To read many of the diaries and comments here on DKos over the past four days, you'd think John McCain had turned the tables on Barack Obama and was now favored, or that McCain had at least drawn even. There's a good reason for that mis-impression: Kossacks spend too much time listening to (and complaining about) pundits, and not enough time looking at the underlying mathematics of the race.
Follow me over the fold for an explanation of why Obama is losing the pundit race (and he is) ... and winning the election (and he is)....
Note: All of the math in this post is taken directly from Nate Silver's excellent site, fivethirtyeight.com. And I'll come right out and ask Mr. Silver(poblano) to correct any shortcomings in my descriptions of his methods.
Yes, Obama lost the pundit contest last week. Which is to say, depending on which media you watched and read, you were likely to see pundits and guests criticizing Obama, and giving McCain free media by rerunning his ads in the guise of discussing them. It wasn't the first week that Obama has lost the pundit contest, and it won't be the last. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Obama will lose the pundit contest through November ... and right on through his two terms as president.
And perhaps by its nature - most of us aren't campaign strategists, math geeks, or first-hand journalists - DailyKos is largely a mainstream media analysis website. That is, Kossacks read the newspapers and watch cable news shows, and comment on what we read and see. That means the widely-loathed mainstream media (MSM) usually sets the narrative here, and most of us jump to or on what they say.
So it's easy to get the impression, reading DKos, that Obama must be doing something very wrong, because we mostly rehash what MSM pundits have said, and most of them don't much like Barack Obama. He doesn't play to them as much as they think they deserve. He has the audacity to talk directly to We the People, rather than relying on them to frame his message. When Barack Obama draws a crowd of 25,000 - versus McCain's whopping crowds of 250 - that's 24,750 people who heard Obama first-hand rather than waiting for the media to filter and frame what he said.
Worse, Barack Obama is both willing and able to turn an ordinary campaign speech into a "newsworthy event." When 25,000 people turn up in a hall or stadium to hear someone speak, the speech itself becomes an event that commands attention. Often, in this campaign season, that's meant cable networks covering Obama speeches live, as they did in Berlin. And that's yet more people - the viewers - who'll hear Obama first-hand rather than relying on the media to filter and frame him.
Barack Obama's charisma, combined with his outstanding campaign staff, make him a threat to the MSM monopoly on political awareness. Unlike a traditional candidate, he doesn't need to kowtow to reporters or pundits in the hope they'll portray him in a good light. He can, and has, and will go directly to We the People. The MSM don't like that one bit, and that's why Obama is losing - and will likely continue to lose - the pundit race.
But as for the election....
A week ago, Barack Obama was a 3:2 favorite to win the election.
Today, Barack Obama is a 2:1 favorite to win the election.
A week ago, Barack Obama was likely to win 273 electoral votes (EVs).
Today, Barack Obama is likely to win 303 EVs.
Those statistical predictions are far more important than how many pundits wrote or said what because every election is, by nature, a statistical event. Specifically, an election is a statistical estimate of the vox populi - the voice of the people. It's only an estimate, because not all of the people vote. But it's an estimate based on the set of people who are legally eligible and are motivated enough to go cast a vote.
"But Crissie," you say, "the polls show this is a dead heat!"
No they don't, because national opinion polls don't estimate the same process. We don't use a national popular vote, which is what national opinion polls estimate. A presidential election is a simultaneous series of fifty state elections. National opinion polls are as meaningless as the nationwide popular vote on election day, and the total of runs scored by each team in the baseball World Series. That's not how either event is scored.
The most mathematically rigorous statistical analysis available - Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com - estimates the actual process of a presidential election, by estimating state-by-state outcomes and thus total electoral votes. Specifically, Mr. Silver determines each candidate's win probability for each state, based on the mean of polling data in that state, weighted for the recency and reliability of each poll, and then adjusted for state demographics and trend data.
For example, as of today Barack Obama has a 98% win probability for New York, while John McCain has a 99% win probability for Alabama. Virginia is a dead heat, with Obama's win probability at 53% to McCain's 47%.
Each day, Mr. Silver runs 10,000 simulated elections. In each of those elections, each state is allocated randomly based on the candidates' win probabilities. Simply, Barack Obama will win New York in about 9,800 of those simulated elections, while John McCain will win in 200. McCain will win Alabama in about 9,900 simulations, while Obama will win it in 100. And Obama will win Virginia in about 5,300 of those simulations, while McCain will win it in 4,700. Mr. Silver then totals the electoral votes, by state, for each simulation, and analyzes the data.
A week ago, out of 10,000 simulations, Obama won in 5,980 while McCain won in 4,020. A week ago, Obama averaged 273 electoral votes to McCain's 265. A week ago, Barack Obama was a 60:40 favorite (3:2) to win the election.
Today, out of 10,000 simulations, Barack Obama won in 6,610 while John McCain won in only 3,390. Barack Obama averaged 303 electoral votes to McCain's 235. If the election were held today, Barack Obama would be a 66:34 favorite (2:1) to win the election.
Simply put - based on the most sophisticated, rigorous mathematical analysis available - Barack Obama's chances of winning, and his likely margin of victory, improved significantly last week. And this in a week when so many Kossacks thought Obama "took a beating," that he was "falling into the Kerry trap," that he had to "take the gloves off and start hitting hard."
All of those impressions might be true if our presidential elections were like the old college football system, where the winner was decided by the sportswriters. But, fortunately, that's now how we decide elections. We let the people vote - state by state - and according to those numbers ...
... Barack Obama had an amazing week.
Barack Obama will probably continue to lose the pundit race, for the reasons I gave above. And because DailyKos is largely an MSM analysis forum (understandably), we'll continue to fret over the pundit race.
But the pundits don't decide the election. If they did, Barack Obama would never have won the Democratic nomination, because they were all certain that Hillary Clinton would sweep it up by February 5th. They don't like losing that kingmaker status, so they'll continue to dump on Obama. But right now, Obama is winning the only race that matters: the race for 270 electoral votes.