Have you taken a gander at pollster.com’s constantly-updated electoral map lately? A couple of very interesting developments.
- Ohio (20 EV), which has oscillated between leans red, tossup, and leans blue, is back to leans blue.
- Virginia (13 EV) has gone from leans blue to strong blue, an extraordinary development in a state that has not backed a Democrat for president since LBJ.
- Georgia (15 EV) is now a tossup. I’m not sure I really believe that, since it appears to be the result of one recent poll that gave Obama a 1-point lead. Still, it’s remarkable progress.
- Not only does North Dakota (3 EV) remain a tossup, but even South Dakota (3 EV) has been reclassified from “strong red” to “lean red.” With NV still a tossup (though Obama is slightly ahead), and CO and NM looking good for Obama, the west continues to trend blue.
- Late Sunday Update: In a potentially huge embarrassment for Team McCain, the two most recent polls in McCain’s home state of Arizona — which has been “strong red” on every map I’ve seen so far — are close enough (R+4 and R+2) to reclassify AZ as “lean red.” Both polls show McCain at only 44%.
Under the map at the moment, even if McCain were to win every single tossup state (NC, GA, FL, IN, MO, ND, MT, and NV, for 90 EVs) as well as holding all the solid red and leans red states, that only gets him to 232. He still needs to peel off 38 EVs from lean blue and solid blue states to hit 270. What is the likely path? Assume Ohio goes to McCain. That’s 20 — 18 to go. PA? I don’t think so, and neither does anyone else. VA? Increasingly unlikely, but even if McCain somehow takes VA, he’s still got to get CO, NM, or NH (which would create a tie) to get in the game.
If you were advising the McCain campaign going into the final ten days, what would you tell them? Is David Frum right — dump the presidential race and focus all available resources on the Senate?
It would take the wind out of the GOP sails and they would stay home in massive numbers. Love of Palin and hatred of “that one” are what’s driving the GOP GOTV these days.
it’s driving the base, for sure, but it’s making pretty much everyone else go blue. Coattails, in that situation, would be very bad for the Republicans. So, it may help in some of the deep red states, but it could hurt everywhere else. They’re better off targeting their resources to their senate races, solely because spending all of their remaining millions on chambliss, collins, dole, etc. may be able to keep the dems from getting 60. The Chambliss race in particular… (because collins will win safely and dole should lose, barring shockers). I’d add Stevens to the list, but not only could he be facing sentencing in a few days, but Alaska’s voters just found out that the Senator streamlined a $2.7 million dollar road for his friend’s restaurant… Stevens is so going down, be it from the law or voters…
I’m not sure how McCain’s diminishing chances have much of an effect on how indy’s vote in the down-ticket races. Whereas, it seems to me, massive R discouragement about McCain would have enormous consequences in these races.
Nouriel Roubini: I fear the worst is yet to come
When this man predicted a global financial crisis more than a year ago, people laughed. Not any more…Dominic Rushe
As stock markets headed off a cliff again last week, closely followed by currencies, and as meltdown threatened entire countries such as Hungary and Iceland, one voice was in demand above all others to steer us through the gloom: that of Dr Doom.
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p>For years Dr Doom toiled in relative obscurity as a New York University economics professor under his alias, Nouriel Roubini. But after making a series of uncannily accurate predictions about the global meltdown, Roubini has become the prophet of his age, jetting around the world dispensing his advice and latest prognostications to politicians and businessmen desperate to know what happens next – and for any answer to the crisis.
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p>While the economic sun was shining, most other economists scoffed at Roubini and his predictions of imminent disaster. They dismissed his warnings that the sub-prime mortgage disaster would trigger a financial meltdown. They could not quite believe his view that the US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would collapse, and that the investment banks would be crushed as the world headed for a long recession.
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p>Yet all these predictions and more came true. Few are laughing now.
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p>http://business.timesonline.co…
From McCain, to Lancaster, NH, with love…
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p>h/t Pam
you don’t want to depress the GOTV, do you???
by letting obama people know that their efforts have a real and now much bigger chance of success in new hampshire. no one thinks n.h. is a slam dunk, but now it looks like every obama gotv contact will count for double since it won’t be negated by a mccain contact. i think of this as mccain supplying the obama gotv volunteers with a matching grant. đŸ˜€
Obama or Biden should hold a rally in AZ if they swing out West again before the election.
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p>It would be a really well-deserved FU to McCain, who has run probably the most dishonorable general-election presidential campaign in history. And honestly, I think Obama has as much or more of a chance winning AZ as McCain does winning PA.
the calculation is that it might look too in-your-face.
To be fair, this is asserted by liberals/Democrats every four years like clockwork. After awhile, who cares if liberals are offended by the failure of non-liberal candidates to run a campaign that would be supported by liberals.
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p>Seems to me that they ran a character campaign as they did in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. Like 1996, the conditions aren’t suited to this type of campaign, and they’re going to lose.
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p>The best FU to McCain will come in January, and all others are pointless.
sure, it’s as much a part of the 50 state strategy as any other state, but…
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p>it’s demographics favor the GOP when compared to NM, CO, and NV. 44% of AZians self-identify as GOP, and Arizona is whiter and older than those other three. It’s a bigger prize, but that also means it takes that many more resources to flip the state.
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p>Sure, I want Arizona in play and, to my knowledge, Obama doesn’t have a GOTV operation there like he does in CO, NV, and NM. Perhaps all of this is laying the groundwork for McCain to lose that senate seat in 2010 to a Democrat… which would give Dems:
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p>1/2 NV
0/2 UT
2/2 CO
1/2 AZ
2/2 NM
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p>whereas today its
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p>1/2 NV
0/2 UT
1/2 CO
0/2 AZ
1/2 NM
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p>The House is 4/8 but it will finish 2008 either 5/8 or 6/8 in favor of Dems.
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p>Arizona is on the radar, but it only goes POTUS in 2008 if McCain absolutely implodes in a way never before seen. The real prospecting for gold happens in 2010.
John Shadegg could use some help in his fight against Bob Lord. I will say, though, that if Arizona goes for Obama, Obama will be the number two winner of such an eventuality. Winner number one? Janet Napolitano.
Although I’m guessing McCain retires after this term. So I think his seat will be hers if she wants it.
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p> – Dan
I don’t profess to see deep into the man’s psyche, but I think if the Dems made a last-minute effort in AZ it would really set off McCain. Make him seem more erratic and desperate.
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p>Also, to open up one more Red state as a battleground would further demoralize the Republicans.
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p>I’m sure there’s a lot of excited Dems in AZ that would love to see their candidate– it doesn’t need to be played out as Machiavellian or spiteful.
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p>Here’s hoping the innoculation during the primaries still holds up and the people look to the real issues in these final days.
Okay, we’re close enough to the election now that “who would you vote for if the election were held today?” poll numbers are becoming predictive. However, the color codes on most of the sites are based on a misreading of polls, and are misleading.
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p>They pretend that undecided voters mirror the rest of the sample, so that if you have one candidate leading, say, 48-42 we can assume that means the 10% of undecided probably won’t change that. False. Undecided voters are systematically different than decided voters, and what we know about voters who stated a preference does not help us predict who the undecided voters will pick.
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p>Because of that, one very significant aspect of these poll numbers is whether a candidate is stable at 50% or above, because then they’re actually knowably “ahead”. For example, consider hypothetical states A and B, and series of polls on three dates:
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p>A: 51% Obama / 47% McCain on date1, 50/48 on date2, 52/47 on date3
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p>B: 49% Obama / 40% McCain on date1, 50/41 on date2, 48/39 on date3
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p>State A may appear “closer”, but it is actually the state where Obama is knowably ahead, while state B, where he has a seemingly wide lead, is actually much less safe. Sure, he might win it by a wider margin than A, but there’s also a much much higher chance of him losing state B than state A.
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p>With that in mind, consider Arizona: McCain has been pretty stable around 50+, with a few small dips below it. Obama has never been to 50, ever. Until a poll shows Obama at 50+ and two polls in a row show McCain below 50, we should assume that McCain remains safely ahead in AZ no matter how “close” it looks.
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p>50% really matters, much more than the margin, and these color coded maps leave that out.
and look at the trend lines. They probably give a good indication of where each state will end up. Your point about 50% is a good one, although there is probably about 2% reserved for other candidates
What we learned in the past two elections is that the closer a state is perceived as being, the fewer people vote for even the most well-known third party candidates. I doubt other candidates will get 2% in states that people think are important and very close.
And it also will fall in the footsteps of Clinton with a plurality of 49%—speaks volumes. It indicates that within 90 days—-51% of America is going to be really pissed off and pissed on. Should be just another Clinton 2nd term. So what else is new?