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HOW ARE THEY CALLING NJ FOR KERRY?


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His lead is less than 1%. It took them an hour to call NC and VA even tho bush had a double-digit lead.

 

If they're honest about it, NJ should come off the board.

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Actually NC is showing 51 to 49 and even in southern schools thats not double digits

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His lead is less than 1%. It took them an hour to call NC and VA even tho bush had a double-digit lead.

 

If they're honest about it, NJ should come off the board.

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And Delaware and Oklahoma, neither of which is reporting much of anything yet. And the Illinois projection is so far based almost exclusively on Cook county.

 

Really...I'm pissed at the coverage. I'd hoped they'd have learned the risk of being premature back in 2000. Calling OK for Bush with 2% of the returns in is a load of crap.

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And Delaware and Oklahoma, neither of which is reporting much of anything yet.  And the Illinois projection is so far based almost exclusively on Cook county.

 

Really...I'm pissed at the coverage.  I'd hoped they'd have learned the risk of being premature back in 2000.  Calling OK for Bush with 2% of the returns in is a load of crap.

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No schitt....

 

The partisanship in the media is ridiculous.

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No schitt....

 

The partisanship in the media is ridiculous.

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so shut the TV off go to bed and wait to see what happens in the AM. The obvious projections like NC, SC, OK, ND, SD, Wyoming are no brainers.

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No schitt....

 

The partisanship in the media is ridiculous.

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For every premature call for Kerry, I can find one for Bush. That's not partisanship, that's rushing to scoop the other networks. The bottom line is that their methodology is stevestojan: take the very first numbers you get that show any semblance of an actual trend, and ride that horse until you're thrown. Properly, they'd be waiting until 50% of the precincts report and calling everything with at least a 5-6% difference (at least).

 

I ought to start my own tracking, just based on that principle: when a state reports 50% or more, if a candidate has a 5% margin, give him that state.

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This could get interesting. I remember seeing the same thing in 2000. Called a state for one candidate and then backfired. CNN says 54-45 bush right now with 12% in. Granted i have no clue where those are from and how they compare, but almost 2 million votes to bush's favor could make this interesting.

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John King who has bene traveling with the Bush team for the last few weeks said earlier that the Bush team never had any ideas of winning NJ. They just went there hoping that the Dems would get worried and put some money and time there and the Dems didnt take the bait. That it was never in question. He didnt report it until tonight because he didnt want to give that away.

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I'll tell you how they called it - it's called exit polls and looking at the data all day.

 

As a veteran of ABC News who went through the 1992 election in the Political Unit, I'll tell you that states are called based on exit poll data. Simply put, nobody waits for the actual votes to call a state. If the data coming in all day is consistent and shows a decent margin (I'd say 5 percentage points) you can call a state pretty soon after the polls close. In '92 I knew by about 4pm when the 3rd wave of exit polls came in that Clinton had won.

 

The actuals sway tremendously as they come in depending on when different districts in a given state come in. Being up by 16% with 5% reporting means nothing - it can go back and forth several times before it's over. The exit poll data is what you rely on unless it really is too close to call.

 

After 2000 the networks are more likely to be more conservative in their calls - they aren't going to call states based on exit polls that don't show consistency or are less than a certain percentage.

 

My sense is that NJ has show consistency all day and the margin is large enough to call so the networks called the state for Kerry.

 

None of the networks wants to get burned again - their goal is to make the right call - they don't care who wins a given state, just that they got it right. It's not bias - it's being secure in your data.

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I'll tell you how they called it - it's called exit polls and looking at the data all day.

 

As a veteran of ABC News who went through the 1992 election in the Political Unit, I'll tell you that states are called based on exit poll data. Simply put, nobody waits for the actual votes to call a state. If the data coming in all day is consistent and shows a decent margin (I'd say 5 percentage points) you can call a state pretty soon after the polls close. In '92 I knew by about 4pm when the 3rd wave of exit polls came in that Clinton had won.

 

The actuals sway tremendously as they come in depending on when different districts in a given state come in. Being up by 16% with 5% reporting means nothing - it can go back and forth several times before it's over. The exit poll data is what you rely on unless it really is too close to call.

 

After 2000 the networks are more likely to be more conservative in their calls - they aren't going to call states based on exit polls that don't show consistency or are less than a certain percentage.

 

My sense is that NJ has show consistency all day and the margin is large enough to call so the networks called the state for Kerry.

 

None of the networks wants to get burned again - their goal is to make the right call - they don't care who wins a given state, just that they got it right. It's not bias - it's being secure in your data.

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Yeah, exit polls...I knew that.

 

And I'd be fine with it, if the president were elected via exit polls. If it's not ballots, it's a wild-ass guess.

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Yeah, exit polls...I knew that.

 

And I'd be fine with it, if the president were elected via exit polls.  If it's not ballots, it's a wild-ass guess.

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It's not a "wild-ass guess" - it's reliable statistical analysis.

 

People always complain that states are called on exit polls, but how many states have been called wrong in the last 20 years based on exit polls? Only 1 - Florida in 2000 and that's a reflection of it being so close and the networks just wanting to make a call - nobody ever thought you could possibly have an election and not know who the winner was within 4 hours or so of polls closing.

 

It's funny that people hate exit polls and don't want to trust them but they also don't want to wait until 8am the next morning to hear how the states fell and who won. If you wait for the actuals you won't get any state calls prior to about 2am eastern.

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It's not a "wild-ass guess" - it's reliable statistical analysis.

 

People always complain that states are called on exit polls, but how many states have been called wrong in the last 20 years based on exit polls? Only 1 - Florida in 2000 and that's a reflection of it being so close and the networks just wanting to make a call - nobody ever thought you could possibly have an election and not know who the winner was within 4 hours or so of polls closing.

 

It's funny that people hate exit polls and don't want to trust them but they also don't want to wait until 8am the next morning to hear how the states fell and who won. If you wait for the actuals you won't get any state calls prior to about 2am eastern.

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Yes, I know something about statistical analysis.

 

But the presidential election isn't decided by inference from exit polls. It's decided deterministically from the balloting. Inference from exit polls make exciting TV coverage...but it's still inductive reasoning, i.e. a wild-ass guess.

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