McCain wins MO (?)
So McCain won Missouri, by just 3,632 votes!
Yeah, maybe. As Ronald Reagan used to say, “Trust but verify.”
The exit polls said otherwise, as the HuffPost piece below reminds us. But of course
the exit polls are, somehow, always wrong….
Liz Calvin writes:
“I’m from MO, and the ‘vote counters’ would have to show me that Mc Cain legitimately won.
Did you see the largest crowd in this country at the Obama rally in St. Louis just before the election? He even had 40,000 show up in the so-called Bible belt in Springfield (where I was born to one of the handful of African American families mostly there since the 1800’s.) Oh well, I just find it hard
to believe.”
Of course, we cannot say with confidence that Obama won Missouri–but none can say
with confidence that he did not.
Until we have a voting system we can trust, we will have faith-based elections in this country.
MCM
Exit Polls 2008: See The Full Results
The Huffington Post | November 4, 2008 12:34 PM
The head to head exit polls just were sent to the Huffington Post by a Democratic source. These are traditionally unreliable and should be taken with a grain of salt (see: Kerry’s winning margins in 2004). For what it’s worth, they project a big night for Obama in several of the key swing states.
The states looking good for Obama:
Florida: 52 percent to 44 percent
Iowa: 52 percent to 48 percent
Missouri: 52 percent to 48 percent
North Carolina: 52 percent to 48 percent
New Hampshire: 57 percent to 43 percent
Nevada: 55 percent to 45 percent
Pennsylvania: 57 percent to 42 percent
Ohio: 54 percent to 45 percent
Wisconsin: 58 percent to 42 percent
Indiana: 52 percent to 48 percent
New Mexico: 56 percent to 43 percent
Minnesota: 60 percent to 39 percent
Michigan: 60 percent to 39 percent
McCain wins Missouri in close race against Obama (final EV: Obama 365 McCain 173)
Source: AP
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Republican John McCain has defeated President-elect Barack Obama in Missouri - the last state to be decided in the 2008 presidential election.
McCain’s narrow victory over Obama breaks a bellwether streak in which Missourians had picked the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1956.
With all jurisdictions reporting complete but unofficial results, McCain led Obama by 3,632 votes Wednesday out of more than 2.9 million cast - a margin of 0.12 percentage points.
…
Obama won 365 electoral votes. Missouri’s 11 electoral votes will give McCain 173.
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Mark,
We will get the unadjusted state exit polls (average WPE) when Edison/Mitofsky releases their 2008 report, probably in January. I fully suspect that we will see that Obama had over 55%, not the 52.7% recorded vote reported in the media.
Here’s why.
Once again, the evidence lies in the Final National Exit Poll, which is always forced to match the recorded vote (even if is fraudulent)
The Final 2008 National Exit Poll does not compute - again. This analysis will show that like Kerry in 2004 and the Democrats in the 2006 midterms, Obama did much better than the recorded vote indicates.
The Final NEP was forced to match the 52.5-46% recorded vote share. In every election, adjustments are made to the demographic category weights and /or vote shares of the Final NEP in order to FORCE A MATCH TO THE RECORDED VOTE.
The question that needs to be asked by the media (but won’t be) is this: How does the official 50.7-48.3% Bush recorded 2004 margin square with the Final 2008 NEP 46 Bush/37% Kerry returning voter share of the 2008 electorate? The short answer: it doesn’t. This anomaly is even more ridiculous since many analysts have concluded that Kerry easily won the 2004 True Vote and therefore the number of returning (motivated) Kerry voters in 2008 had to exceed the number of returning (unmotivated) Bush voters.
Several prominent exit poll naysayers have consistently claimed that the impossible 43/37 Bush/Gore returning voter mix in the Final 2004 NEP was due to returning Gore voters who misspoke to the exit pollsters about their vote in 2000. The rationale was that Gore voters told the exit pollsters that they voted for Bush because they wanted to be associated with an incumbent war-time president (even though Gore won the popular vote and Bush had a 48% approval rating).
The totally implausible (and nearly impossible) 2008 Final NEP 46/37 returning Bush/Kerry voter mix should finally put that canard to rest; that is, unless they want to make the same argument: that returning Kerry voters also lied about their 2004 vote because they wanted to be associated with Bush and his 22% approval rating.
Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the corresponding preliminary NEP weightings we need in order to analyze the demographics before they were “adjusted” in the Final. But we have analyzed preliminary exit polls from 2004 and the 2006 midterm. The Democratic preliminary NEP margin exceeded the Final NEP (which is matched to the recorded vote) by 6-7% in both cases. Exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky released their 2004 summary report in Jan. 2005. It provided the average state exit poll discrepancies (WPE) which showed that Kerry was a 52-47% winner; there was a 7% average WPE (vote margin discrepancy).
There is no reason to expect that 2008 was any different. If the 2004-2006 pattern holds, the preliminary 2008 NEP and the average state WPE will show that Obama won by 56-43%. This would match a number of National Registered Voter (RV) pre-election polls.
Analysts who should know better never question the standard procedure of matching the Final Exit Poll to the recorded vote. The answer is invariably “but that’s how it’s always done”. But what if the vote count is fraudulent? The possibility is never considered; it would result in incorrect Final NEP demographics across the board.
The Final National Exit Poll suffers from an endemic disease as a result of the need for an ongoing “fix” to match prior elections using bogus weights and vote shares. Consider the last three National Exit Polls:
2004 NEP “Voted in 2000”
The preliminary 12:22am NEP returning Bush/Gore voter mix was an implausible 41/39%; it was a mathematically impossible 43/37% in the Final. Impossible because 43% of 122.3m is 52.6m; Bush only had 50.46m votes in 2000 – and only 48m were still alive to vote in 2004. Election stolen.
2006 NEP Midterm Generic “Voted in 2004”
The preliminary 7pm NEP returning Bush/Kerry voter mix was 47/45%; it was an implausible 49/43% in the 2008 Final. Landslide denied.
2008 NEP “Voted in 2004”
The preliminary NEP Bush/Kerry voter mix is not yet available; but it’s a totally implausible 46/37% in the Final. Landslide denied.
Let’s take a close look at the Final 2008 NEP.
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/Final2008NEPScenarios.htm