2008 Election Predictions

Presidential, popular vote:

Obama 53.3%, McCain 45.7%

Analysis: While the current aggregate of national tracking polls shows Obama with a 6.1% lead in the popular vote, I believe that the final results will be close to those predicted by the Iowa Electronic Market. The IEM has recently been showing a 7.4% spread between the two candidates. Nationwide, we are heading for a Democratic landslide.

Here's a few important statistics to consider from states that have early voting:

1. As of Saturday, about 30% of the total vote for 2008 is already in. Obama is leading McCain by at least 10%.

2. As of Thursday 10/30: From Georgia: "Early voting is already 33% higher than 2004 numbers, and is equivalent to 31% of all votes cast in Georgia in 2004. Of early voters, 35% are African-American, compared to 25% of the total voting population in 2004. Also, nearly 56% of early voters are women, another excellent sign for Democrats." This explains why I think the national tracking polls showing Obama leading McCain by only 5-6% are showing the race as closer than it really is. I don't think that the models these pollsters are using are fully taking into account the dramatically higher turnout among Democrats, African-Americans and women this year.

Presidential, electoral vote: Obama 378, McCain 160

I'm calling 30 states plus DC for Obama and 20 for McCain. I'm pretty confident about all of these picks except Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska-02 and North Dakota.



U.S Senate
Democrats pick up 9 seats for a 60 to 40 seat majority
Most pundits, even the conservatives, are predicting that Democrats will pick up the these 8 Republican Senate seats: Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia. Al Franken in Minnesota has been in the weakest position among these races, but his opponent, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, is now drowning in a bribery scandal.

In addition to those 8 seats, I'll guess that Democrats will also pick up one of these three: Georgia, Kentucky or Mississippi. While none of the three Democratic challengers in these races are showing a lead in the polls, I think that the big turnout by African-Americans for Obama in southern states will produce some coattail victories. I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Here's an analysis discussing the possibility that pollsters are low-balling Democrat Jim Martin's support in Mississippi, and here's a pollster admiting that their own poll may be under-sampling African-Americans in the Lunsford-McConnell race in Kentucky.

Note also that there's a good chance that the Georgia race will go to a December run-off. That would be one wild race, especially if Democrats are angling for a 60th Senate seat. Here's another update on early voting in Georgia, this one again demonstrating that voters there are going Democratic in much bigger numbers than the polls have indicated.

U.S. House
Democrats pick up 29 seats for a 265-168 majority
The most thorough analysis I can find is predicting a gain of only 26, but I've seen a lot of good news for Democratic candidates in the last week or so. I also feel good enough about the four races on my wish list to predict victory in all of them.

Gubernatorial
Washington: Incumbent Democrat Christine Gregoire to defeat Republican Dino Rossi. In 2004, Rossi got enough crossover support from Democratic voters to nearly defeat Gregoire despite the fact that John Kerry beat George Bush by 7% here. This year however, Obama is leading McCain in Washington by at least 12%. Rossi isn't going to beat that spread.

North Carolina and Missouri: Democrats to narrowly hold the open seat in North Carolina, and pick up Missouri.

California Prop. 8 (Repeals gay marriage): DEFEATED!
Prop. 8 was gaining ground up until recently due to a furious campaign paid for by the Mormon church. However, the controversy generated by this effort has caused the Saints to scale back their efforts to force their bigotry on everyone else, and recent polls suggest that Prop. 8 will lose.

New York State Senate
Democrats to gain the majority. I mention this because Republican control of the NY Senate (by one vote!) has been the only thing stopping NY Dems from making good on their intention to legalize gay marriage. Another giant step for equality!

To everyone who has read my blog this year, thank you. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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