Tomorrow is election day. So far, it looks like an Obama victory, and I’m going so far as to suggest a Reagenesque landslide. There’s a pool at work, and I’ve put in a prediction of 389 electoral college votes (including one Nebraska electoral college member & all of Arizona for Obama). Stay tuned.
We’re planning to go vote as a family (K8 & I both have the day off), then grab some brunch. I’ll try to post some pictures after, including much-anticipated pictures of Javi in his Link Hogthrob costume.
I read this interesting article in the London Times about the so-called "spiral of silence" – the tendency of voters for the less fashionable party not to tell their real voting intentions to pollsters. Apparently, this phenomenon is known and routinely weighted in in UK polls, but not in US polls. I would be interested in knowing what your take on this is and whether this could be a factor in current predictions of an Obama victory.
I'm still worried. I thought for sure Kerry was going to win in 2004.
@Jorge: It's possible that people could hide their voting intentions. But pollsters are really good at teasing that out (the good ones, at least). Besides, Obama is too far ahead in too many states for it to matter. McCain has to flip all the states in which Obama has a more than 7% lead in the polls to even have a chance.
@Daniel: None of the polls predicted a Kerry win in 2004. If you go to electoral-vote.com you can track the electoral college counts for Kerry across the 2004 season. On election eve in 2004, Bush was up on Kerry 279-252 (the end results were 286-252).
I love underdogs, but really McCain is toast. I dont see alot of fear around me to think that people want to hide their opinion. Now my sister recently got a job at a university in Vermont. People would hide their McCain leanings there, but that state would never vote for him anyway. Its not that I think a phenomenon such as a "spiral of silence" couldn't take place, it just doesn't seem to be happening this time.
I just love it when people make predictions before the results and when things don't turn out their way!
Don't get too cocky.