Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Friday, October 17, 2008

Fargo: Polling North Dakota

According to RCP, McCain is ahead by 4 points in North Dakota. Pretty rough given how ruby red that state is. But it's worse than that. The only reason it's got a McCain lead at all is that RCP is including a poll from September 8 - the height of McCain's popularity and excluding a recent poll by a partisan pollster. The two non-partisan polls from the last week show Obama up by +2 and tied with McCain respectively.

North Dakota, "my friends," is now a swing state.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Count me as a skeptic. fivethirtyeight.com currently gives Obama a 21% chance of winning North Dakota. He pulled out from the state a while back, and I have a feeling his campaign is going to decide it's not worth going after those three electoral votes.

Still, the fact that it's even worth discussing is remarkable.

The Law Talking Guy said...

I am not sure he can win it either, but fivethirtyeight.com has already announced that they just "don't buy" Obama can win ND, so I am not sure about their methods on this one. Two polls in a row showing a statistical tie do tell us it's a tossup state for now.

Anonymous said...

Well, they don't change their methods from state to state, so any bias they might have shouldn't show up in their numbers. I'll believe it if the polls still look like that in a week.

The Law Talking Guy said...

I think the methodology includes history, doesn't it?

The Law Talking Guy said...

I checked 538.com. It gives significant weight to two polls from early September. That's what's affecting the projection. If they were eliminated (and they should be, because that was McCain's peak and no longer pertinent) we get a different result. I suspect that 538.com will change if the numbers stay as is in a week or so.