The Daily Widget – Wednesday, July 9 – Obama 365, McCain 173 – One-Stop Shop for Public Opinion

[phrigndumass]

No new state polls today, but they’ll be coming in bigger clumps very soon! (At times 15 to 20 new polls a day)

Rasmussen occasionally has a very good idea (I’ll bet our friends at 538.com were behind it, as they are now working closely with Rasmussen). They have a new master tracking page for public opinion on the candidates, the issues and the political climate. They call it “By the Numbers.” It’s a one-page summary of literally everything the public could have an opinion on regarding this election. This is definitely worth at least a glance.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/scoreboards/by_the_numbers

Some items of note from the link:
- The public identifies themselves more as Democrats by a margin of 10%
- The public believes Obama will bring the troops home more than they believe McCain will, by a margin of 78% to 15%, but they consider bringing the troops home as not the top priority (76%)
- The public trusts Obama most with the Environment, and the public trusts McCain most with National Security
- The public trusts Obama the least with Immigration and Abortion, and the public trusts McCain the least with Environment and Education
- The public continues to be ignorant of the republicans regarding taxes and government spending … although government spending has skyrocketed over the last eight years, 51% currently believe Obama will increase government spending while only 29% currently believe McCain will increase government spending
- The public perceives McCain to be a “better leader” by a margin of 4% over Obama
- 13% of the public believes Obama will win in a landslide :D



^ This is what we refer to as the “Widget”. In the white section, it shows Obama’s and McCain’s electoral vote projection from three different sources. 270 would be a majority. In the yellow section, it shows three sources of trading and averages for the candidates. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority. Intrade shows the trading, while RCP-av shows the aggregate average of all the state polls. The Wigand Electoral Average is our own indicator, and shows how the candidates will do if the undecideds nationwide break the same way as the swing states.



^ The Wigand Electoral Average is our own indicator, and shows how the candidates will do if the undecideds nationwide break the same way as the swing states. Each of the twelve swing states are listed below the indicator’s current score. The closing figures on Intrade are shown next to each state, with a column to show the change from the previous day. The scale for these is 0 to 100, with 50 being a majority.


* * * * * * *


DAILY TRACKING



^ This graph shows the daily tracking of Obama’s projected electoral votes from three sources. 270 is a majority of the electoral votes. The blue line shows daily tracking from 538.com, which projects what the outcome should be on election day. The red line shows daily tracking from Electoral-Vote.com, which shows a current snapshot of Obama’s electoral progress if the undecideds break evenly. The green line is my own projection, and it shows a current snapshot of Obama’s electoral progress if the undecideds break the same way as the swing states. A trend line is used (dashed green line) to show the average progress since May 19 and possible route for the next seven days.



^ This graph shows Obama’s green line and red line from the previous graph, and compares it to John Kerry’s 2004 progress (orange line) as shown from Electoral-Vote.com. (Both the red line and the orange line show data from Electoral-Vote.com)



^ Wigand vs. National Polls. The Wigand Electoral Average uses both poll averages and trading (swing states), and this graph compares it to the national tracking polls from Gallup, Rasmussen and Real Clear Politics (average).



^ This graph shows the daily tracking of the swing states total from the Wigand Electoral Average widget above (second chart from the top). The scale is 0 to 1200, with 600 being a majority. It is currently at 671.70 (the highest it has ever been). To show Obama’s progress in the swing states, divide the latest closing figure (671.70) by 1200. Obama is winning the swing states by 55.98%, compared to 44.02% for McCain.



^ Wigand vs. Trading. The Wigand Electoral Average uses both poll averages and trading (swing states), and this graph compares it to the closing trading figures from Intrade (people buying shares with real money) and Rasmussen Markets (people using fake money).



^ I am projecting 126,750,000 million votes on election day, which is the total 2004 votes plus population growth for each state. A total projected popular vote is calculated for each candidate based on projected votes on election day this year multiplied by each state’s current poll results. This graph shows the daily tracking of the popular vote calculations.



^ This graph shows the daily tracking of each swing state’s closing figure on Intrade. The scale is 0 to 100 with 50 being a majority. I commonly refer to the range from 40.00 to 60.00 as “The Zone” because the states in The Zone are true swing states this year.


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Yesterday’s Widget
Full Weekly Tracking
Past editions of THE MATH

Sources:
Pollster.com
FiveThirtyEight.com
Electoral-Vote.com
Intrade
Rasmussen Markets
RCP Average
RCP Latest Polls

What is this? THE MATH’s Daily Widget was created to track multiple daily sources which measure the potential success of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Projected Electoral Votes are on a scale of 0 to 538, with 270 being a majority, or projected win. Trading and Averages are on a scale of 0 to 100, with 50.1 being a majority, or projected win.

The Wigand Electoral Average uses public polling results to determine base states for both parties and a short list of swing states, and combines the actual electoral votes from base states with a weighted Intrade calculation for electoral votes from swing states to derive an average on a scale of 0 to 100. On this scale, greater than 50.00 is considered a win for Barack Obama. An average of 50.10 would yield 270 electoral votes, and an average of 100.00 would yield 538 electoral votes. More Information

As always, I’m open to your feedback and suggestions, and I will be happy to explain anything!

Feel free to use these charts and graphs anywhere on Democratic Underground.

Donate to the Obama Campaign today through DU’s donation link at Barack Obama’s website:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/du

[Demeter]

1. Good Morning Pman!

Glad you can handle these statistics--even the thought of trying would leave me gibbering.

[phrigndumass]

4. Call it OCD, lol

:donut: Good morning, Demeter! :hi:

[fight4my3sons]

9. Hi Demeter!

Me too with the gibbering. :hi:

[jefferson_dem]

2. Kick-er-amma!

Thanks! :kick:

[phrigndumass]

5. Thanks jd!

:donut: Good morning! :hi:

[tekisui]

3. A hefty knr!, Good Morning.

44% see either an Obama landslide OR narrow win to 28% for Mcdubya, 26% too close to call.

Those are pretty good numbers.

Looking forward to the big chunks of state polling.....

Thanks for the work, BTW, phign, is this your job or passionate hobby? The data collection and input/graph drawing must be time consuming.

[phrigndumass]

6. Conservative-type-folks like to fool themselves, lol

Those 28% need to take a gander at this post :7

Not a job, definitely a passionate hobby. If I weren't posting it here, I'd still be tracking it for myself. The initial setup took some time, but now that it's in a spreadsheet, it takes about one hour a day to gather and enter the information, save the graphs as jpegs, and write the post. (The MATH Weekly posts can take up to four hours to compile and post.)

DUer dbmk programmed a "Wigand Assistant" to grab all the data from the internet with two clicks, and that saves me a huge amount of time every morning.

:donut: Good morning, tek! :hi:

[phrigndumass]

7. The main reason for doing all this ...

Your question about job/passionate hobby got me thinking after I posted my first reply to you.

The primary reason for doing all this work is to better understand why certain campaign decisions are made. The math always tells the story from behind the scenes.

Why is Obama centering himself and reaching out to faith voters? Because that's where the undecideds are. Why is Obama campaigning in Montana? Because he has a statistical chance to win there. There are tons more questions that can be answered with the math behind the campaigns.

The campaigns see things in reverse, though. (More accurately, we see things in reverse from them.) Where are the undecideds? Red states and faith voters. Where do we have a statistical chance to gain ground on the electoral map? States like Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, etc.

The math answers the why.

:hi:

[tekisui]

19. It's much appreciated.

Through the Primary, I was crunching numbers every morning. The Math certainly does explain a lot of they "why's".

Keep up the great work. You are a resource to us political math junkies on DU!


:toast:

[phrigndumass]

21. You are much appreciated as well :)

Feel free to add your .02 anytime.

:toast:

[phrigndumass]

8. Off to work kick

Enjoy your day.

:donut: Good morning to fight4my3sons :hi:

[fight4my3sons]

10. Good morning :)

I'm late, sorry. Thanks for taking the time to do all of this. I didn't realize the weekly took that long. No wonder I'm usually asleep when you post it. It is very helpful. :)

Have a good day at work. :hi:

[grantcart]

11. Yes we have the 4th of July holiday causing a little blip with no polls coming out

It will be interesting to see if last week's campaigning had much of an effect.

[phrigndumass]

20. If we believe the national pollsters and trend lines ...

Obama is inching back, while McCain is inching forward. Trendlines are beginning to lose their nice northward curve and are instead starting to curve more to the east.

I'm starving for "real" state polls, lol ...

[helderheid]

12. 5th Rec!

:woohoo:

[phrigndumass]

16. Wud U likez cheez on ur burgr?

Thanks HH! :hi:

[grantcart]

13. Zogby showing a multi state dump of state polls

http://www.zogby.com/50state/index.cfm


shows AZ going Obama for the first time

http://www.zogby.com/50state/index.cfm

[phrigndumass]

17. These are all "online survey" polls ... hardly trustworthy

The only cases I'll use them is to replace an outdated poll, older than 35 days. So of all the 34 online polls they conducted, only four were of use:

Arkansas - Obama 41, McCain 39, Barr 4, Nader 1 (replaces February 28 poll)
Illinois - Obama 52, McCain 32, Barr 5, Nader 1 (replaces February 28 poll)
Maryland - Obama 54, McCain 30, Barr 6, Nader 1 (replaces April 3 poll)
South Carolina - Obama 42, McCain 41, Barr 6, Nader 1 (replaces June 2 poll)

Zogby "Interactive" also has Obama winning North Dakota, but another more current poll for North Dakota has been released showing McCain leading by a small margin. I used the more current one.

538.com is using them all, but they are giving them the smallest weight possible, 0.25%. I used the four polls listed above with a 0.00% weight.

On edit: The whole idea of "Zogby Interactive" is like e-voting. It's not yet a trusted method to gather data. It is applicable and conducive only to people with computers and an internet connection.

[Fire_brand]

22. Obama up in SC

that can't be true

[phrigndumass]

23. The poll is hardly trustworthy, I agree

Because of the nature of the poll, I can't give any weight to it. I'd like to see another polling agency verify Obama's one-point lead there first.

:hi:

[grantcart]

14. for the first time McCain's poor showing in AZ is actually getting favorable comments in DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6474175

[nc4bo]

15. having a hard time trying to slap the silly grin from my face. TY. n/t

[phrigndumass]

18. Try a waffle iron ...

It doesn't slap, but it burns like hell! And it leaves neat, orderly squares on your face, lol ...

:hi:

[phrigndumass]

24. Today seems to be a good day to Cick a math thread, lol

Dark and lonely on a summer night
Kick a math thread
Kick a math thread

DU'er barking, do he bite?
Kick a math thread
Kick a math thread

Disagreement I can't reject
Then his thread I start to wreck
Got no reason, what the heck
Kick a math thread
Kick a math thread

C. I. C. K.
A math thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acp3pQSgwS0