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McCain vs. Obama: The Electoral Map

David Wong

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Forget all those national polls; this isn't a popular vote election. If you want to know the state of the race, look at the map:

http://www.electoral-vote.com

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/

Those are state-by-state polls, to be updated as the campaign continues. Obama has the early advantage by the slimmest of margins.

What are the key states? Which ones are vulnerable? Can Obama's registration drives boost turnout of blacks and young people tip some of these close "purple" states?
 
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Far too soon to tell.

I think, though, that you will see more blue and purple as time goes on, and much less red.

I just don't think that McCain is going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Obama. He can't draw the crowds Obama can. He can't make the speeches Obama can. He makes gaffes on an almost daily basis. He doesn't have the fundraising capacity Obama has. He doesn't have a coherent message. Hell, the man's been the presumptive Republican nominee for weeks and he's still stumbling out of the gate.

I think that if Obama can stay on point, and keep McCain scrambling for a message, he will take the White House come November.
 
I'd take the results of that first link with a grain of salt. I seem to remember following it pretty close four years ago when it showed Kerry blowing Bush out right up to the election.
 
Does anybody have a more reliable one? Or maps with a better interface or whatever? I'll be happy to edit them into the first post if the thread continues.
 
Michigan should be vunerable. If I was McCain, given Obama's position, the early primary debacle is pretty easy to exploit if you play your cards right. I'd hammer on that.

McCain's got it rough though. I guess he could hope Obama's supporters that came out of the woodwork now get tired of this whole process by November. But he's not exactly oozing charisma himself.

I don't know, I think he's kind of doomed. Not a good time to run for president being boring, old, and Republican.
 
I think this could be a landslide for Obama, there are just too many issues against the Republicans, plus Obama has proven that he can run an excellent campaign, and demonstrates charisma and spirit. Unless there is a bombshell about Obama we don't know about, and he is smart enough to exclude Hillary as VP (just too much of a risk), he'll win.
 
TriskettheKid said:
Far too soon to tell.

I think, though, that you will see more blue and purple as time goes on, and much less red.

I just don't think that McCain is going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Obama. He can't draw the crowds Obama can. He can't make the speeches Obama can. He makes gaffes on an almost daily basis. He doesn't have the fundraising capacity Obama has. He doesn't have a coherent message. Hell, the man's been the presumptive Republican nominee for weeks and he's still stumbling out of the gate.

I think that if Obama can stay on point, and keep McCain scrambling for a message, he will take the White House come November.
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I agree :)

Now, as you all know, I am writing in Ron Paul come november. I wish that the spineless people will take a stand and all write in Ron Paul, however, given how spineless americans are, That won't happen. If not massive political statements, I would like to see Ralph Nader in the white house over obama and mccain. I hate the 2 party system. It's bad for america. It's not a ****ing game. It's about life and death. But the people don't know that. They sincerely believe that there is a difference between the 2 candidates. There is no difference and your vote does not matter when the system is rigged. So either vote none of the above, so to speak, or have Nader in the white house. I like nader more than mcbomb and obamanation.

Free the 3!
 
vzab8h.jpg


I superimposed the 1992 election over that electoral map. Purple states are wins for Bill in 92', Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virgina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, Nevada, Montana and Michigan that Obama is currently "not" winning. Of course Bill might have been helped by Perot and his southern credentials...should be interesting to see what happens in the Republican's southern stronghold. At the very least I expect to see a big turnaround in Louisiana. Don't throw Montana, North Dakota and Nevada out the door either because Obama will likely have the resources to campaign there while McCain will not. But In all likelihood we'll probably see both candidates throwing the lion's share of their resources into the rust belt states, Missouri, New Mexico and possibly Colorado.
 
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Some of the polls for the States are several months old. Now that there is a presumptive nominee for each party, It'll be interesting to see what they look like over the coming months. However, I won't put much stock in them until September. It'll be fun to follow though.

The electronic markets are about the most valid thing to watch right now, although they are projections of the popular and not the electoral vote. But it's even a bit early for them as I suspect more people will play the market over the coming months.
 
Pookster said:
Some of the polls for the States are several months old.
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Yeah I want to see how well they keep those up to date, I don't know if it's too expensive to do tracking polls state by state when there's no primary.

But I really do think that in close elections the Gallup daily tracking poll the national medial will be following really isn't going to tell the story. Obama up by 3 nationwide means nothing, if he's up by 20 in California and New York but down by 5 in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, etc.

So hopefully those numbers will be kept up to date.
 
David Wong said:
Yeah I want to see how well they keep those up to date, I don't know if it's too expensive to do tracking polls state by state when there's no primary.

But I really do think that in close elections the Gallup daily tracking poll the national medial will be following really isn't going to tell the story. Obama up by 3 nationwide means nothing, if he's up by 20 in California and New York but down by 5 in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, etc.

So hopefully those numbers will be kept up to date.
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I agree. The national poll in what is likely going to be a very close election isn't going to tell us much. There will likely be about 12-18 States that will be the key to watch.

The latest map just doesn't feel right to me. For example, one has SC "barely" Republican. I don't buy that ... yet. However, there was a record number of Democrats voting in the primary this year ... and beat out the Republican primary easily. This was when the Republican primary was still contested somewhat too. It'll be interesting to see what any new polls show.
 
ZenFountain said:
[qimg]http://i32.tinypic.com/vzab8h.jpg[/qimg]

I superimposed the 1992 election over that electoral map. Purple states are wins for Bill in 92', Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virgina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, Nevada, Montana and Michigan that Obama is currently "not" winning. Of course Bill might have been helped by Perot and his southern credentials...should be interesting to see what happens in the Republican's southern stronghold. At the very least I expect to see a big turnaround in Louisiana. Don't throw Montana, North Dakota and Nevada out the door either because Obama will likely have the resources to campaign there while McCain will not. But In all likelihood we'll probably see both candidates throwing the lion's share of their resources into the rust belt states, Missouri, New Mexico and possibly Colorado.
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I think we will see a real fight in Virginia and North Carolina here, places where the Democrats haven't historically been successful but are now making inroads. Obama doesn't really have much of a chance of winning states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia. As always, Florida will be a hot battleground but looking at the polling numbers I'm not sure how successful Obama is going to be able to be there.

One of the big problems with looking at the current polls though is that Clinton just lost the primaries and it's going to take a little while to settle in that this is going to be a fight between McCain and Obama. I suspect there are significant numbers of Clinton supporters who are disillusioned with Obama by this point and what happens to them is going to be really important, as well as whether McCain or Obama nabs more independent voters.
 
Yes, the polls that come out in the next week will be the very first ones worth anything. Not that they'll predict the winner, but it'll be an early indication of how Hillary's support gets split up.

After all, even in the McCain vs. Obama polls they've been running, it's hard to say how many of the McCain votes were from disenfranchised Hillary supporters who, when left with no other choice, will fall in line. OR it may be that they'll just stay home, or maybe there were some independent women who only were with Hillary because she was a woman, and now will fall back behind McCain.

What I do reject is the notion of an Obama blowout, I just don't see that happening. There's a reason the Democrats haven't elected many presidents. The Republicans have a pretty strong base of people concerned with Christian values, immigration, abortion, a strong national defense and low taxes. If they get nothing but that core group, they've still won a lot of states.

The Obama supporters are going to find that frustrating as time goes on and the polls don't swing greatly in his direction. They have to understand how rooted people are on those issues, and will vote for even a bad candidate who stands up for them (not that McCain is a bad candidate, I'm just saying they make his job easy).
 
Agree that it's far too soon to tell.

There's no precedent for a black candidate, and McCain is an unusual conservative candidate, predictions are quite difficult. The VP picks this year should be more important than most elections, and the debates might be as well.

David Wong said:
What are the key states? Which ones are vulnerable? Can Obama's registration drives boost turnout of blacks and young people tip some of these close "purple" states?
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Sooo hard to say right now. My gut says Colorado is the easiest to turn for the Dems, and oddly New Jersey for the GOP, but I have no real reason to think this.

I hear Virginia's in play, I lived there 29 years and would be shocked if it went to Obama. That is, unless he grabs Webb or someone from there as his running mate. If not it seems as likely to go red as Pennsylvania to go blue imo.

Florida I think will go McCain, and if I were the democrats I'd virtually ignore it (I do have bias against Florida for '00 and the recent primary debacle). It's gone Dem. twice in the last 40 years and doesn't seem worth a tremendous fight for. I think Obama can make it up in defending the northeast, consolidating the midwest, and either grabbing Missouri or Colorado or Arkansas, etc. If the election comes down to Florida, he loses.

http://www.270towin.com/ has already been linked to, it's my favorite EC site so far, at least for its interactivity, and state history. Easy to use and fun to play around with.

My very conservative estimate, without any VPs, has Obama 281-257 but that'll change every day, plus I'm biased in favoring Obama.

I think Obama has a lot more to gain with his VP choice than McCain as far as turning some battleground states. But I also really have no idea other than Romney (who wouldn't help the EC much) as to who would be a suitable choice for McCain. He'd be nuts to choose anyone from the current admin like Condi, and I ain't got a clue as to who else is on the short list.
 
David Wong said:
What I do reject is the notion of an Obama blowout, I just don't see that happening. There's a reason the Democrats haven't elected many presidents. The Republicans have a pretty strong base of people concerned with Christian values, immigration, abortion, a strong national defense and low taxes. If they get nothing but that core group, they've still won a lot of states.
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It depends what you mean by a blowout. Certainly a blowout on the scale of, say, Reagan over Mondale is impossible for either candidate in this election. Neither one is likely to fall below 200 or so electoral votes unless something drastic happens. But I think Obama could win fairly big if things go well for him. It's hard to see McCain winning anything but a relative squeaker unless Obama implodes.
 
Diagoras said:
I think we will see a real fight in Virginia and North Carolina here, places where the Democrats haven't historically been successful but are now making inroads.
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Yes I also expect that Virginia and the Carolinas will receive significant attention and be competitive for the Democrats. In fact, given Obama's ability to raise money, mobilize ground level campaign activities and willingness to campaign 100+ hours a week, I expect all but the most red states will be targeted. Obama's continued support of Dean as DNC chairman also means something since Dean was the architect of the 50 state strategy. I don't think this will be like 00-04' where 95% of the campaign resources get thrown into Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, although those states will obviously be hotly contested.
 
ZenFountain said:
willingness to campaign 100+
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You know, he's kind of impressed me in that regard. I mean, dude is out there grinding but he always looks pretty happy and energetic. That's a tough pace to keep up with an not show it's wearing on you. That's a good strength to have.
 
dirtywick said:
You know, he's kind of impressed me in that regard. I mean, dude is out there grinding but he always looks pretty happy and energetic. That's a tough pace to keep up with an not show it's wearing on you. That's a good strength to have.
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Indeed. Just superficially, he's tall and thin, looks kind of frail even. I can't help wondering how he'll "hold up" at 4-8 years of tremendous pressure, even though that's more mental than physical.

If he's elected it's sad that nice hair will turn grey (seems almost every president's hair turns grey in office).

Hillary also looks energetic, though she has seemed tired a couple times. McCain, well he's just a horse, I have no doubt he'd be able to handle the pressue of the presidency.
 
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