The Election Within the Election

RSS Readers will have to follow the link to get a look at these maps

<p>&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;strong&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'&amp;amp;gt;Electoral College Prediction Map&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/strong&amp;amp;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.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</p> <p>&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;strong&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'&amp;amp;gt;Electoral College Prediction Map&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/strong&amp;amp;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.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</p> <p>&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;strong&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'&amp;amp;gt;Electoral College Prediction Map&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/strong&amp;amp;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.&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</p>

These maps show the states where John McCain and Barack Obama are within 6, 4, and 2 points of each other based on current pollster.com averages. As you can see, while the election is "close" in a number of states, it's only really close in for our five. Even if you spot Obama New Hampshire, if we assume the Montana results are a fluke of pre-Palin Polling, Nevada still isn't enough to get to 270. Thus, at the moment, Obama needs to win only one out of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Florida in order to win the election while holding Michigan. This makes him the overwhelming favorite; in order for the election to be truly 50-50, John McCain would need to have an 85% chance of winning each of those states individually, but polls currently show Obama slightly ahead in three of those four.

Obviously, things can change, but this is where we are today.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

I think the different maps are quite interesting. The last two are clearly the ones worth studying if the question is who will win, but the first one tells you what the prospects are for an electoral landslide.

For the prospects of winning, I think the best one is the second one, minus NC: sure, NC may be that close, but nobody thinks Obama will lose VA and OH, but win NC. And we're not about to lock up MT early, and hopefully we'll keep ND in play, which is another reason to favor the second map over the third.

[Matt Weiner]

How much of a bounce effect do you expect these to show? If we figured that the polls are overstating Obama's strength by, say, 2-4% because of his convention bounce, how would they look?

Though honestly I don't expect McCain to be able to play for any of the states that are blue on the last map, except for Montana, Michigan, and maybe Wisconsin. Looking at 538, maybe I shouldn't even say maybe Wisconsin.

[Matt Weiner]

Of course to some extent I can answer my question just by comparing the maps.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Realistically Michigan is the only blue state where McCain can play. They're going to try in Wisconsin, and perhaps Iowa, but I think Obama's lead there will hold.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

I think in the end the convention bounce will put us more or less where we were three weeks ago, with Obama ahead by 3-4 points.

[Eric Rauchway]

Hey, Nick, I've been led to believe your calculation of 85% is incorrect because it assumes that the probabilities of getting a win in each state is independent.