Category Archives: LDVUSA

A fortnight ago, Lib Dem Voice published the unconfirmed results of our competition to predict the electoral college outcome of the race to be the next President of the USA.

At the time of writing, we assumed Missouri’s 11 votes would end up in Senator McCain’s Republican column; and that’s now been confirmed. (Bang goes the Big Mo’s ‘bellweather’ status for predicting Presidential winners). However, in the interim, President-elect Obama picked up one of Nebraska’s electoral votes.

All of which to-ing and fro-ing gives a final electoral college tot-up of Obama 365, McCain 173.

But none of which changes the rankings as originally published, and so we tip our hats, and award our penultimate LDV mug, to Joe Taylor, Lib Dem blogger, councillor and all-round psephological swot.

Full results, with updated scores, as below.

The Telegraph has the rather surprising story of Jacob Rigg’s something-to-tell-the-grandkids-about claim to fame:

The US President-elect’s speech to hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago on Tuesday was one of the most widely-watched and repeated political addresses in recent history.

It was also partly written in a flat in Notting Hill, West London.

Parts of the speech were crafted by Jacob Rigg, a volunteer advisor to the Obama campaign.

Mr Rigg works for The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, which lobbies and advises on tax issues, including the rules that apply to non-domiciled foreigners living in the UK.

He also

…

Well, the outcome’s in no doubt, but the actual result is – which means we can’t yet officially announce a winner of our Lib Dem Voice Presidential Prediction competition.

As it stands, we’re still pending the official confirmation of who has gained North Carolina’s 15 electoral college votes. At the moment, it’s narrowly in the Obama fold, in which case the final electoral college vote will be: Obama 364, McCain 174.

If that’s eventually confirmed it will mean Joe (the) Taylor, Lib Dem blogger and councillor, and US electoral expert, will have duly triumphed, with an on-the-nose prediction. In which case, we won’t need to use our tie-breaker, the popular vote, where the current projection is Obama 52%, McCain 46%.

In fact a number of competition entrants came pretty damn close in the end. Here they are in descending order of closeness (assuming that North Carolina vote holds true for Obama):

If you weren’t up to watch it live at 5am GMT (as the hard-core of LDV readers were), then do take 18 minutes out of your day today to watch President-elect Obama’s acceptance speech, delivered shortly after his stunning election victory over Senator John McCain was confirmed.

The rhetoric is, as ever, dazzlingly revivalist – in many ways I’m an Obama-sceptic, but I defy anyone not to be bestirred by his words. Note, too, the perfect poise of this guy; the immense calm, stillness and assurance he projects. Who knows what kind of President he will make? But it’s hard to imagine a more impressive Presidential candidate.

Well, who imagined we could ever use that headline? No matter how many times it’s repeated – to the point the cliche becomes stale – this is a truly historic moment, both for President-elect Barack Obama, and for the American people. We at Lib Dem Voice salute you.

If you want to re-live the night through the LDV live-blog, click here. And if you want to see what folk were prepared to predict the result would be before the election, then click here.

Feel free to continue the morning-after-the-night-before discussions here…

Well, tonight’s the night when we finally find out: has the USA elected its first black President? Or are the opinion polls wronger than they’ve been in history? Join us tonight, here on LDV, for our election-nite live-blog, and feel free to contribute your comments as we type.

Don’t forget, you can follow what’s happening when, and what to look out for, by using Lib Dem councillor Joe Taylor‘s indispensable cut-out-n-keep download’n’print guide to the American Elections here.

10.52 pm
Well, as you can see (or not) at the moment, CoverItLive seems to have fallen victim to the mass server overload that seems to be bringing down websites left, right and centre. (Not that I check the ones on the right so much). So, for now, I’m afraid for now we’re reliant on steam-powered Internet live-blogging. Sorry, and all that.

10.56 pm
PoliticsHome is feeding us first exit poll data: 62% of voters named the economy as their top issue in deciding who to vote for; Iraq and terrorism trailed with 10% and 9% respectively. This is a domestic, bread ‘n’ butter election.

11.08 pm
Exit poll – with all the caveats – from Virginia via Talking Points Memo blog: “The early exits we’re seeing out of Virginia suggest a close race with an advantage to Obama. The split of the white vote looks similar to what Jim Webb got in 2006, but with blacks making up a substantially larger percentage of the electorate.”

The Lib Dem Voice collective will be live-blogging the US election from 11pm tonight, via the magic of CoverItLive. So keep the site open as you watch/listen/browse your way through the twists and turns of a truly historic night. As well as our chat and your comments, we’ll also have a couple of posts from Our Man in Grant Park Chicago, Lib Dem councillor Paul Elgood. See you in just over a couple of hours.

Oh, and by the way, if you see any exit poll leaks on t’intenets, (i) ignore them – they’re probably wrong; and (ii) …

You have, as I type, just under 10 hours to submit your predictions for the LDVUSA prediction competition: entries must be received by 9 am, Tuesday, to qualify. To find out what you need to do, and to enter your prediction, click here. Winners will receive general acclaim and a limited edition Lib Dem Voice mug – what more incentive could you need?

After perhaps the most fascinating electoral contest in modern political history, with more twists, turns and surprises than could ever have been imagined two years ago when it all began, the race to the White House is drawing to a close. In just three days (barring any hanging chads) we will know if the USA has elected its first black, or its oldest ever, President.

What we’re inviting Lib Dem Voice readers to do is to predict the likely outcome. The winner will earn not only the respect and acclaim of the Lib Dem blogosphere, but also the penultimate, limited edition LDV mug.

Here’s what you need to do to enter. First, predict the winner; secondly, predict the result in the electoral college; and, thirdly, predict the popular vote Senators Obama and McCain will attract.

So, if you believe the RealClearPolitics.com averages of the polls right now, you might enter the following answers:

1. Obama
2. Obama 353, McCain 185
3. Obama 50%, McCain 44%

The winner will be the reader who predicts the winner, and is closest to the eventual electoral college vote; the popular vote will determine the result in the event of a tie.

Please leave your entries in the comments box, below, and feel free to show your working. You can use a pseudonym if you prefer to remain anonymous, but you must use a valid email address for your entry to be included. The final closing date for entries is 9am, Tuesday morning.

Here for your interest and info is the latest round-up of which way the states are likely to line up in the electoral college, according to the average of the latest polls. ‘Solid’ means a +10% lead; ‘likely’ a +4% lead, and ‘edging’ means a 0-4% lead.