Jackson Free Press

All, use this thread from here on out to share exit polling info and such. We'll start an actual Returns thread when the polls close.

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This is a repeat from another thread, but figure I might as well repost here. In the official, exit poll thread: Salon is reporting: According to the first exit polls by the National Election Pool, a consortium of six major media organizations, Kerry's not doing half bad. The results posted below warrant at least a few grains of salt, but as of 2pm Eastern, exit polls show Kerry winning in Florida (51-48), Pennsylvania (60-40), Ohio (52-48), Michigan (51-47), New Mexico (50-48), Minnesota (58-40), Wisconsin (52-43), and New Hampshire (57-41). The president leads in Arizona (55-45), Colorado (51-48), and Louisiana (57-42). Iowa is a tie (49-49). that data is a couple of hours old now, but I haven't seen anything since then.

kate

Nov 2 2004

Salon also has Your Guide On When to Worry and When To Celebrate. All times listed are Eastern. 7 p.m. Polls will close in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, New Hampshire, Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky. Most of Florida, outside of the Panhandle, will also close. Now the serious business begins. The networks may be too gun-shy to call any states immediately (and have promised not to call any states where the difference between the candidates is less than 1 percent) but that doesn't mean we can't start speculating. Like Indiana and Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina are considered safe for Bush. But if it's tight in Virginia, Bush could be in trouble. Likewise Vermont is Kerry's, and New Hampshire has been considered a Kerry pick-up (Bush won it in 2000). If Kerry trails in New Hampshire, that's bad news for the senator from Massachusetts. 7:30 p.m. Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia. The moment a nation of pundits has been waiting for. Exit polls already circulating the Internet show an early lead for Kerry in Ohio. If that holds up, Kerry fans will be hard put not to start popping champagne corks. No Republican has won the presidency without Ohio. Bush could lose Ohio and still win if he carries Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin, but there's still no bigger early indicator of how the election will go than the Ohio totals. Meanwhile, North Carolina and West Virginia both are set to go to Bush, but if they're too close to call, again, that's good for Kerry. 8 p.m. Traditionally, 8 p.m. is the witching hour. A whopping 18 states close, or start close, and many an election has been called shortly afterwards. Included in this swath of states are many of the most crucial swing states, including Florida and Pennsylvania (and most of Michigan). If the election is going to be a landslide for either candidate, we will know it now. There's more detail in the full article - it definitely provides a guide for when to worry.

kate

Nov 2 2004

Reuters is saying the Stock Market dropped today, on rumors that Kerry is ahead: NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Internet blogs touting what they said were exit polls showing Democratic challenger John Kerry ahead in early voting in the American presidential election sent U.S. stocks and the dollar lower on Tuesday. Stocks rallied early on Election Day but sank in afternoon trading after mostly pro-Kerry blogs cited results they said showed the Massachusetts senator leading President George W. Bush in early voting in key states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 18.66 points lower at 10,035.73, but the Standard & Poors 500 Index edged up 0.07 point to close at 1,130.58 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index picked up 4.92 points to end the day at 1,984.79. Traders said part of the stock slide was due to the unconfirmed blog reports. "Apparently the blogs are saying that Kerry is ahead in one or two of the swing states and that's why the market dipped," said Lisa Hansen, head trader at Transamerica Investment Management. Pro-Kerry campaign-watching sites began trumpeting early exit poll data just before 2 p.m. (1800 GMT). These included MyDD.com, which said it had access to exit poll data showing Kerry leading in several swing states. Word spread quickly among other liberal-minded sites, including Daily Kos and Wonkette.com, which cited "a little birdie" as the source of its exit poll data and cautioned readers to take the figures with "huge tablespoons of salt." The blogs initially said the exit poll data came from Voter News Service, the now-defunct organization that provided election results to media organizations during the 2000 presidential election. But several blogs later changed that source to the National Election Pool, which was created by six news organizations -- ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC -- to provide exit poll surveys for the 2004 election. The consortium uses data from Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Some Wall Street firms have hired their own pollsters for exit polling. One fixed-income strategist said early polling data he was privy to suggested Kerry was ahead with a big lead in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and had a small lead Florida, Iowa and Michigan. Currency traders also cited talk of a Kerry victory as a reason for the U.S. dollar's rapid slide against other major currencies in afternoon trading.

kate

Nov 2 2004

Prediciton from Zogby: Kerry 311, Bush 213, 12 ev up for grabs. that's as of 5 pm Eastern! Salon writes: It's one pollster's prediction, and hours before the nets weigh in with their calls, but at 5 p.m. ET, pollster John Zogby calls the race for John Kerry, with landslide proportions: 311 to 213 electoral votes, and only two states too close to call: Nevada and Colorado. But, what's this? Zogby's final-final poll has Bush winning the popular vote, but just barely, 49.4 to 49.1 percent, and not really, when you consider the margin of error, +/- 3.2 percent. Stay tuned for an exciting night. Bush is gonna lose!

kate

Nov 2 2004

There's also this data, which is probably not accurate, according to the latest from Salon. War Room is tearing itself up right now on this very topic, because we really don't want to mislead you, but we also know you're dying out there for more info. So here you go: the following numbers are being reported by Wonkette. We don't know where they came from, we're highly doubtful of Pennsylvania, we think Florida and Ohio may well be a good bit tighter, but, what the heck, we've got to feed the exit poll monster. FL: 52/48 - KERRY OH: 52/47 - KERRY MI: 51/48 - KERRY PA: 58/42 - KERRY IA: 50/48 - KERRY WI: 53/47 - KERRY MN: 57/42 - KERRY NH: 58/41 - KERRY ME: 55/44 - KERRY NM: 49/49 - TIE NV: 48/49 - BUSH CO: 49/50 - BUSH AR: 45/54 - BUSH NC: 47/53 - BUSH [UPDATE: And here, as of 2:46 p.m. PST, are Slate's exit polls: FL: 50/49 - KERRY OH: 50/49 - KERRY PA: 54/45 - KERRY WI: 51/46 - KERRY MI: 51/47 - KERRY MN: 58/40 - KERRY NV: 48/50 - BUSH NM: 50/48 - KERRY NC: 49/51 - BUSH CO: 46/53 - BUSH

kate

Nov 2 2004

Yeah, Kerry supporters should be heartened by early returns. But we're all too scared, and perhaps superstitious to be. I will say, I don't think all these voting lines bode well for Bush, but we'll see. I hear Fox News and the Freeper crowd (FreeRepublic.com wingnuts) are beside themselves with grief, and that always gives me hope.

DonnaLadd

Nov 2 2004

I don't want Kerry to win the electoral college and lose the popular vote, and if he does it's probably because of gay marriage, but it would be poetic justice. And then maybe we could have a national conversation about that anachronistic electoral college. Southern states don't have slaves anymore; it's time to let this slave-state-protecting system go.

DonnaLadd

Nov 2 2004

CNN reported this earlier, according to dailykos.com: Ohio - African American precincts are performing at 106% what we expected, based on historical numbers. Hispanic precincts are at 144% what we expected. Precincts that went for Gore are turning out 8% higher then those that went Bush in 2000. Democratic base precincts are performing 15% higher than GOP base precincts. Florida - Dem base precincts are performing 14% better than Bush base precincts. In precincts that went for Gore, they are doing 6% better than those that went for Bush. African American precincts at 109%, Hispanic precincts at 106%. Pennsylvania - African American precincts at 102% of expectations, Hispanics at 136% of expectations. The Gore precincts are doing 4 percent better than bush precincts. † Michigan - Democratic base precincts are 8% better than GOP base states. Gore precincts are 5% better than Bush.

DonnaLadd

Nov 2 2004