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Unfortunately, there is not much left to be said about Colorado. Despite the fact that they register voters by party affiliation, the Secretary of State's website is quite lackluster there. They have no updated voter registration lists there, so I do not know how successful the GOP and the Dems have been added this year. Judging from the website alone, I doubt that anything will be added.

Unfortunately, I do not. I do not have any inside sources, so all I really can go by is research at the OH and WI Secretary of State websites. OH's is extremely poor, by the way. Their voter registration ended last week and they have no information up about registration rolls. WI's registration ends (I think) on 10-20. Hopefully, we'll get a sense of what is going on then.

If I were you, I would urge you not to worry about voter fraud too much. I have friends who think the Democrats steal 2-5% based on that alone. I doubt that this will occur this year. The GOP knows what kinds of tricks the Democrats pull -- after all, there are only so many ways you can cheat with a paper ballot -- and I would expect them to do a great deal to diminish its effect. Bottom line: if we hear about it on Freep, it means Bush/Cheney '04 and the RNC have heard about it...and they are undoubtedly on the case.

Thanks for your kind words, plushaye.

Just so you know, I have also posted some information about why presidential polling should not be relied upon in close races. It is more witchcraft than science.

I am convinced that there is only one way to look at this race, and it is not to be found at zogby.com! You have to dig deep into the numbers.

I think this is especially true this year. Bush and Rove are running a non-traditional campaign looking to boost the president's standing from the ground-up. Much of this cannot be captured in the polls. It is the sum of all the little things that will make a big difference, like the impressive GOP gains in Carver County, Minnesota; like all the radio ads they are running on evangelical radio stations; like their 72-hour GOTV plan. You're never going to see a poll reflect these things. You're never going to see the AP covering it. But the fact of the matter is that these things are happening, and they will matter.

I think there will be a lot of surprises on 11-2-04. Well, they will be surprises to anybody who just looks at the state polls to get a sense of the race. Savvy people know that many of these states have real races on. Minnesota is one such example. Something is happening up there in the Minneapolis/St. Paul suburbs that has the possibility of surprising everybody. Why else would the President go there the day after the election? Colorado is another such example. People think Colorado is going to be a real slog on election day. No way. The GOP blew the top off voter turnout in September. Watch that to happen again. Bush is going to win CO in a walk. He's appearing at Red Rocks tonight with Tommy Franks; that'll probably net him 2% in just one evening!

None of the statistical comparisons from August to today work to prove this essay's hypothesis. They are all within the marginal error, which means that Dubya could have undergone no changes in the real world and normal statistical variation could have produced all these numbers.

Most people who consume polls fail to understand just how important the margin of error is. The margin of error for these August-Present numbers is such that we cannot draw any valid causal inferences. See the following for a more detailed argument:

http://jaycost.blogspot.com/2004/10/perfect-example-of-popular.html

I want Dubya to win as much as anybody, but this is just wishful thinking.

Dear Mike,

Thanks for your kind words about my blogs. I am able to keep my eyes on all the major campaign news, and will be updating my blog whenever I see significant information. It will remain ad hoc, however, as I must rely on news services and do not have my own sources.

I will try my best to keep my eyes on advertising dollars, specific ads being run, and staff relocations. I can tell you right now that last month Kerry pulled his advertising dollars from the following states: Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Virginia. Ad buys are done in big chunks, as best I can gather, so there might not be news about it for awhile.

I remain very skeptical about published reports about GOTV efforts. I mentioned in my blog about reports about major efforts in the Rust Belt. The lefty 527's are talking about all the new people they have registered. However, it is in their interest to over-state their efforts. Ditto for the GOP. Any reliable stuff I find, I shall report (e.g. I'll be checking with the SOS of each swing state to get an idea of the # of registered voters...those should be counted up soon).

Best wishes,
Jay Cost

If you take a close look at where the candidates spent their day, you can get an idea of where the race really stands...beyond the current poll standings. I did some investigating on my blog. Here is the fruit of my labor for all you Freepers:

Kerry spent today in Elyria, Ohio. Elyria is in the 9th District of Ohio, in the northern corridor along I-90/I-80. It is in the "rust-belt" portion of the state -- about 2/3rds of the way between Toledo and Cleveland. Gore won this district by 13% in 2000. The congresswoman, Marcy Kaptur, has made her name in DC as a protectionist. Kerry's trip is bound to be covered in the Cleveland area as well, which Gore won by double digits in 2000.

Jay's Interpretation: Kerry might be playing to his base here. Are there problems with his status in the northern corridor, a spot in which he should win handily? Gore carried the congressional districts along this area without breaking a sweat. He won the 9th district by 9%, the 10th (Kucinich's district, btw) by 11% and the 11th by 61%. Elyria is in Lorain county, which Gore won by 12,000 votes. Does Kerry think he can squeeze any more blood from this stone? Perhaps he does. Clinton carried Lorain by nearly 20,000 votes...but that was against an anemic Dole/Kemp campaign. And in 2000, turnout in that county was at a whopping 60%. Though plausible, it seems a stretch to me to say that what Kerry is doing there today is trying to expand on Gore's vote totals. It seems more plausible to me that he is underperforming here, that the war on terror issue is undercutting him.

Some might say it is because the number of new registered voters has increased so dramatically in Lorain County that Kerry has come here...and that might be true. But I tend to be skeptical of how much voter turnout can be increased in typically strong Dem holdouts like Lorain County. It seems that places that are much more evenly divided, or places where populations are arriving, not leaving, are places where that could occur. I am also skeptical in general of the 527's get-out-the-vote efforts. The Democrats have historically done very well at that. I think the 527s are probably suffering the law of diminishing marginal returns in places like Elyria. It seems to me that Kerry would be looking to expand in places like the 1st District (Cincinnati), which Gore lost by 5%. Or in the 3rd District (southeast Ohio), which Gore lost by 7%. Or in the 6th District (southwewst Ohio), which Gore lost by 2%. Or the 12th District (central Ohio), which Gore lost by 5%. These are the places where Kerry should be focusing if he wants to improve upon Gore's results. If he only hopes to match Gore's result, he would be in Elyira.

Kerry was also scheduled to head to Ft. Lauderdale today. Ft. Lauderdale is one of those minority-majority districts represented by Democrat Alcee Hastings. Gore won this area by 60% in 2000.

Jay's Interpretation: This is definitely Kerry playing to his base. Now, of course, this will get on south Florida television, and therefore might help Kerry with the Cuban voters in the 18th District and the 21st District, both of which Dubya carried in 2000. But, given that Gore pretty much maximized his voter turnout in 2000 in these areas...this seems to me to be a sign that Kerry is playing catch-up in South Florida. And of course, to catch up to where Gore was in 2000...LEAVES HIM 537 VOTES SHORT!

Overall, it seems to me that Kerry has dedicated today to his base. I think this is a troublesome sign for the senator. Now, the fact that he is playing to his base in red states means that he is not playing complete defense...but I am skeptical that these typically blue areas of these red states will become any bluer for Kerry, who only enjoys tepid enthusiasm among both unionists and blacks. I think he is trying to catch up to Gore's 2000 results, which of course is insufficient.

Dubya spent today in Waterloo, IA in the northeast portion of the state. This is in Blackhawk county, which the president lost by 7,000 votes in 2000. Waterloo is in the 1st Congressional District, home of Republican Rep. Jim Nussle. This has been a historically Republican portion of the state, 2000 was an exception. Karl Rove has commented in the past that Dubya lost the state because there was not a large enough airport in northeast Iowa for Dubya to land there in 2000. Apparently, they are rectifying that mistake (did they chopper him in?).

Jay's Interpretation: Clearly, Dubya is playing offense in Iowa today. He lost the state by about 4,000 votes. If he can pick up votes in this usually Republican section of the state, that should be enough to make up the difference. I think it is doubtful that Kerry could win Iowa by anything more than 4,000 votes (i.e. not many people have jumped from Bush's ship in Iowa). Thus, righting a 2000 "wrong" in Iowa's 1st CD might just be the trick for 2004.

Bush was also scheduled to appear in Carver County, Minnesota. It is a southern, exterior suburb of Minneapolis.

Jay's Interpretation: Now, we have all heard about Dubya's plan to drum up support in the "Exurbs," places where Dubya did well in 2000. Bush/Cheney's goal has been to increase voter turnout in those places, and Carver County is one of Minneapolis's "exurbs." Bush carried the county by 23%, but this appearance is bound to find its way onto Minneapolis/St. Paul television, and therefore effect the other exurbs where the race was closer. One such place is Dakota County, where the President won in 2000 by less than 1%. Another is Anoka, where he won in 2000 also by less than 1%. Another is Washington county, which he won by about 2%. If Dubya improves his performances in these areas, that could tip this election. He only lost the state by 2% in 2000.

Overall, it seems to me that Dubya is expanding beyond his base today. He is trying to appeal to areas in which he can do better than he did in 2000. Again, Dubya lost Iowa by just 4,000 votes. He lost Minnesota by 2%. Better performances in just the two places he visited today would give him an extra 17 EVs, which in this race would just about crush Kerry.

Let's do ourselves a favor and just agree to ignore Rasmussen. His poll is lousy. So is Survey USA's polling. The reason for this is that they are done by an automated caller. Respondents do not speak to a real person. This skews results because people are more inclined to hang up. More hang ups mean that the ultimate sample that they take is not respresentative of the national public.

A common sense test of this hypothesis that something smells fishy with Rasmussen can be seen by the fact that his is the only poll whose results have been consistently within the margin of error. In other words, Bush and Kerry each have always ranged from about 44 to 50. In other words, the difference between any given Rasmussen poll with any other given Rasmussen poll can be explained entirely by statistical differences. Rasmussen's poll indicates that there has been no statistically noticeable movement in the electorate in nearly nine months. His is the only poll where this is the case. Anybody believe that?

I agree with you about the problem of the closeness to the debate skewing the polls. I agree particularly because I think Kerry's victory was purely stylistic, and therefore likely ephemeral.

However, there is no peculiar confluence of polls going on here. Gallup's poll was released Sunday night, which is the night Gallup always releases its poll. ABC News started its daily tracking Monday as planned. The only poll that was fishy, to my mind, was the Newsweek poll.

Gallup's poll for CNN and USA Today has been a weekend poll this campaign season. Weekends in the summer are one thing, weekends in the fall are another. Things get complicated because of football. I wonder whether or not we shall continue to see Gallup as a "pro-Kerry" outlier for the rest of the campaign season.

Those are all good points, but you must remember that there are still good reasons to let partisan identification vary in the polls.

The presumption that partisan identification is an independent variable, i.e. that it is a unchanging cause rather than a variable effect, freezes the poll from picking up potential changes in it, which would make it a dependent variable. That partisan identification can change, that it can act as a dependent variable, would mean that polls that treat it as an independent variable have a poor methodology.

These polls with varying numbers are not just commenting on the horserace. They are also commenting on how many partisans they pick up in the real world. These numbers can vary depending upon events. Thus, Bush had a poor night on Thursday, so the next day when Newsweek or Gallup calls, weak Republicans identify themselves as Independents, Democrat-leaning Independents identify themselves as Democrats. The change in party ID is caused by events on the ground; thus, it is best understood (in this case) as a dependent variable. Meanwhile, Zogby, Fox News or the others that freeze party ID fail to pick up that change because they treat it as independent.

I am not saying here that Gallup and the other polls that let party ID vary are right, but I am also not saying that Fox News is right, either. Both sides are taking a guess on this issue. Both guesses have some justification and neither is a decisively clear choice. You have made a strong case for considering party ID as an independent variable, but there are strong reasons to consider it a dependent variable. What is the reality? We shall not know the answer until 11-2, where we will see if partisan ID is different than it has been in years past.

More than that, thoughI think you are making a mountain out of what is a statistical molehill. I have a lot of problems with the Newsweek poll, but both that poll and the Gallup poll have partisan samples that are within the margin of error from their past partisan sample. Statistically speaking, you cannot say that anything is really happening in that poll. The change in partisan ID is entirely explicable by the kind of random statistical variation that occurs anytime you take a sample of a population to draw inferences about the latter.

This is a point that people (not you in this post) usually fail to take from polling. When, for instance, the CBS News poll show the race tied at 47-47, what they are saying is that they are 95% confidant that Bush has somewhere between 44% and 50%, and that they are 95% confidant that Kerry has somewhere between 44% and 50%. So, all they are saying is that the race is somewhere between Bush +6 and Kerry +6.

Statistical sampling of any population is, at best, a rough estimate. Usually, as in the case of most social science questions, that roughness is not a problem. But in a presidential contest, one where the difference in 2000 was 537 votes, there is a precision required that polling simply cannot provide. Pollsters call their work an "art" in recognition of this fact. They are being a tad disingenuous when they say that. It is not an "art." Rather, it is a science that is poorly suited for presidential politics.

The point of my post was that the polls are not "showing" anything. The only polls which have shown any statistically significant movement are the polls that were the outliers to begin with. All the other polls have not moved in a statistically significant way.

I see several problems with the Newsweek poll.

#1. It was conducted almost entirely on Friday and Saturday morning. It didn't poll the Eastern and Central time zones on Thursday night. Weekend polls like this usually undersample Republicans.

#2. It has more Democrats than Republicans. I am not certain about the over-under sampling of partisans. I tend to think if the poll is properly conducted, you need to look at party ID as a dependent variable, one that changes with ups and downs. Now -- are we to believe that in the last month there has been more than a 8% net switch in partisan identification? That is what the Newsweek poll from 10/2 stacks up with the Newsweek poll of 9/10.

#3. It is not problematic to me that it is 52% women and 48% men. What I find problematic is that the *men* who were surveyed support Kerry 47% to 45%. Not even Bob Dole did this poorly in 1996. This indicates that *they undersampled Republican men.* This would, incidentally, make sense in light of the fact that almost all of the sample was done on Friday. What are large swaths of Republican men doing on Friday nights in those red states in the fall? A. During the day they are working; B. During the evening they are at HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAMES!

(This, my friends, is the reason Kerry is in the lead. He has an insignificant lead among women and Independents...but he also has a similar lead among men. This is unheard of.)

Newsweek usually rushes polls out. I think they do it not so much to get a sense of the electorate, but to make news. Rember that Newsweek is the only poll with the honor of:
A. Showing Bob Dole down by 2% in 1996.
B. Showing Walter Mondale beating Reagan in 1984.

It is not because they are biased, but because they rush their polls out. The people who are sitting at home on Friday day and Friday evening are not a representative sample of the general American population.

All polls need to be filtered by common sense. This Newsweek poll is like that Pew polls from September. The first showed Bush up by >10, the second showed Bush up by 1, the third showed Bush up by >5. Now, do we really, honestly, truly think that the electorate has bounced around so much?

Similarly, with this Newsweek poll. Do we really, honestly, truly think that Bush is losing men and almost tying women? Do we really, honestly, truly think that the dynamic of the race has shifted by *eight points* since September 10?

If so, I have a bridge I'd like to sell ya! :-)

My previous post can be brought into broad relief if we consider today's activities of the Kerry/Edwards campaign to what Bush is doing. He is touring Florida hurricane victims.

How is that for a lede tomorrow? "Bush comforts Jeanne victims; Kerry looks for a screwdriver."

Note the tagline. It says it all.

I had a thought about this whole Kerry/light thing: Isn't this just typical of that campaign? I think it is. In four different ways:

1. It is sneaky. Kerry and company have pulled sneaky stuff like this before. They have little respect for protocol. Remember after Bush's convention speech -- Kerry was so desperate to get into the news cycle that he broke a long-standing tradition over remaining silent during conventions. He did the same thing to Edwards when the latter won the South Carolina primary. Remember? Edwards was giving his speech -- which everybody said was very important, that he get onto the cable news networks as a victor. Kerry, who won another state or something, decided to speak earlier precisely so he could bump Edwards off the tv.

2. It is half-cocked and last minute. How many times has Kerry left important stuff like this to the very last minute? The word is that he was working on his convention speech until the very last day.

3. It is self-defeating. Kerry's goal today is to engender headlines tomorrow like: "Kerry did great!" Obviously, he wants to get rid of the lights because they will make him look long-winded, thus hurting the possibility of that storyline. But by removing the lights, he redirects the headlines *precisely toward* his long-windedness. Tomorrow, this little stunt is guaranteed to find its way into the papers.

4. Points 1 through 3 are obvious. It is not just that it is sneaky, half-cocked, and self-defeating. It LOOKS that way. This is the real cardinal sin of politics -- and one of the reasons Bush is already a leg-up in terms of this debate (six 1/2 hours before it begins!). Because it seems so stupid, petty and small -- it makes for perfect fodder for the Bush campaign. Can you imagine the chuckle lines Cheney can get over this?

The Kerry/Edwards campaign is simply incapable of controlling its image. This is the worst campaign in modern American history. I think it is worse than McGovern/Eagleton-Shriver. Never did a candidacy have as much potential as Kerry/Edwards in the beginning, and squandered it so foolishly and so thoroughly. Kerry might win more states than McGovern, but his campaign is much worse.