Topic: Election 2008
Barr May Decide the Election (National Analysis)

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Final Poll Projections for McKinney, Baldwin, Nader and Barr (and Obama and McCain)

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by Bradley Jansen
(libertarian)
Saturday, November 1, 2008

Final Poll Projections for McKinney, Baldwin, Nader and Barr

In a series of articles analyzing the electoral chances of Cynthia McKinney, Chuck Baldwin, Ralph Nader and Bob Barr, I considered the scientific polls including the candidates.  Based on my own calculations of their polling data, I made my own prognostications of their vote percentages.  From there, I extended the analyses to include the percentage of Americans who will see the respective candidates on the ballot and made total vote projections (based on a similar nationwide turnout from 2004--it should be noted that most analysts, myself included, think turnout in 2008 will be higher in absolute numbers than four years ago).  Obviously, one should boost the vote totals of the candidates based on this year's voter turnout numbers, but I aimed to be as objective and factual as possible.  All four of the minor party candidates are on enough ballots to get the 270 electoral votes to win the presidency (along with John McCain and Barack Obama). 

In addition to the simple mathematics, I also delved into the crosstabs of the polls where possible to create statistical profiles of the likely supporters for each of the candidates considered.  Given the paucity of good crosstab information, the margin of error in the polls considered and the wide variety of methodologies, there is not as much confidence in the profiles as I would have liked.  That said, the observation that most of the vote for all four minor party candidates comes from what "ought to be" McCain support (conservatives and Republicans) spoke volumes about the satisfaction with Obama at the head of the Democratic Party ticket than McCain as the Republican Party nominee. 

I summarized the vote projections and supporter profiles in a column here.  Those columns and projections were based on the polls one month before the election which gave Obama 47.2% of the vote to McCain's 42.8% based on the RealClearPolitics.com averages.  For the minor party candidates, I put Nader at 2.5%, Barr at 1.5%, McKinney at 0.9% and Baldwin at 0.1%.  For all of these vote percentages, the consideration was the candidates' nationwide support whether or not the candidate would be on the ballot in selected states.  The vote projections however did include adjustments based on what percentage of Americans would see each respective candidate's name on the ballot.  The more states where a candidate's name appears, the closer to their nationwide percentage they would get.  There has been one correction since those columns: Bob Barr's name will not be on the ballot in Connecticutt which cuts his total percentage of Americans who could vote for him from 95.8% to 94.5% (Richard Winger's excellent resource Ballot Access News has a listing of all of the presidential candidates on at least one state ballot here.  He explains, "The calculation is based on the number of votes cast for president in each state in 2004.")

For the minor party poll analyses, I relied heavily on Pollster.com (which unfortunately stopped updating the chart on October 15th) and RealClearPolitics.com which averages the four most recent unique polls for the four main candidates (Obama, McCain, Nader and Barr) as well as other polls I found.  The current RCP averages put Obama up slightly at 48.8%, McCain down notably to only 41.0%, with Nader at 2.3% and Barr at 1.5%.  One might note that the current Nader and Barr numbers resemble my own vote projections from a month ago. 

McKinney and Baldwin Not Factors
There remain very few polls that include McKinney and even fewer that include Baldwin.  Therefore, there is not much statistical confidence in their numbers.  The one August poll that put Baldwin's support at 0.1% nationwide grossly exaggerated the minor party support in their sample putting Libertarians as 4% of the general population and 1% of Americans as Constitution Party members (with Baldwin only getting support from 10% of CP members and no one else, presumably).  McKinney's support has dropped from 0.3% in the October 25th Zogby tracking poll to 0.1% in the one released October 31st.  In the same two Zogby polls, Nader fell from 2.2% to 1.7% while Barr rose from 0.8% to 1.1%.  Baldwin has never demonstrated any measurable support.  In an October Gallup poll that included him, he did not garner more than an asterik (not enough to round up to 1%).  Since he is only on the ballot for just more than half of all Americans, it is unlikely he could be getting much more than 0.2% of the vote.  While some Baldwin supporters claim the endorsement from US Rep. Ron Paul would be significant (exagerated claims varied), even when Ron Paul's name himself was included as a standard bearer for the Constitution Party nationally, the CP consistently got the same asterik in a DemocracyCorp tracking poll. 

In the DailyKos daily tracking poll, Barr and Nader for much of October were both getting 2% of the vote (with Barr getting 3% from men and 1% from women, and Nader getting 2% equally from the sexes).  On October 30th, Nader's support dropped to 1% while Barr's support remained steady, but support for both dropped to 1% each on the one released October 31st.  I will note that minor party support does tend to drop before election day but that the DailyKos sample is skewed to over-represent Democrats and Progressives which would underestimate support for Nader and Barr, according to my supporter profiles.

Here is a table of the national polls taken within a month of the election which included the four main presidential candidates:


In the spirit of full disclosure, I worked at The Tarrance Group, a Republican polling company, during the 1996 general election (and through which made a connection with Ron Paul's then campaign consultant).  The Tarrance Group and Lake Research, a Democratic polling company, team up for the GWU Battleground poll which I think is the most reliable of the polls.  In the latest Battleground poll, they determined where the "Barr-Root" and "Nader-Gonzalez" combined vote would go if their candidate chose not to run with McCain-Palin getting 34% and Obama-Biden at 32% with 5% offering "Other" and 29% offering "Unsure" (with the last two options not read to them).

The most accurate observations come from apples-to-apples comparisons of the same polls using the same methodologies over different time periods.  Broadly speaking on those terms, Obama and Barr are on the upswing while McCain had been falling (there is some indication that has reversed most recently) with Nader's (and McKinney's) support more of a wildcard but slipping.  Barr may best Nader for third place overall (being on the ballot for more Americans helps).  While Nader benefits from being in the national spotlight for decades, the Libertarian Party registers statistically significant support in a dozen major national polls with Barr as the nominee. 

The polls suggest no candidate will get a majority of votes.  Of course, we do not have a national election, but 51 separate state elections (or "state" for DC).  The support for the main minor party candidacies of Nader and Barr may hold Obama from claiming a majority--and claim enough support so that their vote totals are greater than the differential between Obama and McCain: Republican supporters are likely to blame Bob Barr for costing them several states and possibly determine the election.

©2008 Bradley Jansen, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Saturday, November 1, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, November 2, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Bradley Jansen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Bradley Jansen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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