The Prediction

Barack Obama’s voice was hoarse and even cracked a few times, but he asked for Iowa’s six votes on Monday night at his final campaign appearance.

My guess is that Obama will amass around 300 votes in the Electoral College to comfortably win a second term. The popular vote will be quite close, but his leads in the important swing states are substantial enough that the outcome will never be in real doubt.

I mostly base this forecast on close readings of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog and the Cook Political Report, but I have to admit I’ve allowed anecdotal evidence to creep into my prediction. It would be hard not to after all the time I’ve spent on the ground here in Iowa.

One Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I was out canvassing on Euclid Ave. in Beaverdale when I reached a white house with no doorbell. I tried the front, but my knock was muffled by the locked screen door. I went around to the back.

I knocked on the back door. A young woman in her mid-twenties answered holding her baby. I introduced myself, then told her that according to the campaign’s records, she had a mail-in ballot that she hadn’t yet turned in.

“Oh right,” she said. She and her fiance had been meaning to complete their ballots. I made her a deal: I would return in an hour or so, when her fiance would be home, and I’d collect both ballots.

I returned to my canvassing rounds, but got distracted. By the time I made it back to her house, three hours had passed and it was dark.

I went around to the back door again. I felt a little creepy knocking on the back door this late at night, but I did it anyway. A young man a few years younger than me answered. He had tattoos lining his forearms and climbing the sides of his neck. I apologized for coming by so late and told him I had come back for their votes.

“My fiancee said she wanted to get them done, but I’m not sure where she put those ballots,” he told me. His fiancee had gone out with friends (it was a Saturday night) and wouldn’t be back until much later. He agreed their votes were important and promised to get them in soon, though.

Over the next few days, I kept thinking of the couple. I kicked myself for not returning sooner. I had promised to return in an hour; it had been about three before I came back. To judge from appearances, these were classic “low-propensity voters,” well-meaning, but with a young baby and a thousand other cares, prone to prioritize other activities ahead of voting. I had blown a perfect shot to collect two votes; and those two could very well flake.

One evening, I decided to pay them a third call and ask for their ballots again. I kept getting the nagging feeling that if I didn’t ask, those two votes would be lost. It was dark again, but by now I was an old pro at getting through their backyard in the twilight. Again the young man answered.

“You must think I’m crazy by now,” I said.  I told him I was passionate about seeing Obama win the election. I hoped he would excuse my stalking. Did they have their ballots?

“We filled them out and dropped them off at the Obama office on Ingersoll yesterday,” he told me. “We know it’s important, too.”