Author: tietack

Since a few of us are into Canada, and what’s happening up there, I thought I’d set up a separate diary for the discussion….

and predictions….. for the 308 seats in the Canadian House of Commons. (Sorry, I’m not providing Tim Horton’s doughnuts for the winner.) Right now, I’m projecting (just an eyeball guess, I haven’t analyzed the 308 ridings, and I reserve the right to change this until voting starts to close in Atlantic Canada Monday — 8:30 PM newfie time — that’s 4 PM Pacific daylight time, if I’m translating correctly.)

update 5, part 1, revised projection, based on May 1 Nanos and Apr 30 Angus Reid. I’m surprised that the NDP hasn’t continued falling in the daily Nanos tracking, which suggests some recovery yesterday after Layton’s rapid response.)

update 7 — my final predix

Conservative: 142 145 144

Liberal: 75 57 48

NDP: 70 85 100

BQ: 20 15

Greens: 1

(I think Elizabeth May will pull off that district in and North of Victoria. If I’m eyeballing the map right, it’s the district that includes Buchart Gardens.)

Inspired by others, I’m also showing my splits by region:

       Cons/Lib/NDP/Other

BC           17/6/12/1 (green)

AL           27/0/1/0

Sas/Man 23/1/4/0

Ontario  60/25/21/0

Quebec  6/5/49/15 (BQ)

Atlantic   10/10/12/0

North      1/1/1/0

(end update 7)

One excellent resource for projections seems to be the guy I’m calling the Canadian Nate, aka Eric Grenier. He’s getting as much play up in Canada as Nate does here. He has daily analysis and a riding by riding projection, on his site, http://www.threehundredeight.b…



PROVISO: Everything in this diary is based on my personal finger to the air guesses. If you want to say that I’m talking out of my whatchamacallit, you’re free to do so, The intent of this diary is for fun — and perhaps for lessons learned that we can use here.

(update 5, part 2: Nanos poll released May 1)

Latest Nanos suggests that the NDP surge has stopped, and may be somewhat reversing but has stabilized at 37/23/31/5.5 (Cons/Lib/NDP/BQ), ref http://www.ctv.ca/mini/electio…  Normal provisos apply, the Nanos rolling 3 day poll has very small daily sample sizes (400 nationally in Canada), esp for the individual regions. (e.g. 50/day in BC, if memory serves)

Perhaps the NDP misstep on monetary policy is hurting. Perhaps the stupid Sun thing is throwing the NDP off message. It’s unclear which other parties are benefiting in each region.

Looks like a Cons/Lib bump in the Atlantic is a tight 3-way race, a small lib bump in the NDP is coming back to earth in Quebec, a small Cons lead Liberal recovery in Ontario, Cons dominance in the Praries seems enhanced, and stability in BC -(which suggests a drop in a day or two as good NDP numbers cycle out).-

end update 5

As long as the Conservatives stay below 39%, the key to preventing a Tory majority is a two or three party split in Ontario (which seems to be the case at the moment, but watch out if the gap between the Conservatives and whomever is in 2nd in that province gets above 10 points.)

(update 1 for other seat projections)

(update 2 for the new 308 projection)

308’s 4/30 seat projection (in his notes, Grenier is still anticipating more of a move from the PQ to the NDP.)

144/65/59/40

(Cons/Lib/NDP/BQ)

(end update 2)

EKOS’s 4/29 seat projection:

146/42/109/10/1

(Cons/Lib/NDP/BQ/random Quebec indie)

(end update 1)

update 3 – Angus Reid poll suggests NDP surge continues

http://www.angus-reid.com/poll…

(percentage) 37/19/33/6

(Cons/Lib/NDP/BQ)

No seat projections (that I see) from Angus, but they’re looking at a substantial Tory lead in Ontario, which would bring them close to a majority, with substantial NDP leads in the Atlantic and Quebec, along with a near tie in BC, which I think would get them closer to 90 seats.

Their poll was Apr 28-29, with 2100 “absolutely certain voters”

end update 3

(update 6: Latest EKOS Poll — near statistical tie between Conservatives and NDP!)

They do like 3000 voters in a rolling 3 day poll, so I’m using an extra significant digit.

Cons/Lib/NDP/BQ

34.6/31.4/20.4/5.4

(It’s actually closer among committed voters)

Highlights:

BC: 36.3/15.3/36.5

Alberta: still a Tory runaway

Sas/Man: 46.5/13.5/30.1

Ontario: 39.8/26.7/26.2

Quebec: 14.6/15.2/39.9/22.8

Atlantic: 24.4/28.3/41.3

EKOS doesn’t have their latest seat projection up yet, except to suggest that the NDP s/b within 20 seats of the Tories

Quebec is abandoning the Bloc Quebecois even further and the NDP could virtually sweep that province in a breathtaking development.

Sounds like EKOS is ready to project 60+ NDP seats in Quebec alone.

(end update 6)

update 4 — 308’s “best case scenarios” for the 3 parties

Just hoping that user sapelcovits can check in when he can.

Any other users from Japan, anyone in the path of the Tsunami, I’d appreciate it if you could check in here too.

There was a 8.9 mag earthquake in Japan last night.

I know this is not a normal diary.

Update — I have decided to go through with this.

The intent of this diary will be to test reactions from the DK community.

I will wait a few days to post this on DK. My target date will be the day it is discussed on the FP there, probably when DavidNYC returns from his vacation. My username is the same there. If you’re free at that time, your support will be appreciated.

Title: Will Daily Kos welcome the full range of Swing State Project users?

Subtext: Can a not so liberal Democrat feel Welcome at Daily Kos?

SubSubtext: Can a poster who feels lost in a huge fast moving community feel comfortable in a big city environment like Daily Kos?

I am a Democrat. I mostly left Daily Kos (DK) a while back in ’07, in part because it had grown a bit too large for me. In addition, I was starting to feel out of place, given the tenor of some of the comments. But I am currently a regular poster at Swing State Project (SSP). I felt like I had a home there, because of the focus on more Democrats, because they welcomed more conservative Democrats, and even have a significant population of “respectful” moderate and conservative Republican posters. Now that they are being merged under the DK umbrella, I feel like I’m being pushed back. I feel like I’m about to lose my community.

Susan Gardner, DK executive editor, has tried to make us feel welcome. http://www.swingstateproject.c… She has tried to reassure us that SSP will be able to retain its culture, post-merger. In context, her welcome reminds me of the promises from China just before they took Hong Kong back from the UK. One liberal blogsphere, two systems?

First, I’m not implying any similarity between DK and Communism, Maoism, or any sort of authoritarianism.

With that in mind, here’s a little background on my analogy: There was considerable fear in the first half of 1997, as the UK was preparing to return Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. The fear came from the differences, not only in size, but in systems. The principle used to reassure the people of Hong Kong was “one country, two systems”.

By two systems, I’m referring to how SSP works differently from DK, and how I hope its culture is preserved after the merger.

One important difference is that SSP has welcomed Republican posters as guests. We’ve had several prized posters who’ve clearly identified themselves as R, who’ve provided excellent data and analysis — and overall have participated with honor. (We also have our share of New Democrats and Blue Dogs.)

It is important to me for the SSP section of DK (known as Daily Kos Elections [DKE]) to retain that same welcome. IMO, SSP works because that welcome extends to Democrats and Republicans of all ideologies, as long as they follow the standards of the SSP community.

I am one SSP user. I might be near the middle of the spectrum there. I support more Democrats. I believed it was important to support those Democrats who are less popular here on DK, such as Bart Stupak, Bobby Bright, and Gene Taylor, because they’re the best Ds we can realistically hope for from their districts. I think the move to primary Democrats like Scott Matheson was foolish, but wish someone would take out Dan Lipinski. I love those Democrats who represent me here in Oregon, as they represent me well. I believe we are a big party, better because we represent so many different points of view.

I want to be able to root for Democrats like Jon Tester, Ben Nelson, Heath Shuler, Joe Manchin, and Dan Boren here on DK without fear. I do not know if that is possible. Bluntly, one thing that unified many of us as SSP users is that common fear, based on our experiences at DK.

In general, SSP users don’t discuss policies, except in the context of how it affects election prospects. I believe some policies unpopular among DK users were the reason Democrats were able to hold the line against the R wave in ’10 here on the west coast. I support the fastest possible increases immigration consistent with our security, and want to move up that emerging Democratic majority.

I was discouraged by diaries like this http://www.dailykos.com/story/… where so many Democrats here at DK declared that they would vote for a Republican against the Democratic majority leader.

It’s not like I run every time I hear a bit of criticism. I’ve participated in and even helped moderate mixed forums before. By mixed, I mean a group which ranged from Kucinich Democrats through Michelle Malkin Republicans. Frankly, I was not sad when I needed to sanction R users. But I found it necessary at times to criticize people who are politically more like myself, when their behavior went over the line.

However, I’m not the fastest person to react. I try to take time to formulate the my responses. By the time I’ve reacted in the past Daily Kos, I feel like most posters have moved on to the next issue — and have stopped listening.

So I went looking for a smaller community. I tried OpenLeft for a while. I appreciated the quality of the work from the main diarists. But the language and actions from some of the main diarists towards commenters was discouraging.

I eventually found a home of sorts at Swing State Project (SSP), and started to post there regularly in mid-’09.  But now, SSP is being incorporated under the Daily Kos umbrella. Despite the reassurances being given by great moderators like DavidNYC, JamesL, Crisitunity, and Jeffmd, I feel fear.

Perhaps this diary is a passive-aggressive reaction, and I am sorry for that. But given my experiences here at DK, I am gun shy about the coming merger. I do not know if I’ll come along for the ride. Back to my Hong Kong analogy, there have been and still are significant problems. However, many have been surprised by the autonomy retained by the Hong Kong “Special Administrative Region,” over a decade after the merger.

The current SSP welcomed Republican users, as long as they didn’t push issues. They kicked off a number of disruptive Democratic users, when they pushed issues. It is a Democratic site, with a clear bias towards more Democrats. I fear this is about to change. I know some of the Republicans on SSP do not feel comfortable coming along as SSP is brought under the DK umbrella in the coming weeks. I know that some excellent Democrats also do not feel comfortable coming along as well. Some are more, others are less liberal than I. I do not want to come into an echo chamber. While I understand that DK prides itself on being “reality-based,” there’s a peer pressure in numbers that’s often inescapable.

Nevertheless, I am thankful and grateful to DavidNYC, JamesL, Crisiunity, and JeffMD for the great site they created, and the welcome they’ve given to users like myself. I am glad for the opportunities they now have as part of the DK community. I wish them well in their new ventures.

Today’s election day across the pond. The election was called just a month ago (Apr 6). It’s a parliamentary election – in other words, the winner is the party with a majority of seats in the UK lower house.

This is one of those rare UK elections where the outcome is rather uncertain. The betting is still on a “hung parliament” where no party gets a majority, though it’s still quite possible that the Conservatives (sometimes also known as Tories) will get a majority.

(X posted at Daily Kos)



Update – unfortunate exit poll rumors – http://www.politicshome.com/uk…

OTOH, turnout is supposedly around 70%, much better than the 61% in ’05, which should benefit the Liberal Democrats.

At the last election (2005), the seat totals were:

Labour:          349

Conservative:    210

Liberal Democrat: 62

Others:           29

That was based on the following overall vote:

Labour:          36.1%

Conservative:    33.2%

Liberal Democrat:22.6%

Others:           8.0%

Currently, there are 650 seats up for election, so a majority is 326. If memory serves, about 18 seats are in N. Ireland, and the major parties don’t contest those seats.

There have been three debates between the leaders – the first time there have been debates in a UK general election. The first debate essentially elevated Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats to a status equivalent to that of the other leaders. While the other debates were less conclusive, David Cameron, Tory leader, got a positive push from the third and final debate.

Loosely speaking, Labour is the leftist party, the Conservatives are the right-wing party, and the Liberal Democrats are in the middle. But that’s just a very loose comparison.

Many Conservative policies seem to resemble those of moderate Democrats here. While the traditional Conservative color is blue, they’ve taken a green tinge, on their website, and in some of their policies.

Many Liberal Democrat policies (and yes, they don’t use the -ic at the end) vary : while some seem rather free market, they are decidedly the antiwar party, especially w/r/t Iraq and Afghanistan.

Labour is the traditional left-wing party in the UK. AFAIK, their support is based on the stronger unions in the UK. But that constituency also resembles working class swing voters in the US in some ways. Some leftists have broken off of Labour because of their pro-war stance, and have formed a smaller party called Respect.

As for election projections, I like the UK Polling Watch site at http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/b… . Based on a “so-called” Uniform National Swing (UNS), they’re projecting the following seat totals, based on their poll of polls:

Conservative:    274

Labour:          264

Liberal Democrat: 81

Respect:          14

They’ve been monitoring what our own Nate Silver calls a “Nerdfight” with at least four rounds. The essence is based on variations on the UNS, based in part on regional UK polls. Nate’s projecting:

Conservative:     312

Labour:           204

Liberal Democrat: 103

He has a range of scenarios at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com…

My own personal guess, as Labour has quite a favorable advantage based on the way the UK has been gerrymandered:

Conservative:     299

Labour:           220

Liberal Democrat: 101

(In other words, I’m guessing that the Liberal Democrats will take some Conservative seats where Labour is not competitive, esp in the S & W of Britain.)

The UK polling report suggests that UK exit polls were spot on w/r/t Labour seats in the ’05 election, so we should have some idea where the election is going at 10p UK time (2p Pacific). I’ll try to remember to update then.

It seems that the “I only speak to real Americans” quitter Palin may in fact be running for President in ’12. She’s come out with a list of 20 targets – D house members who

– voted for HCR

– represent districts won by McCain in ’08.

The full list and propaganda are available on her Facebook page, ref http://www.facebook.com/notes/…

It seems like this could also be used to motivate the base to support these sometimes blue dog vulnerable Ds, as they supported HCR.

As Richard Nixon showed in the ’66 election, one path to the R nomination is based on campaigning for others in their party.

But such an effort would help Palin only if perhaps a majority of targeted incumbents are defeated. By definition, Ds in districts that McCain won in ’08 are in a more difficult position, but I think at least a few are entrenched.

Of these 20, 3 are retiring. (Vic Snyder AR-02, Brad Ellsworth IN-08, Bart Gordon TN-06). While we’ve got a shot of holding IN-08, it’s possible Rs will carry all 3. So Palin would need 8 of the remaining 17 to say she “won a majority of targets” and declare victory.

Just comparing the remaining names to one set of projections, (Sabato, ref http://www.centerforpolitics.o… (* highlights members of the blue dog caucus)

Ann Kirkpatrick, AZ-1     – tossup

* Harry E. Mitchell, AZ-5   – lean D

* Gabrielle Giffords, AZ-8  – lean D

* John Salazar, CO-3        – lean D

* Betsy Markey, CO-4        – tossup

* Allen Boyd, FL-2          – likely D

Suzanne M. Kosmas, FL-24  – tossup

* Baron P. Hill, IN-9       – tossup

* Earl Pomeroy, ND-AL       – tossup

* Charlie Wilson, OH-6      – not on board (assume solid D)

John Boccieri, OH-16      – lean D

* Kathy Dahlkemper, PA-3    – lean D

* Christopher Carney, PA-10 – lean D

John M. Spratt, Jr., SC-5 – lean D

Tom Perriello, VA-5       – tossup

Alan B. Mollohan, WV-1    – likely D

Nick J. Rahall, WV-3      – not on board (assume solid D)

Of course, Sabato’s predictions are an arbitrary measure. I disagree with some of Sabato’s predictions. But assuming Palin has to win 8 of the remaining 17, she’d have to help Rs carry all 6 of the tossups, plus 2 of the 7 “lean Ds”.

Again, while over half of these targeted Ds are “blue dogs,” they all voted for HCR.

Local campaign workers have been concerned that this election would be affected by what happened in MA. I think they’re nuts, but we’ll see this evening.

Officially, election day is today (Jan 26). In reality, the election has been going on for a bit, since the ballots arrived in our mailboxes a couple of weeks ago.

The issues are Initiatives 66 and 67. For a quickie summary, see http://voteyesfororegon.org/wi…

Measures 66 & 67 raise the $10 corporate minimum for the first time since 1931, and increase the marginal tax rate on the richest Oregonians (those who make more than $250,000 a year).

Since all ballots must be in official Oregon vote boxes by 8pm today (I just dropped off ours at the library), we don’t suffer from the Washington time lag. (WA state accepts ballots postmarked by election day.)

Results should be known tonight/tomorrow morning, but the latest polling had the initiatives winning by a reasonable margin.

Initiative 66 raises the marginal tax rate on >$250k gross income

Initiative 67 raises the corporate minimum from $10 to $150

The poll assumes a current OR party registration of

D 47%

R 36%

I 17%

It’s a Tim Hibbitts poll, which is pretty much the gold standard for polling in Oregon.

Both measures were leading in the Hibbitts poll by 49/38. I fully expect that margin has closed a bit in these past few days, but that’s normal for a closely fought initiative campaign, especially when voters are asked to raise taxes.

Results should appear this evening, starting sometime after 8pm Pacific time at the OR SoS website at http://www.sos.state.or.us/ele… .

Updated thought – the Oregon “anti-tax” ads were more focused on the business tax (67) as opposed to the increase in taxes on >250k income (66). That’s reflected in the slight margin difference (66 is winning by a bit more than 67). But the difference in margins is less than 1%.

Second updated thought – no effect from the MA special. Yes, the Hibbitts poll suggests that a solid majority believe that we’re going in the wrong direction, but that anger didn’t affect the outcome of this election. (the MA Senate special election happened between this poll and the election)

Third updated thought (Wed 6:30 am PST) made a mistake in my vote watching – when county data says “100%”, it means 100% of those votes tabulated and counted.

(It takes a bit of time even for computers to check signatures on envelopes, open them up, before the optical scan ballots can be fed to the computer readers. Ballots are in a “secrecy” envelope, inserted into a signed mailing envelope, so there are two envelopes to open for each ballot.)

Votes that have come in late that day (e.g. from official collection stations at county libraries) aren’t yet all counted. The margins may still fluctuate a bit as those votes are counted today. (I think some counties sent their tabulaters home for the night.)

However, my eyeballing suggests that we’re now at about 97-98% counted, but maybe 3/4 of the outstanding ballots are from Multnomah Co, so the margin could grow back a bit.

Current results from the OR SoS

66 (raise the marginal rate on incomes > 250k)

yes 53.69%

no  46.31%

67 (raise the min bus tax from $10)

yes 53.03%

no  46.97%

Scott Eliott (ElectionProjection.com) is up with his first nationwide ’10 projections, and it isn’t so bad.

Eliott is a wingnut – but he’s as objective as they come w/r/t election data. For example, he called every Senate race correctly in ’06 and just missed 1 in ’08.

His numbers after ’10:

Senate: 56-42-2  (D -2)

House:  249-186  (D -8)

I believe would be depicted as a huge D victory, a virtual endorsement of President Obama’s agenda by a majority of the country.

Scott Elliot has his views, which I disagree with strongly. But he runs a clean site, free of the virtol associated with the typical Wingnut blog (perhaps except for the banner ads).

His record is stellar – he was right on 48 of the 50 states in the ’04 election (he switched IA and WI). He called all six of our Senate gains in ’06, with obvious pain in his words.

Eight days before election day ’08, he said

Eight days from Election Day, here is this blogger’s conclusion:  Barack Obama will win this election in a landslide.  He will capture at least 350 electoral votes and win the popular vote by 7% or more.

2010 details – w/r/t the Senate, he currently sees

D losses in DE, CO, CT

D gain in OH

w/r/t the House, the current projection shows

R gains in

AL-02, FL-08, ID-01, KS-03, LA-03, MD-01, NM-02, OH-15, PA-07, TN-06, TN-08, and VA-05

While I disagree with him w/r/t FL-08, there will be a lot of wingnut money flowing to whomever opposes Grayson this year.

Eliott also projects D gains in

DE-AL, IL-10, LA-02, PA-06

His formulas are interesting as well. http://www.electionprojection…. –

a quantitative formula based on polls and pundits.

He even uses partisan polls – but includes a 3% correction factor.

It’s true! In the special election to replace newly confirmed SecArmy John McHugh, Bill Owens (D) leads! (I hope the “breaking” headline is allowed here. – and I may X post this at DK shortly.)

It’s a pretty close three way race:

Owens has the support of 33 percent of likely voters in the 23rd Congressional District, followed by Scozzafava at 29 percent and Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman at 23 percent,

For details, see this PDF http://www.siena.edu/uploadedf…

Crosstabs (also PDF) here http://www.siena.edu/uploadedf…

As for cross-tabs, be aware, the overall MoE is almost 4%, so the MoE for each sub-item would be greater.

Per the cross tabs, each candidate is now “leading” in their “home” regions (Scozzofova – West, Hoffman – Central, Owens – East), though Hoffman’s home in Lake Placid is at the edge of the region where Owens has a lead.

Owens is starting to consolidate D support – but has only 55% of Ds. Hoffman actually has a small lead among Is – but with 617 likely voters in the sample, the difference in raw numbers among Is would be very small.

      Owens        Scozzafava       Hoffman

D       55             17               10

R       19             40               27

I       28             24               31