Today's early prediction for El Paso County

Essentially the campaign in El Paso County began back in late March 2007 when a few idealistic and disgruntled middle class persons congregated in the Obama social network created for such a purpose. Here I met Barbara, Vinai, Andy, Kathy, Lynn, Terry, Jason, Renee among many others who led this effort. What is appearing is something beyond our collective imaginations.

Hold your hats, hitch up your belt and sit down for what I am going to tell you is amazing. If the election were held today I think Obama will be within a couple of percentage points of carrying this RedZone of RedZones, we know as El Paso County, home of Focus on the Family and the New Life Church. The place where Doug Bruce resides, the birthplace of the Libertarian Party and all that is reactionary right-wing. If the election were held I think the numbers would reflect that McCain would squeek by with a 50.5% to Obama 47.3% (Barr and others would get the rest). Last last week I thumbnailed a prediction of 44-47% but then when I drilled baby drilled into the data and found variances with new voter and previous voter statistics the percentage actually increased.


How am I coming to this conclusion? Well let us start to break this down.

• Republicans registered 165,500 (12,000 new)
• Independents registered 120,850 (12,400 new)
• Democrats registered 84,800 (16,200 new)

Some assumptions in this year's election: New (Republican and Independent) registrants vote at higher percentages (80%) and Democrat new registrations are voting at 95% for Obama and Independent new registrants at 80% rate for Obama. (Source FiveThirtyEight.com---taken from primary data).

Republicans are locally less motivated to due to local events (New Life Church scandal where it now is non political no phone banks), Focus on the Family (lay offs and McCain), Lamborn campaign unfunded and the continuing Wall Street Market Crash. Historical numbers hold that they voted at 73% in '04 and will probably vote at 63% (local GOP statement). New registrants will vote at 80% levels. Bleed in the ranks where Libertarian Party will get 5-7% of total vote because of protest vote within pool voting.

Independents, new registrants will follow FiveThirtyEight model and vote at 80% due to two factors locally, MIB registration effort and Obama factor. They are projected to vote 80/20 Obama to McCain see FiveThirtyEight.com. Existing or previous Independent voter will have a 70% (some depressed of about 5% due to long lines at the end of the day) countered by Obama ground game of idenifying Obama supporter and leaners getting them higher MIB levels. Existing voters will be split 47% 47% (McCain Obama) with remaining going to Libertarian (5%)

Democrats, new registrants will vote at 85% levels because of MIB effort and Obama effect and vote at 95% for Obama. Existing Democrats will vote at 80% turnout and 90% for Obama.

Projected McCain vote = 125,000 (+/-)
New Voters(R): 7680 (+) New Voters(I) 2200 (+) New Voters(D) 1000 = 11,000
Prev voters(R) 77,300 (+) Prev Voters(I) 32,100 (+) Prev Voter(D) 4350 = 113,750

Projected Obama vote = 117,700 (+/-)
New Voters(R) 1440 (+) New Voters(I) 7950 (+) New Voters(D) 12,300 = 21,700
Prev Voters(R) 14,500 (+) Prev Voters(I) 32,000 Prev Voters (D) 49,500= 96,000

Libertarian Party and other votes amass 6000 votes (+/-)
All told El Paso County has a turnout of 67% (some of it because of long lines at the end of the day).

This has huge implications for the down ticket going forward with the top of the ticket bringing in record numbers. In 2004 Salazar polled 81,000 votes. In 2006 Ritter polled 69,000 votes but got 39.7%, an increase of 5% from Salazar, where then Ritter won by a 5% larger margin than what Salazar defeated Coors. This is now being called the El Paso factor. If Obama carries 45% or more in El Paso County it could imply that he might win by a landslide of 58-59% statewide. All this correlates with the science of the ground game where political observers note a strong volunteer organization moves the bar 5-7% points from the old standard. This would fall into that line of reasoning.

There are still three weeks left and with the Stock Market tanking further day-by-day and McCain's campaign imploding due to a rudderless strategy and narrative could Obama actually close up 6 or 7000 more votes? Well two things would have to happen.

• One, the turnout for Republicans falls even more than 63% for previous voters. This could happen if the volunteer core in the GOP are lax in getting them MIB's and they find themselves having to wait in a line for two to four hours to vote for candidates that are likely going to lose. That would not please Lamborn, but again the RNC has given him no money!
• Two, the financial markets go into a total nose dive with more economic news depressing the electorate even more.

That could move the turnout to about 60% in the previous voting Republican Party base and dampen a bit the new voters where McCain's total falls to below 120,000 with Obama's inching up towards 120,000. Stranger things have happened, but in all cases this is extraordinary projections!