The Brown Bear's Prediction!

As you can see from this Morning's Update, the Brown Bear is predicting a victory for President Bush. The Brown Bear sees the President with a Close or better lead in states worth 279 e.v.

The Brown Bear wishes to qualify that with a few of caveats.

1. The Brown Bear relies heavily on publicly reported polls to calculate his prediction. If the polls are in error because turnout is too heavy, too light, or skewed (e.g. African-Americans vote in record numbers, or young people voting in record numbers), the polls and thus the Brown Bear will be wrong.

2. The most recent polls were conducted over the weekend. If there was a change in the mood of the electorate on Monday, the polls and thus the Brown Bear would not have caught it.

3. The race is very close. Fifteen states are rated either Close or Tossup. Close means the election could go either way, but the Brown Bear is confidant that one candidate has a small lead. Tossup means the Brown Bear is not confident he knows who is leading the race (though if pressed, he will assign a state to one of the candidates).

For his final prediction, the Brown Bear processed seventeen national polls and 272 state polls. One bad poll will not make a dent in his prediction. One biased pollster will not skew his prediction. The Brown Bear assigned Florida to Close Bush because the President leads nationally, Florida's degree of partisanship is slightly Republican, and George Bush leads in five of the seven most recent polls. Similarly, Ohio has slight Republican degree of partisanship, the President leads nationally, and six of the seven most recent state polls show George Bush ahead in the state. Thus the Brown Bear designates Ohio Close Bush. In contrast, Minnesota leans Democratic in its degree of partisanship and of the seven most recent polls, three showed John Kerry leading, three showed George Bush leading and the seventh poll had it tied. Thus the Brown Bear designated the state Tossup (K).

The Brown Bear believes he reflects the consensus of the polls. If the polls are an accurate reflection of the vote today, George Bush will win reelection. If not, all bets are off.