Princeton Election Consortium Moves Obama Up 11/2/12

[courseofhistory]

As of November 2, 11:59AM EDT:
Obama: 318
Romney: 220
Meta-margin: Obama +2.62%

Yesterday I wrote a long piece on why national polls paint a different picture from state polls, despite the fact that they use very similar methods. Here's the ten-cent version - the central argument. Read more...

Imagine for a moment that national and state polls use exactly the same methods (not exactly true, but close enough). Historically, pollsters as a group do well. But they aren't perfect. In 2000-2008, national-poll medians missed the final outcome by 0.3%, 1.4%, and 2.5%, despite the fact that perfect methods would have missed by 0.6% on average. So there's a large systematic error. How would this affect one's snapshot view of the national and state race?

This year, the national race is close. A systematic error of 1-2% would make it hard to accurately determine who was in the lead nationally. But state races are usually less close. Even Ohio, a critical swing state, has a median of Obama +3.0 +/- 0.5%, a lead that would not be altered by that systematic error. Indeed, at the moment only two states are within range of flipping in such a way: Virginia and Florida. The likely outcome of the other 49 races would still be determined correctly. The Presidency is decided by winner-take-all elections in each state. Therefore our Meta-Analysis of State Polls is likely to come closer tothe correct result than national polls. In coming days I'll combine the two to come up with a final prediction of the popular vote margin.

I should say that for similar reasons, the U.S. system of electing a President is more fraud-proof than a simple popular vote. Even if there were voting error in one state, the effects would be contained there, like flooding on a compartmented ship. Without the Electoral College, every time there was a close national race we'd have the Florida 2000 dispute (Bush v. Gore) in every precinct in the country. Blech.

http://election.princeton.edu/

[longship]

1. I agree about the Electoral College.

Fully understanding the liabilities of it.

But the real truth of the EC is that we are probably stuck with it. I can see some reform, but not elimination. Elimination would take a constitutional amendment, and that isn't going to happen. EVER! If a person disagrees with that, they'll have to explain how such an amendment could be approved by 3/4 of the states.

Reform is much easier. The allocation of electoral votes is assigned by each state. Both Maine and Nebraska do so by congressional district. If other states do the same it would be a very positive compromise which could solve issues like what happened in 2000.

Others may disagree, but they would have to propose a solution that at least has a conceivable and plausible solution.