Targeting

<p>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'&gt;Electoral College Prediction Map&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.&lt;/p&gt;</p>

Much better. Barack Obama's first general election ad will not run in Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, or Washington, but will run in Alaska, Indiana, Montana, and North Dakota. Running ads in Iowa requires buying TV in Omaha, so Obama will reach NE-02 as an added bonus (a reminder: Nebraska awards its electoral votes by congressional district). Combined with Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, this brings the number of new states where Obama is trying to compete to seven (the Kerry campaign made a last-minute effort to contest Colorado).

As you can see, this election is being played almost entirely on Republican turf. With Pennsylvania and Wisconsin looking increasingly uncompetitive, and Obama's lead in Iowa looking solid, McCain has one and only one path to victory: hold all the other Bush states and win Michigan, where the economy is in the tank and McCain says the jobs aren't coming back.

I don't envy Rick Davis. He has a difficult job ahead of him.

Comments

[Matt Weiner]

With Pennsylvania and Wisconsin looking increasingly uncompetitive, and Obama's lead in Iowa looking solid, McCain has one and only one path to victory: hold all the other Bush states and win Michigan, where the economy is in the tank and McCain says the jobs aren't coming back.

Bush 2004 states minus Iowa is still an electoral college majority -- are you awarding Obama Virginia? Ohio? Even with Virginia and Iowa in the Obama column McCain could win without Michigan by flipping New Hampshire, although that doesn't seem too likely either.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

I was awarding him Colorado and New Mexico.

[low-tech cyclist]

And if Obama wins the Kerry states, plus IA, CO, and NM, minus NH, that's still 269, and Obama takes it in the House.

[Adrock]

My feeling is NH is going Dem this year. There are WAY more Obama posters on houses, and large ones, than McCain posters of which I can barely even recall a few. Of course, I do live in the more liberal "seacoast" region so maybe I'm my experience is not representative of the whole state.

[Joe]

Assuming a default background of the 2004 election and allocating likely flippers (IA, CO and NM to Obama), McCain's path to victory is fairly simple:

Win all three of FL, OH and MI. If he doesn't do that, than his best case is a 269-269 tie if he can pull out NH -- though I suspect that he won't win NH -- which Obama wins in the house.

If he does do that, it's still not over. He still has to win at least two of NC, GA and VA, AND one of MO and IN.

[richie1042]

This is where I see it in late June. I've worked every Presidential election since 1964 and will come out of retirement to work this one. I'm a New Deal labor Democrat.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Folks, this is where we were in 2006. We said "oh wow, Dems have some good Senate candidates, and maybe if we're lucky we'll pick up the 15 House seats, but I doubt many more and we sure won't sweep all six Senate seats".

[low-tech cyclist]

2006' greatest hit: Have You Had Enough?

[low-tech cyclist]

Let's try that coding again:
Have You Had Enough?