Blogswarm - Online Political News Magazine

THE HUNCH THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME. From Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball:

As we conclude this amazing election campaign, we have just one question for our readers: When has an incumbent candidate ever won when he is tied with his challenger on election eve? The answer is never--at least in the age of polling that began in the 1930s. So George W. Bush needs to beat history, and the polls, to win the election tomorrow. It is possible that the vagaries of the Electoral College will enable Bush to eke out a victory, and it is also possible that the Republican Party's get out the vote effort will equal or exceed the Democrats' GOTV efforts. But if the Democrats are even half-right about the potential of their GOTV in producing additional new voters, then Kerry will win, perhaps more comfortably than anyone now suspects.

William Raspberry, Washington Post:

Tomorrow's "too close to call" presidential election may not be so close after all, a woman I know predicted the other day...Several things prompt this woman's assessment. To start with, the political polls this cycle have tended to undercount Democrats -- in part, according to some reports, because Republicans are more likely to make themselves available to telephone pollsters...

But the big thing is a "groundswell of new voters" -- many of whom, though eligible, didn't vote last time. That makes them, in the lexicon of pollsters, "unlikely" to vote this time.

I've been talking to people from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) who have been responsible for some of that groundswell. They predict that those of us who've relied on the polls to call this race a tossup may be very surprised.

Steve Soto on The Left Coaster:

As we know by now, Gallup released its last national poll last night, and as we expected, in order to preserve its credibility Gallup’s last poll amongst LVs shows last week’s 5% lead for Bush (51%-46%) now shrinking to a 49%-47% lead for Bush over Kerry. Amongst registered voters, Kerry has a 48%-46% lead.

But toss out those results by Gallup. Why? Because take a look at the composition of the LV and RV samples by party ID that Gallup used last night in their poll. I just got the internals from Gallup, and the LV sample they used had a 5% GOP advantage over the Democrats, and Kerry still almost tied Bush....

When compared to the 2000 exit poll results, Gallup under sampled Democrats by 4% and over sampled Republicans by 5%, a nifty 9% swing. If the sample was reweighted to more closely follow the 2000 exit poll party ID breakdown of 39% Dem/35% GOP/26% Ind, can you imagine what kind of lead Kerry would have?...

For the last time, I’ll say this: Gallup is telling us that if the election was held early this week (and I think tomorrow falls in that category) amongst the likely voters there will be 5% more Republicans than Democrats. Yet many pollsters are saying that given the flood of newly registered voters this year and those that aren’t captured fully by LV sampling methodologies, an RV model may be more predictive for tomorrow and those that have already voted. As such, how valid do you think it is that the GOP will have a one percent edge over Democrats amongst all Registered Voters tomorrow, and a 5% edge over those who actually vote?

Atrios' Eschaton:

I do think there is a possibility that all our hopes and dreams are not misplaced and that Kerry will in fact do much better than expected.

--Garance Franke-Ruta