The Electoral Map
I have to agree for the most part with Gregory Cochran against Dan McCarthy on the questions of Obama’s chances in the Electoral College and trends in the polls. National and state polls have tended to go in the same direction with each shift in the campaign, and the state polls have followed the changes in the national tracking results. Cochran is right that Obama’s margin in the national polls points to Democratic success. In mid-summer, many swing state polls showed an Obama surge consistent with his national polling lead, and during late August and early September the state polls showed the reverse as McCain leap-frogged ahead of Obama on account of Palin enthusiasm. Ever since 9/15 when the markets tanked after Lehman’s bankruptcy, Obama has been steadily advancing in national and state polling, and Friday’s debate changed nothing here. McCain-leaning states have started reverting to toss-up status, and existing toss-up and weak Obama states have trended towards Obama. Just a few weeks ago, McCain had an outright lead in RCP Electoral College projections without toss-up states; today he trails by 65 votes. There are today fewer reliable McCain-leaning states and more toss-up states that are running away from him, which makes it McCain’s tough hill to climb to reach 270. His imploding running mate and his chaotic campaigning style do not bode well for the next five weeks. Unless we assume that Obama has to have a five or six-point lead before Election Day to compensate for a Bradley Effect problem in his polling, Obama is in a comfortable position right now.
Dan is correct that most of the toss-up states vote Republican more often, and the toss-up status of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota remain worrisome for the Democrats, but I would point to a few states where movement towards Obama is significant and offers a clue to what will happen in a little over a month from now. Colorado has not voted for a Democrat for President since 1992, but it has been more or less solidly in Obama’s column all year. The state has been trending Democratic for several years, which is also reflected by the strong Mark Udall Senate campaign. New Mexico and Missouri are bellwether states. More than other states, they have voted for the winner; New Mexico matches the popular vote percentages with rather eerie regularity. Right now Missouri is trending away from McCain after many months in his column, and New Mexico has been leaning Democratic for months. I assumed that the significant presence of military personnel, veterans and Hispanics, plus being a neighboring state, would make New Mexico favorable territory for a military veteran and pro-immigration Arizonan Senator, but it has not been happening.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are all traditionally Democratic states in recent presidential elections, and despite Obama’s relative weakness in rural and small-town Pennsylvania these states are very likely to come back to the Democratic nominee just as traditionally “red” states such as Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia are going to come back to McCain. Colorado and New Mexico are going to prove to be decisive, as Obama must have them if he cannot win Ohio and Florida (and it is my estimation that he cannot), and McCain bizarrely seems unable to gain sufficient traction in these Southwestern states. All that Obama needs to win is to hold the Kerry states and keep his leads in Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico. That seems the most likely scenario.
If you assign toss-up states to the candidates where they are leading by some small margin, Obama enjoys a commanding lead of 301-237. Had the financial crisis not struck two weeks ago, things might have been very different, but that is where things are.
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