So September is coming to an end and election day is rapidly approaching. (When you consider early voting, election day is, for all practical purposes, already upon us.) There is little time left and from where I sit it looks like Obama has the wind at his back while Romney is still patching up and assuaging the relations with his base. This is not where you want to be in the final weeks ofUSpresidential campaign.
If I were forced to make a prediction today I would bet on Obama winning the election. This, of course, is hardly a done deal and a surprise or two could upset the race, but the odds of such events are dropping with each passing day. I doubt the Democratic arty will take the House, that is a tall hill to climb (Pun intended), but they hold the senate if the momentum continues growing for them. Certainly the republican Party thinks so, hence their cautious overtures to return to support Todd ‘Legitimate Rape’ Akin in his Senate bid, despite the toxic effect this has had on the women’s vote.
Oh my party in November is going to be interesting.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on democrats. Regards
ahh but you do see that average doesn’t have an MoE. However it will be interesting to see where the numbers are in a week after Romney’s good debate showing and Obama’s poor one.
RCP
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html#polls
I looked up the polls in question, and almost all of them had the Obama “lead” fall within their margin of error. Hardly something to rely on for Obama to have “the wind at his back”.
I;m not sure what you are referring to here. I mostly refered to aggrgate polling which does not have a Margin of error, intrade is an exchanged and does nto have an MoE, the only one fo the my supporting citatiiona that has a Moe was the Fox poll that had Obama +5 and it had a MoE of +/- 3 so that was outside the margin.
The bet was a joke. The point, and the bit about 2010 was to point out the unreliability of Silver in particular and polls in general to predict the outcome of this presidential election with a month yet to go. Or do you really believe that Obama will win by 4% of the popular vote as Silver currently does?
I looked up the polls in question, and almost all of them had the Obama “lead” fall within their margin of error. Hardly something to rely on for Obama to have “the wind at his back”.
And in fact more recent polls show even that ephemeral lead has evaporated. Which still doesn’t mean anything because the results still falls within the polls margin of error.
I put more faith in the actual events surrounding the election rather than any blip in polling, and those events are all bad for Obama. That doesn’t mean Romney is ahead now or that Romney is destined to win, but it is the exact opposite of wind at Obama’s back or the absurdity that Obama has a 82.7% chance of reelection.
I don’t gamble money on politics, never have, never will. It is interesting that you focused on that one item. It’s not like I posted, well Romney is toast because Silver models say so. I said that the race is trending Obama directions and I cites several elements that I thought supported that. Your counter is not about presidential election prediction, but about House predictions during a midterm election. (Though his prediction was still for a Republican take over.)
I have seen very little to support that this race is currently tightening, though we have the first of the debates this wee and it is possible that Romney may score a crit and shake things up.
“Nick Silver Predictions have Obama with an 82.7% chance of victory,”
Wow. Very impressive. Not just 82%, but 82 point seven percent! Gosh I wonder how he does it. Clearly you have faith in that statistic.
Well, then I propose a wager. We put $100 into a pot. If Obama wins you get the $100 and if Romney wins I get the $100. Each of us to contribute to the pot based on Silver’s prediction, so you would contribute $82.70 to the pot and I contribute $17.30. Doesn’t that sound fair?
BTW I see that local gas is more than $4.25 per gallon.
“Nationally, gas prices have broken daily record highs for 43 consecutive days.” Happy days are here again. No wonder Obama is winning.
http://www.the-leader.com/news/x422902800/Rising-gas-prices-could-mean-painful-2013
For curiosities sake I checked out Nate Silver’s October 1st prediction for the 2010 election outcome for the House of Representatives. He predicted a Republican gain of 45 seats, the Republicans actually gained 63.
Why do you believe “Obama has the wind at his back”
Because the RCp poll of polls have Obama up by 4.3, the Pollster aggregate poll has Obama up by 4.4, Nick Silver Predictions have Obama with an 82.7% chance of victory, because Fox news of all people has Obama up by 5, the TPM poll tracker has Obama up by 3.9, and intrade has Obama trading at 7.85 vs Romney’s 2.14. This is why I think the wind is currently at Obama’s back. more to follow
Why do you believe “Obama has the wind at his back” and why do you believe “Romney is still patching up and assuaging the relations with his base”.
To the best of my knowledge trustworthy polls have the race at a statistical tie, and both camps have their respective bases solidly in place and the only fight left is over the tiny number of still undecided voters. Besides, the Republican base doesn’t need to be for Romney, opposition to Obama alone will assure massive Republican turn out.
And there is no good news for Obama. The national and world economic situation continues to worsen. Our ambassador to Libya was killed by terrorists on 9-11, and it looks like the administration tried to cover up that fact and cover up incompetent security precautions. Relations to and conditions inside Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq are getting worse. And administration scandals continue to burble up more trouble, from Solyndra and green jobs kickbacks to Fast and Furious obstruction of justice. Where is any good news to support the administration record in office?