2004 Presidential Election
Today is the day. Get out and vote! If you need a ride email me.
As of 7:00 a.m. MST Electoral-vote.com has not updated for today. The tally from the polls yesterday was Kerry 298, Bush 231 with a couple of states dead heats. The Votemaster, yesterday, predicted a Kerry win in the Electoral College at 306 to 218.
Here's an article from the Washington Post via the Denver Post [November 2, 2004, "Polls show deadlock"]. From the article, "Several of the national polls were tied. In the others, the president led more often than the senator from Massachusetts, but by margins so minuscule - a single point in some cases - as to be meaningless in attempting to predict the outcome. But Bush generally remained just below 50 percent nationally, a potentially risky place for an incumbent...The first presidential election since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan finds the country as deeply divided as it was in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election that put Bush in the White House. Bush lost the popular vote but won the necessary electoral voters after the Supreme Court sided with him in a dispute over a recount in Florida."
Mike Littwin takes a look back over the last couple of years of campaigning in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News [November 2, 2004, "Littwin: It's almost over (maybe), but one thing is sure: It's been a scream"]. He writes, "We start with the Internet, which, in this campaign, gave us bloggers, moveon.org and Howard Dean - who, in creating his candidacy, Googled 'Bush' and 'Iraq' and 'quagmire' and came up with a campaign theme. He then MapQuested trips to New Hampshire and Iowa...Millions have voted early. I'm guessing the TV networks, burned last time, will be making their declarations late. And this is how even it looks: Larry Sabato, the election guru out of the University of Virginia, predicts an Electoral College vote of 269-269. If that's not strange enough for you, consider this: A Republican elector from West Virginia is threatening to break a tie by voting for Kerry. Both campaigns are talking confidently of victory today. Here's my prediction: Neither one means it."
The Gulchie award in the Presidential race goes to John Kerry.
Update: Kerry - Edwards: "James Taylor did a 15-minute sound check, running thru several of his old favorites." I'll bet. 
Update: Electoral-vote.com: "Another bumper crop of polls, 47 in all. Five states changed since yesterday. A University of New Hampshire poll breaks the tie there and gives Kerry a 1% edge in New Hampshire 49% to 48%. According to Zogby, Kerry is also edging ahead in New Mexico, 51% to 48%."
"Now come some controversial polls. Yesterday we had Kerry ahead in Ohio on the strength of a Gallup poll showing him 7% ahead there. Today we have a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll showing Kerry 3% ahead there Please don't send e-mail telling me what you think of Fox News. I'm pretty good at guessing, but I am trying very hard to be impartial. Tomorrow we'll know. Similarly, in Wisconsin a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Kerry's 7% lead has vanished overnight and been replaced by Bush's 3% lead. Again, PLEASE no e-mail about this. Instead, come back tomorrow for the post-mortem. If you don't buy these numbers, add 30 to Kerry and subtract 30 from Bush to get Kerry 292, Bush 231."
"Finally, Strategic Visionn (R) says New Jersey is a tie. Yesterday I had an Eagleton-Rutgers poll showing Kerry up by 8% and today there was a Quinnipiac University poll showing Kerry ahead by 5% in New Jersey. But the rule still holds: most recent poll wins, and that is Strategic Vision. If you don't like this result, award Kerry another 15 electoral votes."
The website was fighting of some kind of attack this morning. Tanenbaum writes, "There was another attack this morning and that took some time to deal with. Remember that if the site is unreachable, try the backup sites: www.electoral-vote3.com through www.electoral-vote8.com."
"I will also update the site tonight as the actual results come in."
Update: Daily Kos: "4 p.m. exit polls."
Update: Josh Marshall: "Well, if our servers had to go down, I'm at least glad it could happen today, right? Jeez, what friggin' nightmare. As you may have noticed TPM was offline from about 1:45 PM until just before 5 PM. Right about exactly the time I got hold of the first good exit poll numbers everything started to go haywire. It's still not completely clear what happened. But we seem to have it under control."
Update: Matthew Gross: "4:30 Exits: Getting confused yet? Don't get confused; get out the vote."
Update: Daily Kos: "The youth did not vote."
Update: Josh Marshall: "One thing that does seem very clear tonight -- at least if what I'm hearing from the exits is true -- is that the much-ballyhooed youth vote simply did not show up. Simple as that."
"That is a remarkable turnabout from the expectations that had been growing over the last week. And Democrats weren't the only ones who bought into the idea. Public pollsters and even Republicans in the final days of the campaign were coming to believe it too. And that shaped expectations greatly."
"Whatever happens tonight a lot of thought and study will go into just what happened. Was it a mirage? Was it a problem with the GOTV operation? It can't simply be the later. Even the best ground operation can only amplify a demographic trend or spike that has some deeper socio-political basis."
Coyote Gulch is proud to announce that Earache, Beaver and Hellchild all cast their votes this election (not for the same candidates however).
6:34:43 AM 
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