Stochastic Democracy examines the effects of today's polls on the state of the Presidential, Senate, and Governor's races using it's mathematical model.
Go below the fold or to the website to see discussion, graphs, and an interactive web applet to show the effects of today's polls on Democratic prospects in the Senate, Presidential, and Gubernatorial races.
http://stochasticdemocracy.blogspot.com/
And incase you missed it, read our compare and contrast with FiveThirtyEight here
In case you missed it, see our write-up comparing our method with fivethirtyeight's here.
*********Cross Posted at StochasticDemocracy**********
Summary:
Obama wins 98.5% of the time, with 360 Electoral votes on average. He currently has a lead of 6 points in the national polls.
The Democrats are most likely to capture 59 Senate seats in November. They have a roughly 19% chance of obtaining a filibuster proof majority
Democratic Candidates are very likely to win the only two competitive governor races this year, in Washington and North Carolina.
National Tracking Polls:
CI- The 95% confidence intervals for what public opinion is today, based on the sampling error in the poll aggregate
FI- The 95% prediction intervals for what the outcome will be in November, based on estimation of variance when treating polls as observations of a random walk(under a hidden Markov Bayesian framework).
The same graph as the first, but only since the Republican Convention
According to my filter, Obama is currently 6 points ahead.
Electoral College
As far as the electoral college goes, I've incorporated the polls since yesterday. Consequentially, the Delta tabs on the applet at the top of the site show the change in the electoral map since then.
A histogram, showing the distribution of possible presidential election outcomes and their probability
A cartogram, where state's are sized proportionally to their electoral votes. Shaded according to Obama's chance of winning
A map showing changes in polling since Wednesday. Shaded according to changes in Obama's chance of winning
The new swing states*, in order from most to least Obama friendly, are North Carolina(76%), Missouri(58%), North Dakota(54%), and Indiana(28%), and Montana(20%)
After this, Obama's next best states are Georgia(15%) and West Virginia(4%) [Other state's probabilities can be seen on the applet]
Nothing too earth shattering today, though it will be interesting to see how Obama's special helps him tomorrow.
And hopefully, we see some more polling in Missouri and North Dakota.
Senate:
A histogram of Democratic Senate seats and the respective probability of getting that many seats.
Probability of maintaining control of the Senate(>=50): >99.99%
Probability of improving our position in the Senate(>51): >99.99%
Probability of a Filibuster-Proof Majority(>=60): 19.72%
Probability of a Lieberman-Free Filibuster-Proof Majority(>=61): 3.82%
A map of this year's Senate races shaded according to The Democrat's chance of winning
The competitive seats** are, from most to least Obama Friendly:
Oregon (90%) - Merkley(D) vs Smith
North Carolina(80%) - Hagan(D) vs Dole
Minnesota(43%) - Franken(D) vs Coleman
Georgia (32%) - Martin(D) vs Chambliss
Kentucky (15%) - Lunsford(D) vs McConnell
Today was a mixed day for Democrats. New polling has secured Alaska, but new polls in Minnesota throw the race into doubt. This looks like a race we'll be watching late into the night.
What's important to remember about Minnesota, is that there are two types of uncertainty at play: Uncertainty about how public opinion will change between now and the election, and uncertainty about what public opinion is now.
Minnesota is currently in the 2nd category. In fact, there is a 40% chance that Franken is ahead right now!
But there have not been any polls in the race for a while, and so a single poll that showed Coleman with a lead has a lot of influence.
What to do? Commission a new poll in Minnesota, and send Franken some money for good measure.
Governor:
A map of US Governor races where polls are available, shaded by probability of Democratic Victory
There are only two remotely competitive races this year, and Democrats surged ahead today in both of them
Washington (92%) - Gregoire(D) vs Rossi
North Carolina (83%) - Perdue(D) vs McCrory
*defined as states where the probability of an Democratic Victory is between 20% and 80%.
**defined as states where probability of a Democratic Victory is between 10% and 90%
*********Cross Posted at StochasticDemocracy**********
Also, expect some announcements tomorrow on both election night coverage and a proposed grading system for all of the election forecast models after the elections.