A 10/31 Research 2000/Kos poll of the Kentucky race has:
McConnell (R) 47 (46) Lunsford (D) 44 (42)
Already voted (16% of sample)
McConnell (R) 44 Lunsford (D) 56
which is looking good for Lunsford. Going into tomorrow with a 12% lead means the GOP has to first dig themselves out of a hole before they can pull ahead. Also the Dem GOTV operation can concentrate on getting identified Dem voters to the polls by ranking: firm Obama voters to Undecideds.
They are expecting a 70% turn-out in Kentucky.
The WSJ poll has Obama leading 51 to 43 (MOE 4%.)
McCain gutted the budget for his GOTV operation to fund his weekend advertising. This is going to hurt his voting totals.
I'm expecting GOP national vote totals to revert to '00 levels which was ~50 million. I'm expecting Dem turn-out to be the same (due to racism) as the Kerry '04 numbers, ~59 million. These raw vote estimates projects to a 54.13% to 45.87% Obama win; roughly in-line with the WSJ poll. Giving an Obama win of 8.26%.
This is (barely) within Landslide territory.
With these numbers it is possible to conclude the Georgia and Kentucky Senate races are definitely in play. Giving an outside chance the GOP is going to be slaughtered in this election, losing 10 Senate seats and upwards of 35 House seats.
I never bought it, frankly, but as you know I'm not a big believer in the Bradley Effect (which is basically what the pundits were predicting). I thought the demographics said they'd break with a slight McCain lean, but nothing incredible, and a break for Obama is hardly out of the question. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Also during the sacrifice birds were seen flying from the East to the West.
What else does one need?
Beltway CW sez McCain gets a 70/30 split of undecideds.
No way. Nonsense.
I'll your 55/45 Obama/McCain projection. Obama has out hustled McCain in every single state he's entered. That's what gets the Undecideds.
Also worth noting: undecideds sometimes, who knows how often, say they are undecided for weird personal reasons: the need for attention, the desire for people to leave them alone, the paranoia that their neighbors will find out. They may very well know who they are voting for. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
I don't agree.
The Dems have too many structural advantages. Or it could be put the GOP has too many disadvantages. These advantages and Obama's GOTV is teh awesome and something the country has never seen.
Ever.
Could I be wrong? Of course.
But the ground operation is critical for getting 'your' Undecideds to the polls as, by definition, these voters are low-information, low-enthusiasm, and loosely attached to the process. The CW is based on previous elections where the GOP had the superior ground game.
Stick with me kid and you'll be wearing horse poop as big as diamonds.
I am older, thus wiser, than you.
Hey, I whomped you on Iowa. Now if you'll please toss my nerf football back into my yard, that'd be swell. ;) Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Seriously, I've learned a lot from your posts. Thank you.
What we can state with confidence is the McCain campaign has a severely broken GOTV operation which means Obama DOES have a major structure advantage in the attempt to carry this group.
Meanwhile, all campaign long Obama has over-preformed Southern polling. Southerners in general and AAs, in particular, don't like giving their voting intents over the telephone to strangers. I'd be willing to wage this upturn is in the South.
We could even be looking at SC going Obama.
At which point my head will explode.
You and Justin Webb. This could get messy. keep to the Fen Causeway
And the muffled sound of ka-boom ripples across the US.
ka-boom
;-)
This is VERY unlikely, BTW.
I had no idea that the South used to be a Dem stronghold, or just how badly Dems have been slaughtered in landslides.
There has never been a true Dem landslide of 400+. Clinton came closest, but there's been nothing to match the total wipe outs inflicted on Dukakis and McGovern.
And Abe Lincoln was a Republican. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
That signing was basis of the GOP Southern Strategy.
The history of American politics is largely a history of conservative industrialists and capitalists with brief periods of pretty strong liberalism thrown in when things got way off track.
The Dems were the party of slavery and, later, Jim Crow right up to the 1960s. Johnson said, just before he signed the Civil Rights Act, "We've lost the South for a generation." It's been three generations, actually. Might finally start to see some daylight tomorrow (ironically, with a black nominee). Dems did the right thing and paid for it by losing a lot of for forty years.
But, really, we've been in a conservative swing for forty years. Prior to Nixon, it was a liberal swing, even under guys like Ike. Now we seem to be at the very front end of the next realignment, which looks like a liberal one. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
