush.

I see no reason to believe that things have changed. Give them six weeks to beat down expectations, and McCain goes 3-0, by virtue of surviving. If he gets off one good Davis- or Schmidt-crafted one-liner, that's all you'll be allowed to remember.

I don't know Mr. Wang, but I suspect he is a partisan. I also take with a grain of salt any statistician who claims that the "effective Margin of Error is less than 1 percentage point." I'm sure he could provide some rationale for it, but I doubt that an objective statistician would agree. He also neither admits nor denies that he found a 99% probability in favor of Kerry in 2004, so that makes me pause. But it it good that he is willing to answer questions here.

On an unrelated issue, Obama just gave a fascinating interview to Gwen Ifel. Below are some answers, which include a number of odd statments (seeing his kids at the White House will change how "White children think about Black children, and it changes how Black children think about Black children") and a startling assertion that all racists are conservative -- he said that people who vote against him because of his race are "people who would [not] have voted for me, given my political philosophy, even if I were White�:

On how being the first Black president would change the racial dynamics in this country:

But the most dramatic chapter may still be unwritten. “As president, obviously the day I am inaugurated, the racial dynamics in this country will change to some degree. If you’ve got Michelle as first lady, and Malia and Sasha running around on the South Lawn, that changes how America looks at itself. It changes how White children think about Black children, and it changes how Black children think about Black children."

On whether he "really" believes America is ready for a Black president�

“I think that racial attitudes have changed sufficiently in this country, that people are willing to vote for me for president,� he responds, “if they think I can help them on health care, on education, on the issues that are important in their lives.� ...“Now, are there going to be people who don’t vote for me because I am Black? Absolutely, but I do not believe those are people who would have voted for me, given my political philosophy, even if I were White.�

On the possibility he might lose:

“I’m not afraid to lose,� he tells me. “When Michelle and I talked about this, our attitude was, it’s only worth it if we get out of this whole on the other end; if we haven’t given up who we are; if we’re pushing the envelope a little.�

http://www.essence.com/essence/lifestyle/voices/0,16109,1660030,00.html

Kevin, after complaining about point estimates without a measure of confidence in the Oprah post, I should say thank you for posting something which shows the full distribution of expected outcomes.

I don't know Mr. Wang, but I suspect he is a partisan...

Snort! I got this far and knew with certainty who had written this post.

Thanks, Kevin. You raised my spirits today. One demographic group that I see as overwhelmingly pro-Obama, and I don't think they are being weighted heavily enough, and that is young people. I have a son who is 20 and he and all his friends, even those from very Republican families, think John McCain is a crusty old turd who is way-y-y out of touch with what is going on in the world. They LOVE the new Ludacris rap song, which Obama disavowed, and which basically rips John McCain a new asshole. They are not at all impressed that McCain spent time in a Vietnamese prison, in fact they consider him a loser for not escaping.

When I told my son that McCain didn't even know how to use a computer, he replied, "What a dumbass!" I think Obama should bring that little fact up over and over again....

In a two way race, if you tell me the national percentages on election day, I can tell you how all but one or two states voted without having to see the individual results. In other words, it is the national polls that one should pay attention to. If Obama wins by 6-8 points in November, he will win every state Clinton won in 1996 except, possibly, Tennessee and West Virginia. Even if McCain wins by a percentage point, he could very well lose the election in the electoral college by losing states like Ohio, New Mexico, and Iowa.

I don't know Mr. Wang, but I suspect he is a partisan

I think a pattern of allegations is pretty meaningless, Brian. We ought to try to deal in facts, no?

Or has your mantra changed in the past 24 hours?

To answer some of the questions raised:

In 2004, the Meta-Analysis based on decided voters nailed the EV outcome: Bush 286, Kerry 252. The fact that it got the exact numerical result may be a coincidence - this requires further analysis.

In the waning weeks of October, I made an assumption about what is called the "incumbent rule," in which undecideds break for the challenger. That predicted a Kerry victory and did not pan out. I have since then concluded that adding assumptions to a polling snapshot reduces the value of the calculation considerably.

As I have said, it is updated automatically. Therefore I myself am unaware of what will happen from day to day - I visit it with the same anticipation that I hope you will. Furthermore, because the scripts are openly available, you could conceivably get your own favorite geek, Democrat or Republican, to check it.

Sam Wang

One way we can make sure that Kevin's predictions come true is to make sure that every Democrat (or Independent) you know who is living, studying or working abroad sees the following video:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=amukRM9SSoo

Can you identify the celebrity who appears in it?

One way we can make sure that Kevin's predictions come true is to make sure that every Democrat (or Independent) you know who is living, studying or working abroad sees the following video:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=amukRM9SSoo

Can you identify the celebrity who appears in it?

"When are we going to stop paying attention entirely to the national poll numbers?....What matters are the numbers in the individual states, as translated into the electoral map. Period."

This is kind of B.S. though. Think about it this way: what are the chances of a candidate winning the popular and losing the electoral? I know it happened eight years ago, but it's still very rare. Now, what are the chances of that happening when the candidate who wins the popular does so by five or more points? Practically non-existent. Even when Gore beat Bush, it was by a very slim margin.

So yes, state by state polls are important, but you simply aren't going to see a candidate win by four+ percentage points in the popular and lose the electoral vote. It's just not going to happen. So the national poll is far from meaningless.

has your mantra changed in the past 24 hours?

Not at all ... faux-reasonable Republican concern trolling, all the time.

... a startling assertion that all racists are conservative...

All racists are, by definition, conservative. They may not vote Republican, but make no mistake, they are conservative.

And you, by the way, are a complete moron. "I suspect he is a partisan," indeed.

Mr. Wang,

Your site is very interesting and it is cool that you are answering questions here. I believe the more sources of information the better. I don't mean to be disrespectful, and I understand your approach is different this year, but you have not answered the question of whether you predicted with 99% probability a Kerry victory in 2004. If not, what probability did you assign to a Kerry victory in 2004. Your error in 2004 does not mean you are not right in 2008, but it seems like something we should consider.

Dwight,

Good post, but I think it is always helpful to know the political views of the source of information. This also applies to all the media. I think newspaper reporters, television reporters and other media members should show their audience the respect of telling us their political views. We then can factor that into our view of their work and they, in a real sense, would then need to earn our trust rather than expect us to accept their representation of "trust me, I am a professional journalist."

That is one reason this site is so good. Kevin is up front about his politics and earns the trust of the readers as a honest person.

ha ha ha. Y'all believe the numbers.

Do you believe the official unemployment numbers ? The official "budget deficit" numbers ?

Horse race polls are based on people who THINK they are registered and SAY they are planning to vote. Some realities ...

1. 2- 3 percent of them will not be allowed to vote (remember 200,000 provisional ballots in Ohio ?). Thus swinging the election 1% in McCains direction.
2. Another 5 % will encounter long lines in working class and impoverished precincts and will leave without having voted. Thus swinging the election 1-2% in McCains direction.
3. 3-4 states will be stolen.

The media will keep the race "close" because it is good for ratings and profits. In the end McCains margin of victory will be about 2 %.

Hey, I'm not saying I like it. But it is what I expect.

If Mr. Wang is not pro-democrat or liberal, then I apologize for my erroneous assumption. I suspect he will say that his numbers are objective regardless of his political leanings, but as noted above, I believe people presenting information should diclose their politics.

Obama is an inspiring leader and a visionary. Please vote for Obama so we have a worthy president. Vote for Obama, visit WHYOBAMA08.ORG!!

I believe people presenting information should diclose their politics.

And yet, when a self-identified Republican says something you disagree with, you frequently mumble about that person being less than frank about his true politics or mutter that she probably has some unexamined liberal biases. So we'll give this suggestion of yours all the respect your usual pronouncements of "belief"--which change with the seasons, weather and day of the week, and have as their sole consistent feature the promotion of the GOP--deserve.

The margin of error is not an opinion.

Kevin, it looks like Greg Sargent is another one of those nonexistent liberals who like Somerby thinks that mocking McCain is a good idea.

I seriously question whether McCain wants to actually win. He's out there in South Dakota at a biker rally campaigning, publicly wishing his wife would compete for the queen of the topless contest. For real. Flying fast, see Americablog or even Wonkette.

I suspect he will say that his numbers are objective regardless of his political leanings, but as noted above, I believe people presenting information should diclose their politics.

Why do you give two shits about his politics? Either you find his methodology sound or you don't. And if you don't, you can explain to everybody why that is. We're waiting with bated breath.

So we're not going to have to sit through years of the idiot stuttering nonsense at us through his evilly grinning, pasty, deformed face?

I've got it-- a way they can both win: Obama runs for President and McCain runs for national bell-ringer.

Either that, or he applies to become a pro skin-cancer treatment test subject.

At least now we know no little Americans will have to suffer through nightmares that John and Cindy are coming to get them for four years.

Yikes!

Why do you give two shits about his politics? Either you find his methodology sound or you don't.

Because the issue of Professor Wang's methodology never even occurred to brian; his filter kicks in any time information that harshes his conservative buzz is presented, whether it be a poll result, a scholarly paper or a barroom musing. But while I'm thinking about it, thanks for knowing how to spell "bated." Almost no one does.

"I have a son who is 20 and he and all his friends, even those from very Republican families, think John McCain is a crusty old turd who is way-y-y out of touch with what is going on in the world."

Maybe that was before McCain volunteered to have his wife participate in a motorcycler's strippers contest.

20ish boys being 20ish boys, that's gotta count for something.

Jasper:

1) the EC has its problems but it is the law of the land now and there are no practical options for changing it.

2) polling has Obama leading in BOTH the E.C. and the popular vote totals.

3) the fact that he won the popular vote while losing the E.C. is way down the list of why some of his supporters think Gore was robbed of the election.

4) Gore did not challenge the election results whereas there are credible reports from people in the Bush 2000 campaign that Bush was prepared to challenge the legality of the E.C. if the popular vote and E.C. totals had been reversed (something that looked very possible shortly before election day).

5) there will undoubtedly be future articles attacking and/or defending the E.C. and discussing what can be done about it (e.g. national popular vote apportioning by states, to be triggered only when enough states have passed appropriate laws), but these discussions will have little or nothing to do with whether they help or hurt our candidate.

"What matters are the numbers in the individual states, as translated into the electoral map. Period."

In which case Mr. Wilhelm should consult the very good site http://www.electoral-vote.com/ frequently.

(Obama - McCain - Tie: 289-236-13, as of today.)

Mr. Wang departed the threat without telling us what probability prediction he assigned to a Kerry victory in 2004 and what his politics are. I don't want to be too harsh on him since it was nice for him to do some posting, but I think he should have done some full disclosure and answered those questoins.

Thank you Robert!

Like Blessed W before him (and it is a shame that Blessed W doesn't simply perpetually remain in office to protect and keep us safe, but that's life) Sen. McCain shows strong leadership, now more than ever! I look forward to Jan 20th, when perhaps we finally can send some of these foolish, traitorous libruls to Gitmo! That would teach them and the rest of their treacherous kind that we need to have strong Republicans as our Commander in Chief.

Libruls like Barack Hussein Obama don't understand that in today's society, we no longer elect a President...now we select a Commander in Chief to protect us and to prosecute the War on Terror!

Brian, I've written on this topic before. Briefly: throughout most of the 2004 campaign I put up the decided-voter estimate. In the last few weeks I put up an additional, second estimate with additional assumptions regarding the incumbent rule and turnout.

Your recollection is correct. Both estimates came with a win probability. All probabilities of this type are predicated on the assumptions of the model. I can say with confidence that the model with add-on assumptions was wrong.

The plain, decided-voter approach worked very well. This observation has made by me and by others, including Andrew Tanenbaum at Electoral-vote.com. Basically, in the aggregate, pollsters get it right.

This is one reason why I am providing the snapshot only. Historically, such a snapshot taken on Election Eve is an extremely good predictor of final outcomes. But that is months away.

For more exchange on this subject, see my site and also
http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc_letters_aftermath.html

Tony Greco (and others), Kevin Drum posted the histogram, but the more important figure to look at is the history over time. This is more informative - and perhaps less cheering to you since it shows that things can change. Indeed, there was a change yesterday. We'll have to wait to see whether it stabilizes.

This will be my last post here. Thank you for the civil discussion. Many more questions are answered at the site.

Sam Wang

Thanks for stopping by and answering questions, Professor Wang. Sorry about the crazy uncle. You know every family has one.

"As you can see by eyeballing the chart on the right, he basically projects about a 99% chance of Obama winning the presidency, and that's after McCain's recent minor climb in a few of the national polls."

Dude, state polls are done very infrequently. It takes weeks for a shift in the national polls, if the shift has an impact on the state level, to reflect itself in all the state polls...

One reason Prof. Wang's results show such as high probability of an Obama win is that his model does not include the possibility the polls may have a systematic error that tilts their results toward one or the other candidate. Systematic can occur due to many factors, including an incorrect estimate of likely voters that favors one candidate over the other, inability to reach all potential voters where the unreachable voters favor one candidate over the other, survey respondents that favor one of the candidates not always willing to answer the survey or answer it truthfully, etc.

Another web site election-projection.net uses a similar methodology as Prof. Wang but includes a factor for systematic error in the poll results. It currently shows a 91% chance of Obama winning if the election were held today.

It also has an Interactive Presidential Election Probability Calculator that allows you to try out your own probability estimates.

See http://election-projection.net/interactive.html

brian, everybody's favorite faux-reasonable Republican concern troll, wrote: Mr. Wang departed the threat without telling us what probability prediction he assigned to a Kerry victory in 2004 and what his politics are. I don't want to be too harsh on him since it was nice for him to do some posting, but I think he should have done some full disclosure and answered those questoins.

Professor Wang was right to stay on topic and not repsond to your feeble attempts at changing the subject, brian. But speaking of full disclosure, who pays you to post bullshit GOP talking points here? And since a big part of your schtick is attacking Kevin's credibility, given your embrace of said GOP bullshit and your presumed votes for Bush, the worst president in memory, not to mention your obvious concern trolling, what credibility do you have?

Shortstop,

I think you may be an example of how partisanship prevents objective observation. Mr. Wang politely answered my question (mostly - he seemed to confirm that he had found a 99% probability of a Kerry win right before the 2004 election, but he could not quite say those words), and he expressed thanks for a civil discussion.

Gregory,

Mr. Wang did answer my question, so you were wrong to say he was right to not respond to me.

I'll leave my credibility to others. I mostly just express opinions and add some information from other sources. I wish someone would pay me, but I cannot imagine why anyone would do so.

I do disagree strongly with your assertion that I attack Kevin's credibility. I have a high regard for Kevin's honesty, especially in comparison to many other blogs on both sides. I think he often is wrong in his opinions or interpretations (and maybe sometimes forgets his old comments or remembers them in a light more favorable than warranted), but I cannot remember a timme when I thought he was dishonest about the facts.

I thank you for the lesson in non-partisan objectivity, bri--or, rather, I will as soon as I get the coffee out of my nasal cavities. So perspicacious of me to wear black today.

Irony alert: brian, everyone's favorite faux-reasonable Republican concern troll, wrote to the redoubtable shortstop: I think you may be an example of how partisanship prevents objective observation.

Mr. Wang did answer my question, so you were wrong to say he was right to not respond to me.

We know your schtick, brian -- hiding behind a faux-"civil" tone while peddling lies. And right there is an example of your typically uncivil dishonesty, brian. I didn't say Dr. Wang didn't respond to you; I said he was right not to respond to your feeble attempts to change the subject by introducing irrelevant "partisanship" under the guise of "full disclosure." Since you yourself complained about it, as I quoted you doing, your rank dishonesty here is why you lack credibility as anything other than a Republican partisan stooge, and why no one is fooled by your act.

I'll leave my credibility to others.

Trust us, brian, you left credibility behind a long time ago.

I mostly just express opinions and add some information from other sources.

...which just happen to align with the latest GOP talking points.

I wish someone would pay me, but I cannot imagine why anyone would do so.

It's true that if you are a paid counterblogger, your feeble concern trolling isn't worth the money. But whether you're an amateur or professional concern troll has little impact on the obviously partisan nature of your bullshit.

I do disagree strongly with your assertion that I attack Kevin's credibility. I have a high regard for Kevin's honesty, especially in comparison to many other blogs on both sides. I think he often is wrong in his opinions or interpretations (and maybe sometimes forgets his old comments or remembers them in a light more favorable than warranted), but I cannot remember a timme when I thought he was dishonest about the facts.

Brian, let's begin by stipulating that you have no credibility to judge honesty at all, one way or the other. Of course you think he often is wrong in his opinions or interpretations, as even Kevin's famously excessive even-handed moderateness is anathema to the far right-wing slant of modern movement conservatism and the Republican Party you shill for.

But again, it's dishonest of you to suggest that attacking Kevin's honesty on the facts is the sole way of impugning one's credibility. Take you, for examples -- your dishonesty extends far beyond fact into matters of intellectual dishonesty in argument, two examples of which I've cited in just your latest post, not to mention the dishonesty ineherent in your pose as a reasonable commentator while spewing GOP talking points.

Though you do raise a potentially amusing point, Brian. You said you "have a high regard for Kevin's honesty, especially in comparison to many other blogs on both sides"? I'm sure we can predict the left leaning blogs you'd compare Kevin to -- after all, promoting Kevin's mushy centrism as reasonable compared to eveyrone else on the left is part of your dishonest obfuscation of the right-wing extremism embraced by the modern Republican Party.

But what right-wing blogs would you consider dishonest? Go ahead, brian, amuse us.

who pays you to post bullshit GOP talking points

I doubt whether Brian is paid by the oil companies to post his skepticism about all things progressive, but the Republican politicians 'protesting' for opening public lands for drilling at Congress this week are. The profits the oil companies have accumulated finances a political machine that not only manipulates elected politicians to do their bidding, but also finances many of the anti-Obama robo calls and serial email blasts that are occurring all across the country, not to mention their influence on mass media. The vast wealth our political economy allows capital collectives to accumulate is used to increase their political power at the expense of the commonweal.

The national polls, and by extension, the popular vote, don't matter until one wins the electoral vote but loses the popular vote...or until one BARELY wins the popular vote, clearly wins the electoral vote, and then has the audacity to claim "MANDATE!"

Reagan claimed a bogus "mandate" when he won, even though he barely won the popular vote. The electoral vote is NOT an indication of a "mandate" at all. It is WAY skewed from actual national sentiment more times than not.

We still must eliminate the electoral college and go to direct voting for Pres. We also need legislation that explicitly defines a "mandate" and what a "mandate" means functionally. I propose that no candidate can claim a "mandate" unless they win 55% of the popular vote, or higher. Bogus virtual 50-50 splits in the popular vote indicate that fully half of the nation's people are opposed to you, and thus, there is no mandate.

We need to help Obama win. he is the best candidate we have for president. no go for a third Bush term. Please vote for Obama!!!!!!!!Visit WHYOBAMA08.ORG!!

FYI, Sam Wang's blog at Princeton allows users to submit comments.

He had one blog post criticizing 538.com for having a predicted electoral vote distribution that was not Gaussian. I posted a comment pointing out that you only get a Gaussian distribution if you assume independence between the state outcomes, and 538.com's includes correlations which breaks that assumption. I posted another comment further explaining how not including state-to-state correlations when making certain predictions can give you a false sense of confidence in your answer. (Sam Wang's results to not include correlations.)

It turns out however that Sam Wang moderates the comments on this blog. He deleted the comments I made, and also deleted an earlier comment I made pointing out that the # of EV's on one of his maps did not add up to 538.

Because he is moderating thoughtful comments that he does not agree with or that point out problems in his assumptions or methodology, I believe both his site and his blog should be boycotted, i.e., simply ignored.

Thank you.

Allen, believe it or not, it's my first time hosting a weblog. In 2004 everything was hand-coded and there were no comments. Considering the high density of numerical simulation enthusiasts this year, the new format has led to a flood of commentary. I'm quite sorry.

Unfortunately, misunderstandings like this may lead to me turning off the comment function. The good news is that it would liberate time for other duties. In the meantime I hope you'll continue to read the site.