Final election eve polls show a gradual shift to Gore: There are two outliers (?) with Rasmussen showing Bush up by 9%, and Zogby's with Gore up by 2%. All the others show a range of tied to 5% ahead Bush. In order of Bush lead:
Battleground up 5%
ABC up 4%
CBS up 4%
Newsweek up 3%
NBC up 3%
WSJ up 3%
Wash Post up 3%
USA Today up 2%
Gallup up 2%
Fox tied
My SWAG is based on an average of the ten non outliers= Bush up 2.9%. I'm going to give Gore a half percent more for some momentum and because some of the polls were from the weekend= Bush up 2.4%. Also weather around the country with a few key exceptions is generally OK for Democrats. My final adjustment is the Nadar factor, especially in close states. The polls indicate that 28% of those voters (roughly 1 1/2% of total national vote) are somewhat or very likely to switch votes. However, I believe that organizationally the Nadar people will ensure their 4% threshold no matter what. Also Gore will not get 100% of those switch votes. Therefore I see the final tally as: Bush 48.8, Gore 47.0, Nadar 4.2
Followup to my yesterday's post 489: Coin flip states were DE, ME, OR, IA, and WI for 32 votes. MO is very close also, but rain and little Nadar factor edges this to Bush. Oregon goes to Gore because of Nadar switchover and clues from Gore's resurgence in WA. Oregon's polls that I have seen are old. DE goes Bush. Maine is a toss up with 5% Nadar support. Gore may get enough Nadar supporters there to squeeze over. That puts it at Gore 266 to Bush 254.
So I slightly revise my earlier prediction: The election will be determined by students (Nadar defectors) at Iowa City and Madison, and weather, but Gore only needs one of those states to win. Zogby's last WI poll was 46-46, with Nadar at 6. The last IA polls were a week old and show Gore up by 44-42 (Des Moines Register), and 44-43 (Research 2000). Weather is rainy.
Note that if Bush can pull Maine and WI (loses IA) of the coin tosses, we have the 269-269 tie. |
