McCain vs. Obama: The Electoral Map

ZenFountain said:
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.
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I dont think people yet realize how different the money and organizational level is for Obama compared to McCain. McCain is running well behind in fundrasing compared not to just Obama but to where Kerry was at this point in 04. Obama will have money to waste in states that he knows he has little chance like Florida that will cost McCain money to defend allowing more Obama money to be spent in places from Montana and Alaska to Virginia and North Carolina. The money is there for him to hit up basically any state with even a fluky outside chance while McCain will be forced into a top 6 battle ground plan. And the states that McCain must fight for also happen to be expensive media buys Florida, Penn, Ohio, and Mich. McCain has to have Florida plus 1 to have a chance while Obama has a few (albeit they become longer shots) paths to victory winning only one of those four. Obama also has battle tested staff and volunteer orginations in every state along with polling data on his advantages and disadvantages from every state.
 
Looks like another close election. Is it my imagination or is there some sort of law of large numbers at work that causes something like regression to the mean, ensuring a close election every time? Or is that just how it happened to work our in recent elections? I guess Reagan was the last real "landslide" winner.

ETA: The "No Toss Up States" map at RCP currently has Obama winning 272 to 266. Can't get much closer.
 
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Dragoonster said:
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.
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I just read that Governor Palin may be in the running as McCain's VP.

There is one potential running mate who has virtually no down side. Those conservatives who've heard of her were delighted to learn that McCain advance man Arthur Culvahouse was in Alaska recently, because they surmised he could only be there to discuss the vice presidential nomination with Gov. Sarah Palin.*
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I have to say, I think he could do a whole lot worse:

A fairly conservative, young, attractive, very popular (approval reportedly above 80%) female Republican.

* link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/the_vp_case_for_gov_sarah_pali.html

I agree with the article that if she'd accept, McCain would do well to announce early.
 
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Puppycow said:
Looks like another close election. Is it my imagination or is there some sort of law of large numbers at work that causes something like regression to the mean, ensuring a close election every time? Or is that just how it happened to work our in recent elections? I guess Reagan was the last real "landslide" winner.

ETA: The "No Toss Up States" map at RCP currently has Obama winning 272 to 266. Can't get much closer.
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There's been quite a bit of discussion about that out there, about how we wound up with a 50/50 nation. I think a large part of it is economical, a rapid expansion of the upper income class (classic GOP voters) and the working poor (classic Dem).

And demographically, if you add up the usual core groups from each side (Christians, white males etc on the right, various minority groups on the left and so on) you just wind up with an almost even split, with a swing vote in the middle that seems to make up no more than 10% of the population. So to a degree it's just random chance that we wound up this way.
 
One of the best election projection sites I've seen is at www.electionprojection.com. Guy doesn't hide the fact that he's a conservative, or that he loves Jesus, but I followed him during the 2004 race and he was consistently accurate - didn't let his biases get in the way of analysis. He follows the congressional and gubernatorial races also.
 
David Wong said:
There's been quite a bit of discussion about that out there, about how we wound up with a 50/50 nation. I think a large part of it is economical, a rapid expansion of the upper income class (classic GOP voters) and the working poor (classic Dem).

And demographically, if you add up the usual core groups from each side (Christians, white males etc on the right, various minority groups on the left and so on) you just wind up with an almost even split, with a swing vote in the middle that seems to make up no more than 10% of the population. So to a degree it's just random chance that we wound up this way.
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Not that unusual really. If all you need to win an election is fifty percent plus one, there isn’t really any need to get more people than that to go along with you, except as a cushion. The Rove strategy was pretty straightforward in this respect. Actively divide the population into two camps, and make sure the Republican camp was slightly larger. If you get a little more than half the country to go along with you, you can tell the rest to take a long walk off a short pier.

It makes a certain degree of sense in a winner-take-all political system, even though it leads to lousy government and divisive politics.
 
Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but if I'm John McCain, I have to be very worried at this point. After sitting with the nomination for how many months while the democratic candidates have been going after each other in a very ugly fashion, with many cries about how the Democratic party is massively split and has been seriously harmed, and yet at best he is in a tie at this point? Moreover, despite a split in the democratic party, Obama is raising massively more funds?

The only consolation he could come up with is that, because there hasn't been an opponent, he hasn't had anyone to attack. Of course, given that Obama and Clinton are close enough in their policies, the only difference in how to attack them would be personal.

If I'm Barack Obama, I have to be feeling really good about the chances right now. Now that the primary bickering is over, he can feel he's only going to get stronger in terms of the general election.
 
pgwenthold said:
Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but if I'm John McCain, I have to be very worried at this point. After sitting with the nomination for how many months while the democratic candidates have been going after each other in a very ugly fashion, with many cries about how the Democratic party is massively split and has been seriously harmed, and yet at best he is in a tie at this point? Moreover, despite a split in the democratic party, Obama is raising massively more funds?

The only consolation he could come up with is that, because there hasn't been an opponent, he hasn't had anyone to attack. Of course, given that Obama and Clinton are close enough in their policies, the only difference in how to attack them would be personal.

If I'm Barack Obama, I have to be feeling really good about the chances right now. Now that the primary bickering is over, he can feel he's only going to get stronger in terms of the general election.
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Well, they've also got identical favorability ratings:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/favorable.html

So all the talk that Obama was emerging "bruised and battered" from the primary doesn't seem to show there; you'd think the group refusing to give him a favorable rating contains a lot of bitter Hillary supporters, and he's still dead even.

Now, on the flip side, all this talk that McCain will get dragged down by an unpopular Bush seems also to be dispelled by that. Bush is at 28% or whatever, McCain doubles it. So apparently voters are NOT blaming McCain for whatever they see as Bush's failures.
 
shuize said:
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.
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Your memory fails you here. While his map often showed Kerry in the lead, it also showed Bush in the lead at times, and up to the election, it always showed a very tight race, which it ended up being.

But the originator of the site has admitted he leans left, and is very open about it and fair in his reporting. He has even recommended, as do I, that if you prefer a more right-slanted similar site, go to Election Projection.

Compare the two, and it's pretty obvious which one tries hardest to be accurate, even if it was barely off (by one state, really) in the 2004 final tally. At least I found this to be true in 2004...we'll see in the months ahead about this year.

ETA: I see Beeps got the EP link ahead of me...
 
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ronpaulisright said:
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
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Actually, it would be spineless of me to write in Ron Paul since I don't agree with his platform. Is that all right with you or must everyone agree with Ron Paul?
 
Lurker said:
Actually, it would be spineless of me to write in Ron Paul since I don't agree with his platform. Is that all right with you or must everyone agree with Ron Paul?
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You and I both know he's not old enough to vote.

Either way he's off topic, this is the McCain vs. Obama thread. Since Paul isn't running as far as we know (on an independent ticket or whatever) then any talk about him is off topic.
 
David Wong said:
You and I both know he's not old enough to vote.

Either way he's off topic, this is the McCain vs. Obama thread. Since Paul isn't running as far as we know (on an independent ticket or whatever) then any talk about him is off topic.
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But we can talk about Nader, right? :duck:
 
Couple of more articles:

The Wall Street Journal spells out the battleground, in an article that gets credit for being short and sweet.

This guy meanwhile points out that map watching is pointless if one candidate is up by 5, because statistically it's very unlikely that a candidate would win the popular vote that comfortably and still lose the electoral college.

I agree with him but I've yet to see a national poll that indicates it won't be that close, right now it's Obama up by 2 or 6 points depending on which poll you read over the weekend. And I believe those voters are entrenched, we've seen it for two straight elections.

We can talk all we want about a "third Bush term" or angry Hillary voters or competing tax and health care plans... but the truth is the majority of voters do NOT read the news, and the vast majority made up their minds a long time ago. In America we vote by demographics, not by ideas.
 
Excerpt from the second link:

"Of the bigger prizes, Obama eyes two red states, Ohio and Florida, and McCain has his sights on two blue ones, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Pennsylvania, with its progressive suburbs, leans to Obama and Florida still looks better for McCain. The other two are tossups.

Obama has changed the dynamics in medium-size and smaller states from four years ago. There are more than half a dozen 2004 red states -- Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Nevada, Missouri, even Indiana and Montana -- where Obama is competitive. There are very few -- New Hampshire and Wisconsin -- that McCain can turn from Democrat to Republican."
 
Now reports are that some on the Obama campaign think they win without Ohio or Florida by Taking Virginia or Georgia.
IMHO that is a very risky strategy. I really think that Georgia is particualry unlikely to go Democratic.
 
dudalb said:
Now reports are that some on the Obama campaign think they win without Ohio or Florida by Taking Virginia or Georgia.
IMHO that is a very risky strategy. I really think that Georgia is particualry unlikely to go Democratic.
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I agree. It would take some huge mistake by McCain to lose Georgia. I just don't see it happening. Virginia would be his best chance between the two.
 
geni said:
Hmm any turnout estimates?
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The primaries are about the only thing I know of to judge potential turnout at this point, and you won't get a good gauge regarding the Republicans since most were not contested. On the Democratic side, turnout was at record levels for most primaries. In SC where both primaries were still contested at the time, the Democrats outdrew Republicans in what has been considered by most to be a Republican State for some time.
 
Pookster said:
I agree. It would take some huge mistake by McCain to lose Georgia. I just don't see it happening. Virginia would be his best chance between the two.
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And even Virginia would not make up for losing Ohio and Florida.
Look, considering the history of the Dems in Ohio and Florida, I don't blame then for not looking forward to another close battle in those states, but I don't really see any real alternatives. Those are the battleground states, It is almost impossible to win without one of them, and the Dems frankly have no choice but to fight there.
 
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