CHARLIE COOK LOVES THE FEDERAL REVIEW COMPOSITE POLL
Well, Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report didn't actually say that. But in an online chat at WashingtonPost.com, he urged poll watchers to adopt certain part of my methodology.

Unrelated to your question, my advice to people is to not pay too much attention to any one poll, there is a temptation to cherry pick, to focus on the one or two polls that tell you what you want to see happen the most, and ignore all others as methodologically flawed. I would look at the averages of polls that are published in various places, an average of many polls is most likely to give you a truer picture than any one.

My top line national numbers are averages of each week's polls (I weight likely voter polls more heavily, but don't through out registered voter polls. I average the state polls too, and to prevent a single poll from having to much impact on a state's designation, I weight it against earlier polls.

Averages are always better, just stick to polls that are done over the telephone (NOT internet) and conducted by real live people, not "push #1 for Bush, #2 for Kerry...) like Rasmussen or Survey USA. They have no idea of they are interviewing nine years old or not.

Yes, I use Rasmussen's survey, but I have reduced it's weight relative to other pollsters, and I don't use Zogby's "interactive" internet state polling. I do use SurveyUSA's state polling - and SurveyUSA had a really good track record in 2002. But it's only one of many state polling firms that are getting their numbers into my analysis, unlike some sites like Electoral-Vote.com, which only gives you the very last result released, despite how far off from other polling it may be.

RHODE ISLAND



Projection: Kerry
2000 Winner: Gore +29
Composite Margin: Kerry +21
Current Category: Strong Kerry
Probability of Kerry Win: 100%
Best Bush: 43-57
Best Kerry: 65-35
Trend: Democrat +26.5
Safe: Yes
Can other candidate win? No. Freakin'. Way.
Best Weekly Polling Result for Bush: -18
Best Weekly Polling Result for Kerry: +28

Rhode Island voted for Reagan in 1984 and Nixon in 1972. You'll notice they were both historic landslides. In every election since 1960, Rhode Island has voted more Democratic than the nation as a whole. That's not about to change this year. Kerry wins his neighbor state easily.

For an explanation of this data, click here.

For regular updates to the Composite State by State Margins, click here.

For regular updates to the Election Simulation, click here.

Note that the map on this page may not be updated as regularly.

STATE BY STATE PROJECTIONS,
ELECTION NIGHT AND BEFORE

On election night, once states have been called by a network for a particular candidate – or once I think that the state should have been called (I expect they’ll be skittish on Florida until 90% of the precincts are reporting and they have Palm Beach County), I will upload a graphic showing who is the projected winner.

Until then, for the next several weeks, I will be posting state by state Federal Review projections and analysis, starting with the easy states and eventually getting around to the battleground states. Below is the summary of the data I will be presenting from each state based on the data I have collected since March 2004. As of today, I have collected national polling data surveying a total over 173,000 voters from more than 120 polls.

I have collected data from over 670 polls from the various states.

You may not agree with my projections, which are based heavily on what polls are saying, but sometimes on other factors. Generally, I will not take into account voter registration changes or perceived motivation of one party or another to vote. I assume that much of this will show up in the polls, ideally through the pollsters' various likely voter screens. Also, I remember in 2000 thinking that Republicans were simply more motivated than Democrats because they were motivated by animosity for Bill Clinton. They called themselves Broker Glass Republicans because they would crawl over broken glass to vote. A similar motivation exists for some Democrats in 2004. I think that is showing up in the polls and there’s evidence it may not be enough, by itself, to win the election for Kerry. We thought they were extra motivated in 2002, too.

We’ll see.

All of the numbers that will be listed will be the numbers available on the day I do the projection, obviously. Thus, variations over the next three weeks probably won’t matter when I'm projecting Alaska or Rhode Island. I will get around to the battleground in the last week before the election, when I’ll have data closer to election day – but still not the last weekend numbers. However, I’ll try to update those close state projections on November 1 and give you my overall election projection that night (or maybe on Nov 2 before the polls close).

Here’s the key.

Projection: Of all the estimates listed, this is the one in which I inject my own best guess based on an analysis of polling within the state, national polling, the progress of the race, the campaigns’ commitments to the state and how the state has performed historically. If there’s a bias, you’ll find it here. Feel free to disagree.

2000 Winner: The winner and actual margin between the candidates in 2000.

Composite Margin: My weighted average analysis of state polling. Each week’s polls for a state are average, and each week is weighted 1.5 times the previous week. Thus, recent polls are weighted more heavily, but one week’s result in favor of one candidate will not necessarily move the state from one candidate to another. Thus, subsequent weeks must confirm that the race has changed. This prevents anomalous results showing non-meaningful movement from changing the predicted winner and reduces the impact of partisan polls.

Current Category:The Composite Margin in English.

Probability of Bush Win: Based on a normal distribution around the mean. The Composite Margin is used as the mean, thus a recent anomalous result will not move the mean arbitrarily. The applied standard error in the calculation is based on all state polling since April, thus, it takes into account the volatility of the race over time and not just polling error. If a state is not listed as 100%, it should not be considered a complete lock for the candidate. UPDATEI'm going to report without rounding. Previously, I reported probabilities over 80% as 100%. Now, I know that is not statistically the right thing to do, but I think it makes a hell of a lot of sense when running an election simulation. For instance, because of the few polls in Illinois showing the race close for a brief time, the stat work I have done shows that Bush has a 7% probability of winning that state. Bah. Never going to happen, and any election simulation that has Illinois going to Bush and not also Michigan and Minnesota is per se unreasonable. Thus, I bump up those numbers. But things are more interesting around the low 80s, so I'll start reporting those probabilities in my state-by-state numbers.

Best Bush: The 95% confidence band of the 2-party vote share based on the Composite Result and the standard error applied to construct the probability.

Best Kerry: The 95% confidence band of the 2-party vote share based on the Composite Result and the standard error applied to construct the probability.

Trend: Based on all elections since 1960, I have calculated how states are trending in comparison to the national popular vote. If a state is designated “Democrat +2”, then the trend is that the 2-party vote share in this state will be 2 points more favorable to the Democrats than the national result. Thus, if Bush wins the national vote by 4 points, then Bush would win the state by 2 points. To calculate this number, I compared each election result since 1960 to the national popular vote result and then used a least squares regression to project 2004’s result. I constructed the regression for each year until the present from 1960 until 1996 and then averaged all projected numbers. This method actually predicted the 2000 result quite well, missing only West Virginia, Louisiana and Arkansas, each of which I would blame on President Clinton’s strength in 1992 and 1996, when these states were otherwise trending Republican.

Safe: If yes, then I see no chance of my projection being wrong. You may disagree.

Can other candidate win? If I see the state as close to a toss-up, I’ll answer “Yes” here. If I believe that a candidate cannot win the state unless there’s a significant swing in the national popular vote in favor of the candidate, then I’ll say that. If I say “Yes”, the other candidate can win, then take my Projected Winner as a projection I’m not willing to put money on. But please, no wagering.

National Popular Vote for Candidate to Win: Based on the correlation of state polling during this election cycle with the weekly national polling results, I estimate the national popular vote spread necessary for the candidate to win this state. For battleground states, I will report the spread for both candidates. For instance, if I report “Kerry +5.3” then that means Kerry would have to win the national popular vote by approximately 5.3 points over Bush in order to have a chance to carry the state. The closer he gets to that kind of national lead, the better chance that the particular state will move to his column. Obviously, state’s can be a little independent and not exactly correlated to the national vote, so just take this number with that caveat.

Best Weekly Polling Result for Bush: Each week, I average all poll results that come out for a state. Here I’ll show Bush’s best result. You may be aware of a single poll where Bush did better than I list here. If that’s the case, then I either missed that poll (though I don’t think I missed many), or there was another poll the same week that, when averaged, pulled the number down. In other words, the polling result you may point to was not confirmed by other pollsters in the same time period.

Best Weekly Polling Result for Kerry: See my answer immediately above.

For regular updates to the Composite State by State Margins, click here.

For regular updates to the Election Simulation, click here.

Note that the map on this page may not be updated as regularly.

BEER POLL IN RALEIGH
National Review's the Corner mentions the Raleigh bar Flying Saucer. It seems you can order a beer in a Kerry or a Bush glass and they are keeping count - though Kerry is leading as of today. Must be John Edwards' former colleagues and defendants among the downtown Raleigh, after work beer-going set (DrFrankLives, for example). I'd go cast my "vote" but I find it horribly inconvenient to drive from west Raleigh to downtown and then back home to the Consolidated Area. When I want an afterwork beer, I want it quick. I mean, right after work.

I will, however, make the trek now and again for a Guinness. Perhaps Raleigh bloggers could use a Pub Summit.

NUMBERS UPDATED

Election Simulation:
Bush 84.4% probability.
95% confidence band
Bush: 246-342
Kerry: 196-292

Composite Poll Data and EV Analysis Numbers:
Bush 50.2 | Kerry 48.6
EV Bush 291 | Kerry 247

DEBATE NO. 3
Add comments here.

And be nice.

RESOLVE
Over at Belmont Club, wretchard discusses Mark Steyn's not-sufficiently-sad commentary on the death of Kenneth Bigley and the European inclination to go weak kneed and negotiate with terrorists. His and Mark Steyn's discussion reveal what I think is the proper understanding of the enemy and how to fight it. Commenters to this site have wondered how seemingly intelligent people can support President Bush. I think the understanding of the enemy as revealed by wretchard and Mark Steyn is the understanding that President Bush shares. And you know what Sun Tzu said about defeating an enemy.

When reading such things, I am reminded again of how I felt on September 11, 2001 and for months after as it was fresh in my mind. The personal anger and personal sadness and personal pain. Over on Mark Steyn's page, he remembers Anna Quindlan's contemporaneous column:

Anna Quindlen "fastened on", as she put it, one family on the flight manifest:

Peter Hanson, Massachusetts
Susan Hanson, Massachusetts
Christine Hanson, 2, Massachusetts

As Miss Quindlen described them, "the father, the mother, the two-year old girl off on an adventure, sitting safe between them, taking flight." Christine Hanson will never be three, and I feel sad about that. But I did not know her, love her, cherish her; I do not feel her loss, her absence in my life. I have no reason to hold hands in a "healing circle" for her. All I can do for Christine Hanson is insist that the terrorist movement which killed her is hunted down and prevented from targeting any more two-year olds. We honour Christine Hanson's memory by righting the great wrong done to her, not by ersatz grief-mongering.

And that bears repeating. We honour Christine Hanson's memory by righting the great wrong done to her.

And with a full understanding of the enemy, I don't think you are correcting that wrong by ignoring the larger terrorist issue or trying to limit your response to the evil of this theocratic, fascist death cult by insisting that Saddam wasn't directly involved in the attack on September 11, saying we should only fight the perpetrators of X and not the similarly evil perpetrators of Y and Z who share the same goals.

The Europeans don't get it, but I know that George W. Bush does. Like me, George W. Bush thinks that an unstable pseudo-democratic Iraq is much better for the world's security - and its people - than a stable Saddam-led Iraq. And these points were driven home today, as American investigators dug up more mass graves - without the help of the Europeans who are afraid the evidence will be used in a death penalty murder case against Saddam.

US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s.

The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said.

And my thoughts drift to my own 4 year old and 11 month old. And their favorite toys. And a trench. And what would I tell them if we were in Hatra? Just go to sleep, everything will be all right.

Mr Kehoe said that work to uncover graves around Iraq, where about 300,000 people are thought to have been killed during Saddam Hussein's regime, was slow as experienced European investigators were not taking part.

The Europeans, he said, were staying away as the evidence might be used eventually to put Saddam Hussein to death.

It goes without saying that none of these discoveries would have been possible without the American decision to go to war. And there certainly would not be an Iraq human rights ministry, which "has reportedly identified 40 possible mass graves across the country."

When I read about these horrors or remember 9/11, I have a hard time drawing lines of legal technicality between the two - separating them into bad enough to go after and not bad enough to go after. I know George W. Bush sees it that way, too.

Surely we can't invade every nation that fails the human rights test as miserably as Baathist Iraq or Taliban Afghanistan or North Korea or Zimbabwe or the myriad other nations who operate with one foot in hell and the other on a dead child. We don't have the resources and the military to do it. But that doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and not help where and when we can.

Freedom will change things. And I know George W. Bush understands that. More importantly, actions speak louder than words. Petitions by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and strongly worded statements from U.N. committees may have some effect on the civilized, by they aren't effective in stopping madmen. George W. Bush understands this. And that's another reason I'm voting for him and urging others to do the same.

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE: KERRY'S DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE?

Today's New York Sun is reporting that a "Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Naval Discharge":

An official Navy document ...opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service. The document is a form cover letter [that] describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers."

The article goes on to note:

There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

The article goes on to tie the year the review occurred, 1978, with certain policies of then-President Jimmy Carter:

The "board of officers" review reported in the ... document is even more extraordinary because it came about "by direction of the President." No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president.

The president at that time was James Carter.

Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters....in March 1977 it had been expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative effect on military records. In those cases the directive outlined a procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board of officers.

The timing of the review in 1978 is even more suspicious, the Sun reports, because it is six years after Kerry should have received an honorable discharge:

Mr. Kerry's military commitment began with his six-year enlistment contract with the Navy on February 18, 1966. His commitment should have terminated in 1972.

Furthermore, the article notes, the government had grounds to deny Kerry an honorable discharge due to his anti-war actions "while still a reserve officer of the Navy":

For example, while America was still at war, Mr. Kerry had met with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegation to the Paris Peace talks in May 1970 and then held a demonstration in July 1971 in Washington to try to get Congress to accept the enemy's seven point peace proposal

Given the above, the Sun's writer has to conclude:

The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge ...to an honorable discharge.

Of course, Kerry could clear up much of this mystery by simply releasing all his military records. However, as the Sun, and others, have reported:

Kerry has repeatedly refused to sign Standard Form 180, which would allow the release of all his military records [and] the Naval Personnel Office [has] admitted that they were still withholding about 100 pages of files.

So far, this story is confined to the Sun, and the various blog sites out there (including, now, this one).

However, if this theory is correct, and if the story gets traction, it could be that the "October surprise" against Kerry is that he, in fact, did not "serve honorably" while in the military, as he has always claimed.

JOHNNY R. EDWARDS, ESQ.
OK, I'm open to argument that Edwards didn't say this - please tell me if it is true or not:

When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again . . .

Drudge is reporting it, and I've heard it mentioned on talk radio and on internet forums, but I haven't seen it reported in the mainstream press.

Did Edwards say it or not?

If he did say it, why is it not being reported in the mainstream press? If he did say it, this would have to be the boldest campaign promise in recorded history. If he did say it, it would be the most cruel and cynical attempt yet to play on the hopes of the physically injured and disabled. If he did say it, then we've just taken a look at the John Edwards that juries used to see. If he did say it, it makes his decision not to exploit the tragedy of his son's death merely a selfish maneuver rather than a decision based on moral principle.

If he didn't say it, then the Right, and Drudge, are guilty of the same sad exploitation of Christopher Reeve and this nation's disabled people and they ought to be ashamed.

UPDATE: Wizbang is wondering about Kerry's claim to have received a cellphone message from Reeve right before slipping into his coma.

Still nothing from the Kerry camp praising the Bush Administration for being the first to fund embryonic stem cell research with federal dollars. No word from George Soros about whether he'll start spending those billions to fund embryonic stem cell research, either. No word from Kerry about asking Soros to do so.

KERRY CLOSING
Bush 50.1% – 291 EV | Kerry 48.8% – 247 EV
EV without Toss Up states (under 2% margin): Bush 284| Kerry 207| Toss 47

This week, we have some contradictory results, but I'm not prepared to say that Zogby is wrong. There are 12 national polls in this week's analysis and 49 polls in 24 different states and the picture is clear - Kerry is closing in. Three weeks ago, Bush led the composite national poll by 5.5 and in the electoral college 321-217. Now, his lead is barely more than 1 point, and his electoral total drops to 291. It is interesting to note that Bush still leads by more than 2% in states worth 284 electoral votes, so most of his losses have been in the middle, but if Kerry keeps up the momentum, this will change.

Now the details. More numbers, maps and graphs here.


This Week's Polls
FoxNews (Bush 47-45)
CBS (Bush 48-47)
Marist (Bush 49-46)
CNN/USA Today/Gallup (Kerry 49-48)
Zogby-average Thurs/Mon results (Kerry 46-45)
ABC/Wash Post-avg Thurs/Mon results (Bush 50.5-46)
Rasmussen Reports-avg Thurs/Mon results (Bush 48.7-45.8)
American Research Group (Tied 46-46)
Pew Research (Bush 49-44)
Time Magazine (Bush 46-45)
Battleground GWU (Bush 49-46)
AP/Ipsos (Kerry 50-46)
Iowa Electronic Vote Share Market (Bush 51.3-48.8)


Last Week's Polls
Newsweek (Kerry 47-45)
Battleground GWU (52-44)
LA Times (51-45)
CNN/USA Today/Gallup (Tie 49-49)
Zogby (Bush 46-43)
ICR (Bush 51-41)
Investors Business Daily (Tie 45-45)
Pew Research (Bush 48-40)
Rasmussen Week Average (Bush 48.6-46.1)
Iowa Electronic Vote Share Market (Bush 52.4-48.4)

FLIP FLOP, LIE OR STUPIDITY?
Kerry quotes from the second debate.

Well, let me tell you straight up: I've never changed my mind about Iraq. I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat. I always believed he was a threat. Believed it in 1998 when Clinton was president. I wanted to give Clinton the power to use force if necessary.

Later

while the president has been preoccupied with Iraq, where there wasn't a threat.

Call me "unnuanced", but this is a lie, a flip flop, stupidity, or John Kerry has a severe multiple personality disorder. In any case, it is simply unbelievable that he can this much of a phony.

Straight up.

RUDY QUESTIONS KERRY'S "NUISANCE" COMMENT
I’m wondering exactly when Senator Kerry thought they were just a nuisance. Maybe when they attacked the USS Cole? Or when they attacked the World Trade Center in 1993? Or when they slaughtered the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972? Or killed Leon Klinghoffer by throwing him overboard? Or the innumerable number of terrorist acts that they committed in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, leading up to September 11?

More here.

When we thought of terrorism as a nuisance, we weren't taking it seriously - and that's Kerry's whole problem. He doesn't take it seriously.

THESE ARE THE YEARS THAT WERE HARD FOUGHT AND WON
And how about that John Howard sweeping to victory in Australia despite his support for President Bush's Iraq policy. Funny how news reports before the election warned that he was in trouble because Australia was in the unilateral, go-it-alone-coalition with the United States. After his victory, we are told Iraq wasn't that big a deal in Australia. And Peter Garrett was elected to the Australian parliament. As Peter once said, "We can dive into distant amoebas, Our wings could melt in the sun."

And, finally free elections in Afghanistan, the Vietnam-like quagmire the left warned us about before we took Khandahar. The United States and it's coalition partners (yes, even "old Europe") made it work. Let's hope it continues to do so. Gotta keep enjoying those hats and capes.

SHENANIGANS AND INCITEMENT
Nice to see they are using union muscle to threaten Republican volunteers. No outrage from the left so far. I wouldn't expect it either, because when you compare the President to a nazi Fuhrer, claim that he's lying in order to send troops to their deaths to somehow line his own pockets and those of his cronies and is teaming up with "big corporations" to turn America into a police state (not to mention that his supporters are "pseudo-fascists" bent on obtaining power by any means necessary), don't you expect some people to decide that violence and election fraud are justified to stop such alleged horrors?

KERRY'S POLICE ACTION ON TERROR
I've mentioned before how, after watching attempt after attempt by Kerry to fashion some kind of policy on Iraq and the War on Terror™, that it turns out he simply isn't serious about the issue. All arguments are nothing more than attempts to be 180 degress on the other side of Bush. If Bush declared that we should eradicate poverty, Kerry would find a way to say it was a bad idea. Jonah Goldberg, in an uncharacteristic tirade that shows Ann Coulter how it's done, expands the judgment of unseriousness to Kerry's supporters. Read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts.

I just watched John Kerry preen in front of the cameras about how "good diplomacy" would have prevented the mistake he voted for. "Good diplomacy" in John Kerry's world would have let French and Russian politicians continue to line their pockets in the name of keeping Saddam in power so he could rape and murder and torture until "good diplomacy" welcomed him back into the "international community" and gave him the weapons he sought. I suppose in John Kerry's world good diplomacy lets the boys in the back of the bar finish raping the girl for fear of causing a fuss.
-snip-
Oh, one more thing no one asks. How could Bush think he could pull this thing off? I mean, knowing as he did that there were no WMDs in Iraq, how could he invade the country and think no one would notice? And if he's capable of lying to send Americans to their deaths for some nebulous petro-oedipal conspiracy no intelligent person has bothered to make even credible, why on earth didn't he just plant some WMDs on the victim after the fact? If you're willing to kill Americans for a lie, surely you'd be willing to plant some anthrax to keep your job.
-snip-
But despite John Kerry's insistence that he speaks for the American Fighting Man, some of you might consider that a sizable majority of Americans in uniform will vote for Bush, according to surveys and polls. And since the Kedwards campaign continues to tell us that men who fight and serve cannot have their judgment questioned, that should mean something. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. I forgot. Only fighting men who served for four months on the same boat with John Kerry are above reproach or recrimination. Even if you served in the next boat over, you're just a liar.
-snip-
Ah, but in the Cold War we never fought the Soviets, we merely leveled sanctions. Couldn't we have done the same to Iraq, since Saddam was no threat to America? I'm sure all of the people asking this asked it already of Bill Clinton when we toppled Slobodan Milosevic, a man who killed fewer people, threatened America less, and violated fewer U.N. sanctions than Saddam ever did.

ERUPTION
Jeff has returned to cartooning with an eruption of cartoons. Here's another.