US Election Day Open Thread
No UK polls today (I believe Populus's monthly poll is going to be next month) the focus is naturally on the USA. We know what the polls say - Obama will win, and probably win big. As ever, do be wary about the inevitable leaks of exit poll data. Otherwise, feel free to use this thread to ramble on about the US election as you wish :)
UPDATE: There's a memo from Bill McInturff, McCain's pollster, here explaining why the exit polls might well overstate Obama's lead. While McInturff obviously has a partisan interest - the McCain campaign don't want late voting McCain supporters in Western states giving it up as a bad job once the exit polls from Eastern states start showing towering Obama leads - he is probably right.
UPDATE 2: And yay, with another hat tip to Danny Finkelstein's little election gossip box here, here is the Lord and Master of all Voodoo polls. Bow down and worship before the AOL straw poll which shows a stomping great McCain landslide with 493 electoral votes (you won't be able to vote unless you are an AOL user, because like, then it wouldn't be scientific would it? But try to and you get the chance to skip to the results. And to laugh at them). Bless.
UPDATE 3: Here's a BBC summary of most of the state-by-state projections, though it inexplicably ignores the excellent FiveThirtyEight and Electoral-Vote.
CQ Politics: Obama 311/McCain 157 (too close to call 70) Real Clear Politics: Obama 291/McCain 132 (tctc 105) Pollster.com: Obama 311/McCain 142 (tctc 85) New York Times: Obama 291/McCain 163 (tctc 84) Crystal Ball: Obama 364/McCain 174 FiveThirtyEight: Obama 346.5/McCain 191.5 Electoral Vote: Obama 353/McCain 174 (tctc 11)
Nate Silver of 538 is offering his own warning about exit polls here. In case it hasn't sunk in yet, be wary of them, especially any leaked ones which won't be weighted properly yet.
UPDATE 4: Since the BBC looks set to scale new heights of dumbed-down coverage of the election tonight (they've got Ricky Gervais on it, you know?) I'll be flicking between the American networks. For impatient anoraks like me waiting until ballots close and we get proper data to geek over, there's a nice video clip from CNN here with their director of polling explaining how they actually decide when to call states.
UPDATE 5: Rival exit poll leaks! Gawker claims leaked exit polls show Obama up by 4 in Pennsylvania, which if leaked unweighted exit poll figures were any use (which they aren't) would be lower than we'd expect. Drudge meanwhile claims that leaked exit polls show Obama up by 15 in Pennsylvania, so in short, we are entirely in the dark :)
UPDATE 6: Woo! The first results are coming in from the polling stations in Kentucky and Indiana that closed at 6pm EST. We can't tell much - less than 1% are counted and they show McCain easily ahead in Kentucky (as would be expected) and Obama narrowly ahead in Indiana (again, in line with polls).
UPDATE 7: More leaked exit polls, from Huffington Post this time. Obama is ahead everywhere expected, so no surprises there (obvious caveats apply that these don't mean a huge amount anyway, they may well be the early unweighted ones and US exit polls are no great shakes anyway). Pennsylvania incidentally is alledgedly showing a 15 point lead, so inline with those Drudge numbers.
UPDATE 8: CNN have called Kentucky for McCain and Vermont for Obama. Looking at their exit poll figures on their website (they don't put up topline figures, but you can calculate them from the male/female split) before they start fiddling about and reweighting them, they are
Vermont has a 31 point Obama lead. Virginia has a 9 point Obama lead.
Indiana has a 6 point Obama lead. Georgia has a 2 point McCain lead. South Carolina has a 6 point McCain lead. Kentucky has a 14 point McCain lead.
UPDATE 9: The CNN exit polls from the 7.30pm closers are: Ohio has a 8 point Obama lead North Carolina has a 3 point Obama lead West Virginia has a 10 point McCain lead Fox has called West Virginia for McCain, but no one else seems to have yet
UPDATE 10: The next batch of exit polls: DC has a 85 point Obama lead Maryland has a 36 point Obama lead Delaware has a 32 point Obama lead Connecticut has a 29 point Obama lead Illinois has a 27 point Obama lead Maine has a 22 point Obama lead Massachusetts has a 21 point Obama lead New Hampshire has a 20 point Obama lead New Jersey has a 19 point Obama lead Pennsylvania has a 15 point Obama lead Missouri has a 8 point Obama lead Florida has a 2 point Obama lead Mississippi has a 1 point McCain lead Tennessee has a 13 point McCain lead Alabama has a 15 point McCain lead Oklahoma has a 22 point McCain lead The networks have called a lot of those straight off. Mississippi is the obvious surprise amongst them.
UPDATE 11: Just the one exit poll at 8.30pm. Arkansas has a 9 point McCain lead.
UPDATE 12: Last lot for me, some surprising ones here compared to pre-election polls. New York has a 35 point Obama lead Rhode Island has a 33 point Obama lead Minnisota has a 19 point Obama lead Michigan has a 17 point Obama lead Wisconsin has a 17 point Obama lead New Mexico has a 13 point Obama lead Colorado has a 8 point Obama lead South Dakota has a 3 point Obama lead
Arizona has a 2 point McCain lead Texas has a 2 point McCain lead Louisiana has a 6 point McCain lead Nebraska has a 11 point McCain lead Kansas has a 13 point McCain lead North Dakota has a 15 point McCain lead Wyoming has a 21 point McCain lead
