What McCain was up against: The Economy

I just cracked open the initial release of the 2008 ANES data and thought I'd begin by focusing on economic evaluations. What the data show is something I think we all had a sense of at the time, but the pattern of economic evaluations is pretty dramatic nonetheless. Here's a look at the distribution of retrospective economic evaluations (national economy over the past twelve months) from the pre-election survey:
As you can see, economic retrospections were decidedly negative, with fully 89% rating the economy as "somewhat" or "much" worse than a year ago. Moreover, virtually no one (3%) rated the economy as doing better, and only 9% said it was the same as a year before. The best way to fully appreciated the negativity of these economic attitudes is to compare the distribution of responses in 2008 to other years:

Here we see that 2008 stands out in two important ways: the overall level of negativity and the near uniform agreement about economic conditions. Economic evaluations were generally negative in a couple of the other years (1980, 1992), but even in those cases there was more variation around the mean outcome. McCain was up against a very negative economic environment and there was widespread agreement about that environment.

In fact, given the lack of variation in economic attitudes, it occurred to me that even Republicans must have expressed a high level of negativity. Here are are the data broken down by party affiliation:

Sure, there is a tendency for Democrats to be more negative than Republicans, but "much worse" is the modal response in every partisan category, and fully 83% strong Republicans rated the economy as either "somewhat" (35%) or "much" (48%) worse.

There's a lot more to look at here and I'll try to follow up with other angles on the economy and the 2008 election.

Cold Water

December 31 was my birthday and it marked the passing of another decade of life (hint: I received a membership card from a powerful organized interest the day before my birthday). A few weeks earlier my kids decided that I needed to mark the occasion in grand fashion, so they convinced me to participate in the annual New year's Day Polar Bear Plunge into Lake Michigan. I agreed, figuring I could worm my way out of it somehow. Unfortunately, too many people had been told about it and had pledged to show up to cheer me on, so I had to take the plunge.

Other than floating chunks of ice that cut up my legs, and toes and fingers that I thought would never get warm again, it was really pretty fun. In fact, it was what I would call a real happening. The fire department (on hand to pull out frozen sinkers) estimated that there were about 2000 plungers and another 2000 people on hand to watch. It was a really party atmosphere.

Anyway, here are a few pics that summarize the experience:

Well wishers and support groups were on hand with fires, tents, and alcohol. I'd say there were a couple dozen fires:


This is what I saw (below) as I got ready to jump in. At this point it occurred to me just how cold I was about to be.


Of course I was heartened by the site of rescue personnel. Note the icebergs about twenty yards from shore:


Brace yourself; that's me (below) on the way in. Note the floating ice debris. That stuff really hurts. I'd say I was in for about 15 seconds. Getting out was the hard part, as the ice ledge kept crumbling.

Here I am with my kids, and several layers of clothes, about ten minutes after getting out. As we walked to the car my daughter said, "Dad, I don't think you realize just how cold I am." Kids can be so sweet sometimes!


Anyway, it was a hoot. Happy New Year!

PS: I suppose I'll get around to posting about politics again sometime soon.

Final Forecasts

The table below summarizes various models I've worked with this fall, as well as the projections of two of my undergraduate classes. All of these projections point to a big night for Obama. I have the most confidence in the Electoral College forecast from the October model, and I expect the (two-party) popular vote to come in somewhere between the October model (53.9%) and my PS/APSA model (55.7%).

It's interesting to note that both of my undergraduate classes independently came to the same conclusion: Obama 228 electoral votes, to McCain's 200. Their electoral maps are exactly the same as Karl Rove's map.

Paths to 270

In addition to my post on leading indicators to watch for tomorrow night, check out Jay DeSart's summary of the "paths to 270."

Leading Indicators for Election Night

Several states (Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia) will be the first to report election results tomorrow night, coming in at 7:00 p.m.(EST). Although the outcomes in South Carolina and Vermont are foregone conclusions, I will be watching Georgia, Indiana, and Virginia for indicators of an early or late night.

Here are some things that I think could signal a big night for either candidate and give us some hint about how things will play out:

The shorter version: If Obama carries all three states, let the kids stay up--it's going to be a short night; if McCain carries all three, especially by wide margins, put the kids to bed and get ready for a long night.


UPDATE: Florida is not included here because the much of the panhandle votes until 8:00 EST. That said, I'm not sure if the networks will wait until all the polls are closed to make a call. If they call Florida at 7:00, here's my analysis:

A win for Obama is now expected, based on current polls. A win that is significantly bigger than the spread could be a sign of under polling his support, or of the impact of he GOTV machine, and augurs for a bigger than expected night for Obama.

A win here by McCain, especially if by more than a couple of points, spells trouble for Obama. Among other things, a McCain win could be a sign that pre-election polling was overestimating Obama's support. Obama can still win without Florida, but losing here would be a sign of a much tighter race for the rest of the evening.

Feeling Mavericky

With no offense intended to Senator McCain, I remember the real Original Maverick. I also have fond memories a true American (100%) Maverick. I'm kind of surprised that neither side has found a way to use one of the historical Mavericks to their advantage. Of course it could have something to do with the fact that no one under thirty has ever heard of them. I know my students (and younger colleagues) had no idea what I was talking when I made reference to them.

I don't know what the Original Maverick is up to these days, but I know which side he used to be on.

The Jewish Vote

John Sides has a new post over at The Monkey Cage on the levels of support for Obama among Jewish voters. One question that has come up during the campaign is whether Jewish voters will support Obama to the same degree that they have previous Democratic nominees. The data John cited are from Gallup tracking polls taken from October 1-21 and suggest that Jews are pretty firmly in the Obama camp (74%). While I have no reason to doubt that Jewish support for Obama was high in the early part of October, I'd be interested in seeing what the trend is like, especially in the last couple of weeks.

On October 14, a columnist for the New York Post reported that Jesse Jackson, while speaking at a conference in France, said that "Zionists" would lose their control of U.S. foreign policy under an Obama administration. The story was soon picked by CNN and Jesse Jackson was back in the news for a few days. Who better than Jesse Jackson to drive a wedge between Jewish voters and Barack Obama? Is it possible that the coverage of Jackson's comments had an effect on Jewish support for Obama?

One of the difficulties with assessing Jewish support over the course of the campaign is that data are hard to come by (at least until the election is over). Prior to seeing the Gallup poll I had scoured most of the national polls on Pollster.com looking for religious breakdowns and came up empty--almost. The IBD/TIPP tracking poll provides five-day rolling averages across multiple demographic categories, including religious affiliation. IBD/TIPP doesn't provide the sample sizes for subgroups but the number of Jewish respondents in each survey is not doubt very small, given that the Jewish vote accounted for only 3% of the electorate in 2004. With that in mind, and bearing in mind also that these data come from just one source, the graph below tracks the Jewish vote over the last couple of weeks.

Although Jewish voters clearly favor Obama, their level of support averaged over the entire time period (67.8%) is somewhat lower than the 74% given to John Kerry in 2004. Before the Jackson comments got attention, Obama averaged 74% of the vote (the same as the Gallup results); in the middle period, when the polling samples included some days before and some days after the airing of Jackson's comments, Obama averaged 71.4%; and in the last period, when all of the samples were taken after Jackson's comments came out, Obama averaged 61.2%. Interestingly, while McCain seemed to initially benefit from the decline in Obama's support, there was a real up tick in undecideds in the last period.

I don't want to make too much of this, as I only have a few data points, from small samples, taken over a short period of time. If anyone has access to other data that might shed more light on this, please feel free to share.