The Daily Widget – Thursday, Aug 7 – Obama 353, McCain 185 – National Polls By Month

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Thu Aug-07-08 06:26 AM
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The Daily Widget – Thursday, Aug 7 – Obama 353, McCain 185 – National Polls By Month

Contents:
1. Tidbits
2. Widgets
3. New State Polls
4. Daily Tracking – Electoral Votes
5. Daily Tracking – Wigand Electoral Average
6. Daily Tracking – Popular Vote and Swing States Trading
7. Electoral College Map and State Chart
8. Links, Definitions and Sources

* * * * * * *

1. TIDBITS – National Polls By Month

Two new Big 12 national polls were released yesterday, so it’s time to give the National Poll Widget an update.

CBS National: Obama 45, McCain 39

Time National: Obama 46, McCain 41

Now that July is behind us, I was curious how the national polls averaged out for the month. There were some wild swings throughout July. The graph below compares the monthly average of all the Big 12 monthly national polls (purple) with the monthly average for the Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking polls (red). I threw in the separate lines for Gallup (light blue) and Rasmussen (light green) to see which daily tracker is more on the money.

Some observations:

Rasmussen’s line (light green) looks almost exactly like the Big 12 average line (purple), but Rasmussen always shows Obama’s lead about two points less than the Big 12.

Gallup and Rasmussen “switched places” between June and July, as Gallup falls more in line with the Big 12. It would be interesting to find out how Gallup’s and Rasmussen’s assumptions about the electorate changed between June and July, but they don’t offer that information.

Gallup uses a fixed equal party identifier for both major parties, yet their monthly average lead for Obama is moving up by about 2 points per month. Does this mean more people who identify themselves as republicans are increasingly polling for Obama every month? Could be.

The range of Obama’s lead for July is between +3.0 and +4.3. The entire field is showing Obama leading beyond the margin of error for July.

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2. WIDGETS

^ FIGURE 2a. This is what we refer to as the “Widget”. In the white section, it shows Obama’s and McCain’s electoral vote projection from three different sources. 270 would be a majority. In the yellow section, it shows three sources of trading and averages for the candidates. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority. Intrade shows the trading, while RCP-av shows the aggregate average of all the state polls. The Wigand Electoral Average is our own indicator, and shows how the candidates will do if the undecideds nationwide break the same way as the swing states.

^ FIGURE 2b. The Wigand Electoral Average is our own indicator, and shows how the candidates will do if the undecideds nationwide break the same way as the swing states. Each of the twelve swing states are listed below the indicator’s current score. The closing figures on Intrade are shown next to each state, with a column to show the change from the previous day. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority.

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3. NEW STATE POLLS

New Jersey moves back into the Strong Obama column today, while New York becomes stronger for Obama and Florida becomes weaker for McCain. Obama goes 3 for 3 today.

Florida

Obama 44, McCain 47 (Public Policy Polling, 8/2, +/- 3.5, 807 LV)
New Jersey

Obama 52, McCain 42 (Rasmussen, 8/4, +/- 4.5, 500 LV)
New York

Obama 55, McCain 36 (Rasmussen, 8/4, +/- 4.5, 500 LV)

Scale:

Strong Obama (10% or greater)

Weak Obama (5% to 9%)

Lean Obama (0% to 4%)

Lean McCain (0% to 4%)

Weak McCain (5% to 9%)

Strong McCain (10% or greater)

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4. DAILY TRACKING – ELECTORAL VOTES

^ FIGURE 4a. This graph shows the daily tracking of Obama’s projected electoral votes from three sources. 270 is a majority of the electoral votes. The blue line shows daily tracking from 538.com, which projects what the outcome should be on election day. The red line shows daily tracking from Electoral-Vote.com, which shows a current snapshot of Obama’s electoral progress if the undecideds break evenly. The green line is my own projection, and it shows a current snapshot of Obama’s electoral progress if the undecideds break the same way as the swing states. A trend line is used (dashed green line) to show the average progress since May 19 and possible route for the next seven days.

^ FIGURE 4b. This graph shows Obama’s green line and red line from the previous graph, and compares it to John Kerry’s 2004 progress (orange line) as shown from Electoral-Vote.com. (Both the red line and the orange line show data from Electoral-Vote.com)

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5. DAILY TRACKING – WIGAND ELECTORAL AVERAGE

^ FIGURE 5a. This graph shows the daily tracking of the swing states total from the Wigand Electoral Average widget above (second chart from the top). To show Obama’s progress in the swing states, divide the latest closing figure by 1200.

^ FIGURE 5b. Wigand vs. National Polls, RCP Average and Trading. The Wigand Electoral Average uses both poll averages and trading (swing states), and this graph compares it to the national daily tracking polls from Gallup, Rasmussen and Real Clear Politics (average), as well as the closing trading figures from Intrade (people buying shares with real money) and Rasmussen Markets (people using fake money).

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6. DAILY TRACKING – POPULAR VOTE AND SWING STATES TRADING

^ FIGURE 6a. I am projecting 126,750,000 million votes on election day, which is the total 2004 votes plus population growth for each state. A total projected popular vote is calculated for each candidate based on projected votes on election day this year multiplied by each state’s current poll results. This graph shows the daily tracking of the popular vote calculations.

^ FIGURE 6b. This graph shows the daily tracking of each swing state’s closing figure on Intrade. The scale is 0 to 100 with 50 being a majority. I commonly refer to the range from 40.00 to 60.00 as “The Zone” because the states in The Zone are true swing states this year.

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7. ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAP AND STATE CHART

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8. LINKS, DEFINITIONS AND SOURCES

Yesterday’s Widget
Full Weekly Tracking
Past editions of THE MATH

Sources:
Pollster.com
FiveThirtyEight.com
Electoral-Vote.com
Intrade
Rasmussen Markets
RCP Average
RCP Latest Polls

What is this? THE MATH’s Daily Widget was created to track multiple daily sources which measure the potential success of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Projected Electoral Votes are on a scale of 0 to 538, with 270 being a majority, or projected win. Trading and Averages are on a scale of 0 to 100, with 50.1 being a majority, or projected win.

The Wigand Electoral Average uses public polling results to determine base states for both parties and a short list of swing states, and combines the actual electoral votes from base states with a weighted Intrade calculation for electoral votes from swing states to derive an average on a scale of 0 to 100. On this scale, greater than 50.00 is considered a win for Barack Obama. An average of 50.10 would yield 270 electoral votes, and an average of 100.00 would yield 538 electoral votes. More Information

As always, I’m open to your feedback and suggestions, and I will be happy to explain anything!

Feel free to use these charts and graphs anywhere on Democratic Underground.

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