A Line at a Polling Site (obviously, not mine): Some of you may have noticed that I did not post yesterday. I got up at 4 AM to serve as Presiding Judge (on 4 hours of training) at a precinct located in a Roman Catholic church in a poor and heavily African-American area of Cincinnati. I did not get home until approximately 10 PM and was so exhausted that I was in bed by 11 PM. We set up Monday night. I was there at the scheduled time of 6 pm but the church was locked and we waited outside 30+ minutes....

The Best News of All? Not a Single Robo-Call Today!

Larry J. Sabato – THE LAST LAST WORD: The Crystal Ball’s Final Projections for the 2008 Election If Barack Obama wins the popular vote by 7 or 8 percentage points, then he will also carry at least a couple of the following states: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota. If Barack Obama should end up by 3 or 4 percent of the popular vote, then it is possible that John McCain will carry a couple of the following states: Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio. The Crystal Ball...

msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS: Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died in Honolulu CNN: Sen. Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died after a battle with cancer, his campaign office says.

Larry J. Sabato – THE LAST WORD–ALMOST: The Crystal Ball’s Next-to-Last Projections for the 2008 Election These are our 2008 election projections as of Thursday, October 30. We will make final adjustments and tweaks on Monday afternoon, November 3, and post them to the website. At that point, we will attempt to call the few remaining toss-ups. We wish everyone the best possible Election Day, with congratulations to the winners and condolences to the losers. Our sincere thanks...

Visit your local NPR station for The Capitol Steps on the Air: Halloween Special. If your station has already broadcast the show, tune in online to a station that has not yet done so.

Polarization abounds in this topsy-turvy, Alice-in-Wonderland campaign season and I am grateful that it will soon be over! I am a U.S. citizen, Democrat, Jew, lesbian-feminist, liberal, pro-choicer and am proud of all of these characteristics. I am, however, disgusted with both Presidential tickets. I prefer John McCain on foreign affairs, the Middle East and national security issues but prefer Barack Obama on social and most domestic issues. Without declaring the general euphoria around Sen. Barack...

Chicago Tribune: Studs Terkel dies – The author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago symbol has died. “My epitaph? My epitaph will be ‘Curiosity did not kill this cat,’” he once said. Louis Terkel arrived here as a child from New York City and in Chicago found not only a new name but a place that perfectly matched–in its energy, its swagger, its charms, its heart–his own personality. They made a perfect and enduring pair. Author-radio host-actor-activist...

AP via MSNBC: Victoria St. Gelais is panicky. Tami Brewster-Barnes feels the nerves in the pit of her stomach. Steven Valentine is losing sleep as his mood rises and falls with John McCain’s poll numbers. Voters around the country, whether they support McCain or Barack Obama, say they are experiencing nail-biting, ulcer-inducing anxiety ahead of next week’s election and all that’s riding on it.

While watching the World Series, I’ve seen a few too many political commercials over the last week. Many of these, in the Cincinnati TV market, are for or against US Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader. McConnell’s being seriously challenged by Democrat Bruce Lunsford. Democratic office: GOP office: Cincinnati Enquirer: “McConnell will pull this out because of his record and outstanding performance as a campaigner,” said 4th District GOP...

The body of Jennifer Hudson’s kidnapped nephew, 7-yr-old Julian King, was found today. Chicago Tribune: Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson helped positively identify the body of her young nephew today, hours after he was found with gunshot wounds in a sport-utility vehicle on Chicago’s West Side, authorities said. An autopsy was scheduled to be done on the body of 7-year-old Julian King Tuesday at the Cook County medical examiner’s office, where Hudson and other relatives...

AP: Law enforcement agents have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 88 black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives said Monday. In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn., federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee. Agents said the...

Larry J. Sabato – DEMOCRATIC WAVE CONTINUES TO BUILD: Obama Maintains Clear Lead, Democrats Gain More Ground in Congress Back in 2002 and 2004, the Crystal Ball brought misery to Democrats and joy to Republicans, as we projected the solid GOP victories that occurred in those years. The cycle of politics is not to be denied, and so in 2006 and now in 2008, there is a role reversal. With each passing week, we send Democratic spirits soaring ever higher and depress our Republican readers further. Yin...

Larry J. Sabato et al – DEMOCRATS ROLL IN U.S. HOUSE RACES: Party Now Certain to Add Significant Number to Current Majority The good news just keeps on coming for Democrats. As we discussed last week, presidential nominee Barack Obama is the clear favorite to win a substantial victory in the race for the White House (see updated Electoral College map, HERE). Democratic Senate candidates are doing so well that the party will add at least six or seven seats to its current narrow majority...

Larry J. Sabato’s ELECTORAL COLLEGE UPDATE: OCTOBER 16 OVERALL: John McCain’s position in the Electoral College continued to deteriorate in the previous seven days. We are making the following adjustments, accordingly. AR from Solid McCain to Likely McCain: The financial meltdown is lowering McCain’s percentage here, but as of now, we do not believe a McCain win is seriously threatened. If Bill Clinton spent a week here advocating Obama, though, the tide could turn. FL from Toss-Up...

Larry J. Sabato on IS THE ELECTORAL DAM BREAKING FOR OBAMA? Crystal Ball Has Obama Over 270 for First Time–With Potential for Many More All season, political observers have been speculating when, if ever, the Electoral College and the state and national polls would reflect the basic pro-Democratic fundamentals of the presidential election year. Those fundamentals, historic true-blues (pun intended in this case), include presidential popularity (the Republican incumbent is at rock-bottom),...

Alan I. Abramowitz on THIRTY DAYS AND COUNTING: The Outlook for the 2008 Presidential Election in Early October With one month remaining in the 2008 presidential campaign, national and state polling data indicate that Barack Obama holds a clear lead over John McCain. In the past sixty days, despite a series of dramatic events including the Democratic and Republican national conventions, John McCain’s surprise selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate, a financial crisis...

Tonight’s McCain-Obama debate at Belmont University in Nashville TN will be broadcast on MSNBC and C-SPAN and streamed live on msnbc.com, cnn.com and C-SPAN. NPR will fact-check.

Rhodes Cook on DEMOCRATS WINNING THE REGISTRATION WARS The presidential debate season is just underway. The polls are in flux. The issue agenda–which has already shifted in the last month from the Sarah Palin effect to “lipstick on a pig” to the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Depression–may shift again before Election Day. But one important factor has remained constant: the Democrats’ clear-cut advantage in the ongoing voter registration wars. Since...

Here is the Debate Transcript via CNN, I’ll offer my own opinion later. CNN: Transcript of presidential debate

Cordel Faulk on VOTERS, START YOUR ENGINES Presidential debate season is upon us. That means John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin are traveling around the country with huge binders of prep materials under their arms—and dreams of an eight-year relationship with the Secret Service dancing in their heads. For the rest of us, however, we’re getting ready to tune into the political equivalent of a NASCAR race. NASCAR and the presidential race are analogous? Indeed they...

Jerusalem Post: McCartney’s concert kicks off in TA Over 40,000 were in attendance when former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney’s concert kicked off in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park Thursday night with “Hello Goodbye.” McCartney greeted over 40,000 eager fans in attendance with a hearty “Shana Tova.”

Larry J. Sabato on MEET THE NEW MAP—SAME AS THE OLD MAP (ALMOST) In early summer, the Crystal Ball took its first look at the likely November 4th Electoral College map. Our assessment was that, in the College at least, the contest appeared close. John McCain had 174 solid or likely electoral votes to Barack Obama’s 200 solid or likely. The lead switched once we added in states that were “leaning” to one or the other: McCain had 227 votes to Obama’s 212, with 270 needed...

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Rhodes Cook on OBAMA’S NEW LOOK AT THE MAP This is the time of the presidential campaign for “game-changing” moments, whether it is a huge outdoor acceptance speech in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains or the vice presidential selection of a largely unknown young female governor from Alaska. It is a potentially pivotal time in an historic election. But what the campaign of Barack Obama is ultimately looking for is a “map changer,”...

Larry J. Sabato’s CONVENTION MEMORIES One of the privileges of age is an assumed right to bore others with remembrances. Here are a few of mine about national political conventions. We are in the midst of convention season, a grand attempt to make interesting two weeks of predictable political propaganda staged for TV. Barack Obama becomes the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy, while McCain takes on the visage of Theodore Roosevelt. Dashes of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan will be added...