Today's polls:

Minnesota and Georgia remain the most closely contested Senates races. The Democrats appear to have North Carolina and Oregon under wraps, but that only leaves them at 58; two shy of the magical 60 needed to override a filibuster. Below is the Minnesota Senate graph:

As you can see Barkley remains a distant third, but don't count him out. The final debate for this race is November 2nd and could very well decide the outcome. I'll be doing a live analysis of this debate on Sunday.

I've already discussed various electoral scenarios associated with the Bradley Effect, but I have yet to look at voter suppression. Using foreclosure data from 2007, the only data set I could find, a suppression model was devised.

It's quite simple, but gives a good result; I take the number of foreclosures in 2007 and divide that by the 2004 popular vote total in a given state. The result represents the percentage of eligible voters [based on 2004] under foreclosure. The table below illustrates the ten states with the greatest percentage of foreclosures relative to the 2004 turnout:

Using this foreclosure percentage allows us to model a potential source of voter suppression. If we assume that all people currently under foreclosure are voting for Obama, we can simulate what would happen if these voters were suddenly prevented from voting in their home state. I've taken the current projection for Obama and subtracted from that the foreclosure percentage in the given state. The result of this calculation projects the following electoral outcome:

Notice that Ohio, Nevada, Colorado and Indiana all shifted towards McCain, which is to be expected given that we subtracted from Obama, but the model serves to verify the affect voter suppression could have on this election. I should also mention that this "foreclosure effect" will be larger in theory than in practice due to the likely increase in voter turnout over the 2004 result.

While I was messing with the model I went ahead and ran the current Bradley Effect and Independent Slide scenarios. We'll start with the Bradley Effect model:

This week Obama gained 14 Electoral votes over last week's Bradley Effect model. Moving on to the Independent Slide model; if all currently undecided voters suddenly moved to McCain en masse:

Obama still wins, just like last week but this time he's added 77 Electoral Votes to his total. Its starting to look more and more like voter suppression is the only avenue by which McCain can win.

Update: A reader asked what would happen if the Bradley Effect model were to be combined with the suppression model. Here's the result:

Any other suggestions?

I've added all the polls that are going to be added today and still the only change was in Montana; this is consistency. There was an number of new senate polls today, but the Democrats were unable to squeak closer to 60; our projection still stands at 58-42.

Today's polls:

The Minnesota poll conducted by the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota will likely release their Senate supplement later tonight or tomorrow. There are also a few other polls in the field today that may have yet to publish a Senate result. I'll update the polling database upon the public release of this information.

The defining characteristic of any democratic government should be the continual pursuit of citizen participation. I often question whether our government truly strives to meet this ideal. From a historical perspective there are few occasions in which our government has pursued democracy first and politics second.

Our nation was founded some 232 years ago on the principle that "all men are created equal," but still to this day not all men are treated to equal rights. The root of this problem lies deep within the fabric of American consciousness and the Constitution provides no further assistance. Each state is allowed to implement voting procedure however it deems necessary; as the Constitution makes no explicit reference to voting, the cornerstone of its very existence.

For most of America's childhood, states reserved the right to limit eligible voters to property owning, white males. On the first day of January, 1863 Abraham Lincoln stated within his Emancipation Proclamation "that all persons held as slaves [within the rebellious states] are, and henceforward shall be free." This famous declaration paved the way for the 14th Amendment in 1866. The 14th Amendment elevated previously indentured servants from 3/5 of a person into full blown citizens. This momentous event laid the foundation for the 15th Amendment in 1870: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

In order to further my dialogue, I must dispel a commonly held and misconstrued belief. Despite what the Republicans may want you to believe, their current platform does not derive their existence from Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln would almost certainly be a New England Lefty if he were around today; need proof: "In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed a bill that imposed a 3% tax on incomes between $600 and $10,000 and a 5% tax on higher incomes." Lincoln was the father of the income tax, a policy the current Republican Party supposedly detests; yet they hypocritically continue to trumpet the man from Illinois.

While Lincoln definitely leaned to the left, he was not single highhandedly responsible for enacting the first major addition to America's democratic model; that task was left to the states.

The next major piece of legislation came in the form of the 19th Amendment which granted women the right to vote. Democratic President Woodrow Wilson played an integral role in securing the amendment's passage. The amendment failed on several occasions prompting Wilson to call a special congressional session in advance of the Presidential election of 1920. Although a member of the Democratic Party, by today's standards he would likely be considered socially conservative. Wilson played a more direct role in the resolution of Woman's Suffrage when compared to Lincoln's aforementioned accomplishments but he still does not deserve all the credit.

The third and final amendment arrived on July 7, 1971. The twenty-sixth amendment was certified by the Administrator of General Services granting anybody aged eighteen or older the right to vote. The amendment was proposed by Senator Jennings Randolph (D) of West Virginia in response to procedural matters within the Selective Service Draft of 1969. Anybody aged eighteen or older could be drafted and fight America's War, but they could not vote. The amendment was ratified by thirty-nine states (eventually forty-two) thus making Randolph's amendment law.

Throughout history, each ideology has helped expand our democracy; regardless of motivation, in these three instances, the people won. If the amendment trend continues, our democracy should expand in some fashion within the next generation despite the forever growing partisanship this country faces.

A new poll by Arizona State University now shows Obama within the margin of error in Arizona. Based on this result, the rest of today's polls suddenly seem comparatively irrelevant:

On other unrelated notes, Obama's 30 minute television ad was aired on seven different TV networks today at 7 PM CT. The ad was a mix of policy and story telling; of the personal stories that were highlighted, one came from Kentucky and another from Missouri. Obama is targeting two deeply red states six days before the election. Obama currently has a 33.66% chance of winning Missouri and a 2.63% chance in Kentucky. The Kentucky spot is likely an appeal to the Senate race while Missouri seems to be legitimately in play.

There was also a new Rasmussen Poll released from Alaska showing Sen. Stevens (R) in a significant amount of trouble; our model now gives Stevens a 99.03% chance of losing.

I'm going to keep this simple because the results speak for themselves. I've taken the Presidential vote totals from 2004 and calculated the number of additional votes needed, beyond what our projection dictates, for the trailing candidate to reach the 50% threshold. The result of this arithmetic can be seen in the Votes Needed column. The EVs Per Voter (10^-4) column takes the Votes Needed and divides by the voting population of the given state in 2004. The results of this calculation are very small, with four zeros directly after the decimal point, but their meaning is very large.

Take a look at the data before I explain its significance; the results are ordered based on Obama's projection percentage in descending order.

If you order the results by EVs per Voter the twelve most contested states fall within the top fifteen. This would be great news for McCain if eleven of these twelve states weren't states previously carried by Bush in 2004; Pennsylvania is the exception and ranks fifteenth. Within the eleven he must win, McCain is currently trailing in seven; North Carolina, North Dakota, Montana, Nevada, Missouri, Colorado and New Mexico. If we total the Votes Needed column for these seven states the result is 409,239; this is the absolute minimum number of additional votes (beyond our projection) McCain needs to win the Election.

McCain needs 409,239 votes in seven states to win the election, whereas John Kerry needed 118,599 votes in Ohio.

In our national non-tracking polling projection, Barack Obama has surpassed the 50% threshold for the first time:

Anyways, there was a plethora of state polling today:

The most notable result today probably comes from Mississippi-B's Senate race. The new Rasmussen poll shows a once competitive race, essentially beyond reach for Musgrove (D), the Democratic challenger who trails the incumbent by 11%. Granted this is a single result, but its not something you hope for if you're in the Musgrove campaign. But there still may be hope for his candidacy. Yesterday saw the expansion of our Senate Coattails Calculation and from that result reads: "Our little conclusion may give hope yet to Musgrove (D), the Democratic challenger in Mississippi-B. Musgrove's coefficient is below both 1 and his competitors coefficient, but recent polling has shown Wicker (R) with a significantly large lead." Musgrove has nothing going for him right now with the exception of this historically accurate trend.

Let me start by saying this was a gauntlet. I started by collecting election data for the Presidential Election of 2004 and the Senate Elections of 2004 and 2006. I then parsed the results and created a massive table while incorporating our projections into a 2008 metaset. From here I just did the simple division necessary to compute the Coattail Coefficient.

The table below illustrates the outcome of our study. The "XXX Pres Coefficient" column represents the calculation previously prescribed in our previous article on coattails; if the result of the simple division is greater than 1, the Senate candidate is over performing relative to that party's Presidential nominee. A number below 1 implies the opposite. For Senate races that occurred in 2006 I used the 2004 Presidential result from that state as the comparator. The 2008 data is drawn from our projections, and the 2004 data is provided by the Federal Election Committee.

The furthest column to the right, Winner's Coattail, corresponds to the Coattail Coefficient of the party that won the given Senate Election. The "<" and ">" illustrate whether the eventual winner of the given Senate seat had a larger coefficient than the competition. The "<" is used when the victor did in fact have a larger coefficient, while the ">" implies the opposite. I have bolded all races in which the actual or projected margin ranged between zero and six percent. I encourage you to take a detailed look at the table below, but when you're done don't forget to continue reading.

State           Year    Dem Pres     Rep Pres     Winner's
                       Coefficient  Coefficient   Coattail
Nebraska        2006       1.95        0.55      < 1.95 (D)
North Dakota    2004       1.92        0.50      < 1.92 (D)
Maine           2006       0.38        1.66      < 1.66 (R)
North Carolina  2006       1.58        0.53      < 1.58 (D)
Indiana         2004       1.57        0.62      < 1.57 (D)
Rhode Island    2008       1.55        0.80      < 1.55 (D)
Maine           2008       0.77        1.53      < 1.53 (R)
West Virginia   2008       1.51        0.65      < 1.51 (D)
Arkansas        2008       1.49        0.93      < 1.49 (D)
West Virginia   2006       1.49        0.60      < 1.49 (D)
South Dakota    2008       1.49        0.72      < 1.49 (D)
Indiana         2006       0.00        1.46      < 1.46 (R)
Idaho           2004       0.00        1.45      < 1.45 (R)
New Mexico      2006       1.44        0.59      < 1.44 (D)
Montana         2006       1.41        0.74      < 1.41 (D)
Iowa            2004       0.57        1.41      < 1.41 (R)
Arizona         2004       0.46        1.40      < 1.40 (R)
Hawaii          2004       1.40        0.46      < 1.40 (D)
Wisconsin       2006       1.35        0.60      < 1.35 (D)
New Hampshire   2004       0.67        1.35      < 1.35 (R)
Mississippi-A   2008       0.92        1.29      < 1.29 (R)
Louisiana       2008       1.28        0.77      < 1.28 (D)
West Virginia   2004       1.28        0.79      < 1.28 (D)
Florida         2006       1.28        0.73      < 1.28 (D)
Illinois        2004       1.28        0.61      < 1.28 (D)
Nevada          2004       1.28        0.70      < 1.28 (D)
Montana         2006       1.27        0.82      < 1.27 (D)
Wyoming-A       2008       0.75        1.27      < 1.27 (R)
Delaware        2006       1.26        0.60      < 1.26 (D)
Ohio            2004       0.74        1.26      < 1.26 (R)
Arkansas        2004       1.25        0.81      < 1.25 (D)
Oregon          2004       1.23        0.67      < 1.23 (D)
Connecticut     2004       1.22        0.73      < 1.22 (D)
Wyoming-B       2008       0.82        1.22      < 1.22 (R)
Virginia        2004       1.21        0.80      < 1.21 (D)
Vermont         2004       1.20        0.63      < 1.20 (D)
Virginia        2008       1.19        0.72      < 1.19 (D)
Maryland        2004       1.16        0.79      < 1.16 (D)
Ohio            2006       1.15        0.86      < 1.15 (D)
Pennsylvania    2006       1.15        0.85      < 1.15 (D)
Vermont         2006       1.15        0.83      < 1.15 (D)
Tennessee       2008       0.84        1.14      < 1.14 (R)
Delaware        2008       1.14        0.74      < 1.14 (D)
Minnesota       2006       1.14        0.80      < 1.14 (D)
Hawaii          2006       1.14        0.81      < 1.14 (D)
Alabama         2008       0.90        1.12      < 1.12 (R)
New York        2004       1.12        0.60      < 1.12 (D)
Massachusetts   2006       1.12        0.83      < 1.12 (D)
New Mexico      2008       1.12        0.86      < 1.12 (D)
Kansas          2004       0.75        1.12      < 1.12 (R)
Alaska          2008       1.11        0.86      < 1.11 (D)
Michigan        2006       1.11        0.86      < 1.11 (D)
Iowa            2006       1.11        0.92      < 1.11 (D)
Kansas          2008       0.83        1.10      < 1.10 (R)
Nevada          2006       0.86        1.10      < 1.10 (R)
California      2006       1.09        0.79      < 1.09 (D)
Colorado        2004       1.09        0.90      < 1.09 (D)
Virginia        2006       1.09        0.92      < 1.09 (D)
Pennsylvania    2004       0.82        1.09      < 1.09 (R)
Alabama         2004       0.88        1.08      < 1.08 (R)
Washington      2006       1.08        0.87      < 1.08 (D)
Michigan        2008       1.08        0.84      < 1.08 (D)
Missouri        2006       1.08        0.89      < 1.08 (D)
Mississippi-B   2006       0.88        1.07      < 1.07 (R)
California      2004       1.06        0.85      < 1.06 (D)
New Hampshire   2006       1.06        0.91      < 1.06 (D)
Missouri        2004       0.93        1.05      < 1.05 (R)
South Carolina  2008       0.98        1.04      < 1.04 (R)
New York        2006       1.03        0.67      < 1.03 (D)
Wyoming-A       2006       1.03        1.02      > 1.02 (R)
Massachusetts   2008       1.01        0.58      < 1.01 (D)
Texas           2006       0.94        1.01      < 1.01 (R)
Georgia         2004       0.96        1.00      < 1.00 (R)
New Hampshire   2008       1.00        0.85      < 1.00 (D)
Illinois        2008       0.99        0.98      < 0.99 (D)
Colorado        2008       0.99        0.87      < 0.99 (D)
Mississippi-B   2008       0.97        0.99      < 0.99 (R)
Texas           2008       0.96        0.98      < 0.98 (R)
Minnesota       2008       0.72        0.98      < 0.98 (R)
Arizona         2006       0.98        0.97      > 0.97 (R)
Maryland        2006       0.97        1.03      > 0.97 (D)
Nebraska        2008       0.96        0.97      < 0.97 (R)
Florida         2004       1.03        0.95      > 0.95 (R)
Kentucky        2008       1.06        0.93      > 0.93 (R)
South Carolina  2004       1.08        0.93      > 0.93 (R)
North Carolina  2004       1.08        0.92      > 0.92 (R)
Georgia         2008       0.99        0.92      > 0.92 (R)
Rhode Island    2006       0.90        1.20      > 0.90 (D)
Louisiana       2004       1.12        0.90      > 0.90 (R)
North Carolina  2008       0.90        0.88      < 0.90 (D)
Tennessee       2006       1.13        0.89      > 0.89 (R)
Utah            2006       1.20        0.87      > 0.87 (R)
New Jersey      2008       0.86        1.02      > 0.86 (D)
Kentucky        2004       1.24        0.85      > 0.85 (R)
Oregon          2008       0.84        1.08      > 0.84 (D)
Oklahoma        2008       1.17        0.84      > 0.84 (R)
Idaho           2008       1.20        0.83      > 0.83 (R)
Oklahoma        2004       1.20        0.80      > 0.80 (R)
Alaska          2004       1.28        0.80      > 0.80 (R) 
Connecticut     2006     0.73/0.93     0.22    < 0.73/0.93 (D)

What does this massive compilation of data mean? The result is surprisingly straightforward and allows for a nice generalization. Focusing our attention towards the bottom of the table reveals that the winner, in a competitive race, rarely garnered a coefficient greater than 1. This result appears to be counterintuitive but just wait, it gets stranger; notice the large quantity of ">" signs towards the bottom of the table. Under this interpretation the candidate who can win more votes from the opposite party is the likely victory; its actually better to abandon your own party and run across the aisle. Using this result, a succinct postulate can be formed: if candidate A has a coefficient less than 1 and their opponent, candidate B, has a coefficient greater than 1, candidate A has the historic advantage.

Using the above postulate, what can then be said about the 2008 Senate races?

We'll start from the bottom and work our way up through the bolded races happening this year. Our first stop is Oregon. Oregon seems to be safely in Democratic hands, Smith (R) has a coefficient greater than 1 at 1.08, while his challenger Markley (D), is repping a 0.84. Merkley has also opened up a healthy four to five point lead in recent polling.

Moving on up; North Carolina is our next stop. Hagan (D) is currently leading our projection, but the coefficients in this race favor the incumbent Dole (R).

Georgia's like North Carolina, but the opposite. Martin (D) is trailing in the polls, but he's got the better coefficients.

Kentucky exemplifies our rule and seems to be safely in McConnell's (R) court.

Minnesota features a competitive three way race so I'm not exactly sure how our generalization applies, but here it goes. Franken's (D) coefficient is significantly below 1, in fact its the lowest coefficient in the field, but Coleman (R) is still maintaining a slight lead; in large part due to a very suspect St. Cloud State poll that showed 21% of the Minnesota electorate as undecided. Barkley could still make a run too, its impossible to tell.

Our little conclusion may give hope yet to Musgrove (D), the Democratic challenger in Mississippi-B. Musgrove's coefficient is below both 1 and his competitors coefficient, but recent polling has shown Wicker (R) with a significantly large lead.

The last on the list is Alaska, but after today's news of the Stevens' conviction, Begich (D) seems destined to the Senate.

Using just the conclusion of this report as a predictor, the Democratic Party stands to pickup Oregon, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi-B and Alaska. By my count that would put the Democratic caucus at the magical 60 Senator, filibuster proof majority.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted on seven felony counts relating to his corruption trial. After the verdict was read Steven continued to profess his innocence and went on to say that "this verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial. I ask that Alaskans and my Senate colleagues stand with me as I pursue my rights. I remain a candidate for the United States Senate." If you truly believe that a federal trial was carried out in an "unconscionable manner," you have defied your obligation as a US Senator to uphold the Constitution of the United States' fifth and fourteenth amendment, and thus, you are unfit to hold the office which you seek. The mere absurdity of your reasoning justifies your conviction. Now onto the polls.

Obama now has an outside shot at hitting 400 Electoral Votes. A new poll by Rasmussen places Arizona in the Lean Rep category. If in the next eight days Obama takes the lead in Arizona the election is over. Here were the rest of today's polls: