I know I said I wouldn’t talk politics anywhere but my sidebar, but I just had to share something very interesting with you all. Please be tolerant of this as it is only a small bit of what all I’ve wanted to write about on this site. I’m not confident in my skills as a political writer so I’ve stuck to what I know best: Poop and Boob sweat. But as it gets closer (SIX DAYS) I found myself looking at the various news organizations’ predictions. I found something interesting.
Let me preface by telling you this: I avoid all televised news. It all irritates the hell out of me during an election year. I like to shelter myself beneath the Progressive/Lefty voices on my iPod (Thank You Air America) and in my Google Reader. But – I found the various electoral map predictions FASCINATING.
Below you’ll see today’s map from each of the big networks and one of the more generically popular political sites. (I didn’t include ABC’s map because they didn’t have totals, but you can see their map here.) The images go to the pages I got the maps from – so feel free to click on the maps to jump to the original sites and see the analysis that let that organization to depict the map how they did. You can get more detailed information that way for a better understanding of each prediction.
What I found the most fascinating is how INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT Fox News’ map is. I mean – we all hear and joke about how conservative their reporting is, and many discuss the liberal leanings of the rest of the media, but here you can see it written out in black and white red and blue. I ordered them from the most favorable to Obama to the least. It is hard to believe that these networks all get their data and information from the same place.
Politico.com which factored in ALL electoral votes
MSNBC
CNN
CBS
FOX News
What I found fascinating was first – the difference in the totals between the extreme networks (not including Politico.com b/c they factored in ALL electoral votes). There was a 100 vote difference between MSNBC and FOX. That’s quite a difference of opinion. The other interesting things? The “swing” states on the various maps. Notice that Oregon is an Obama state on every map but the one at Fox. I find that incredibly interesting.
In reality what this does? Is give me – a blue dot in a red state – something to freak out about at night. What if FOX news knows something the rest of them don’t? I can’t rest on my laurels! (And really? Am I 80 now? My laurels? Why am I talking like that?) I just thought putting the maps together was fascinating and I’m putting it here in the hopes that you will as well.
OR – I’ll just realize how big of a political dork I’ve become and I’ll get back to talking about Poop.
(I’m adding a link to this site thanks to Michelle’s reminder because it seems to be the best at logical prediction models according to most of the top pundits. That’s where you’ll go if you want really informed and mathematically substantive predictions.)
I KNOW!
Just remember, it was Fox who reversed the call of Florida for Gore and stole that election. I put nothing above them.
They are calling swing states even those where Obama is up by double digits.
I’ve got boob sweat worrying about November 4th.
[and, I’m worried about it because it is election day, not because that is my first official day of being unemployed. i’ve got my priorities straight, huh]
I hadn’t seen it laid out like this…that is interesting…I don’t get how they figure this stuff out. Electoral votes and popular vote. Popular vote is my vote right? Anyway nervous to see what next Wednesday morning brings!!
DUDE. I am also fascinated with these maps, and have had to keep all fascination entirely within my own head because my husband, he is red, and when we talk politics both our heads explode, the end. For the sake of our daughter, we’ve retreated to silence on the subject.
Fox News makes me CRAZEE. I am not entirely a Democrat, but even I can see how ridiculously biased it is.
I don’t mind the politics, Zoot – keep it coming! Not long now!
fivethirtyeight.com. That is all.
This IS very interesting. I laughed out loud at the Fox News one. I don’t allow that TV station to be on in my house, so I am usually able to avoid all their BS.
And Oregon? NOT a swing state.
In a geeky way I think it’s cool that you wanna know about who might be running your country.
Some people are so busy whinging about the people leading them, then refuse to vote when they have the opportunity to change,
I think you have a pretty good defense on this political post if you blame it on your map fascination.
Have you seen this site?
http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/
They’re Fantastic.
In both MN and WI, Obama has huge leads over McCain, yet on the Fox map, both states are gray. The Fox map does not seem very realistic- what a shock.
I am so totally obsessed with electoral prediction maps. I check them obsessively and when fivethirtyeight turned my home state of Indiana pale blue (for a hot second, back to toss-up status now, or you know, solid red if you’re Fox), I yelped out loud!
Also, welcome to political dorkitude! It’s at least as fun as poop. 🙂
I could stare at these maps all day. I was hypnotized by electoral college maps of all the previous elections. I stared at those for hours yesterday and then went home and showed my history teacher boy friend. We had fun with that.
I’m fascinated by these maps as well and I’m a Brit!
I am in Oregon, and we are blue, blue, blue. I live in a really small town in Oregon, and you see at least 60% more Obama signs than McCain. And I would never have called this town liberal, lol. The town to the north, yes. But yeah, we are blue. True blue.
Silly Fox news.
The map on USA’s site allows you to look back at the past elections but also to choose states to be red or blue, so you can see what Obama winning FL and McCain winning Ohio would do to the vote totals, etc. I like to avoid doing my own math at all costs…
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/electoral-vote-tracker.htm
I like politics! My husband and I have been comparing these maps the last couple days too, and it is quite confusing. I don’t trust Fox much, that’s all I know.
That is fascinating! I’m no cartographer, but I love maps, and I think the differences between these maps are so interesting. Although this does explain a LOT about where my conservative Fox News-watching sister in law gets some of her ideas.
My brother lives in Oregon now and he’s already voted for Obama. They have early (not absentee) mail in voting there.
What I’m really afraid of is that it’s going to be too close to call, like it has been before. Missouri votes have been right about the president 25/26 times, and if you look at Yahoo, you can see it’s very close there. http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard
At first I had trouble deciding who to vote for, but now, if Obama doesn’t win, I’m going to be crushed.
Can I just tell you how excited I am that Obama might actually win Indiana?? I’m SO in the minority among family and friends here in the Hoosier state… I’m one of those little blue dots in a normally very red state. But this year might actually be different, and I am all kinds of fired up about it. Go vote, early if possible!
Fox is nasty!
I say it’s your blog, Zoot, you can write what you want to.
Those children of yours are so adorable!
Yes we can!
Obama/Biden ’08
Looking at your sidebar, I realized I missed that Larry David post at Huffingtonpost. I am very nervous too. Did you see Recount? I got it on Netflix after seeing all the nominations during the Emmy awards. It was so depressing but enlightening regarding the voting process.
What a great post. Thanks for taking the time to get all those maps and put them together like that – it really is food for thought, isn’t it? It’s hard to imagine how they can differ so much. My husband has been looking at different sites and he likes http://www.fivethirtyeight.com.
I actually work for Fox News, on a political program. And I’m extremely liberal… waaaaay left of center. Fox News does have many conservative voices on the air… but I believe that’s because they’ve found a marketing niche… rather than a plan to cultivate conservative ideology. But I’m also extremely jaded and believe broadcasting is a very competitive business, focusing mainly on attracting competitive advertising dollars.
As for the polls… all the networks/media outlets use different pollsters, so they have different numbers, and report different information. Don’t forget that polling is really an educated guess. For ex., You don’t really know if the respondents heard the question correctly. How many people hung up on what they thought was a telemarketer?… etc. Many pollsters don’t call cellphones (ignoring young voters: a huge block that could trend toward Obama). And, you don’t know what people will actually do in the voting booth on election day. That’s *IF* they even get to the voting booth on election day (see: a huge block that could trend toward Obama). The trend for the past month has been that Obama has a bit of a lead on McCain. Many “swing states” are leaning toward Obama, but he doesn’t have a clear lead in all of them. Some important states will be very close. The only thing you can do is to show up Tuesday and vote with your conscious and try to encourage others to vote with theirs.
(nytimes.com puts all of the polls together, and you can track the candidates on a chart, and get a closer look at the trends. just search “polls” on their site… there was one last week that put them ALL together on one chart, with markers like “first debate”. I can’t find it now! boo)
I like Fox News. They seem more about lambasting both candidates instead of just one.
It’s not surprising to me about the difference in FoxNews map from everyone else. They are blatantly slanted to the right, & are proud to proclaim it.
On their web site, they consistently post the same items from AP & UPI that all the other news outlets do. However, they add or omit things (sometimes only a single word) to slant it to the Neo-Con view, then at the end of the story will put (FoxNews contributed to this report.)
For electoral maps, I’ve been monitoring this one (http://www.electoral-vote.com). It’s seems to be pretty consistent with most polling data I’ve seen.
My friends keep telling me not to worry, that Obama will make it in, but seriously? I’m not that confident and it SCARES me.