Just about everyday in the media, I hear about some new poll that shows Obama with a 12 point lead, or that McCain has closed to within two points. The thing is, national polls don't make a bit of difference. As we all learned back in 2000, the election isn't decided by a national vote, but by the results of each statewide election and the Electoral College. Each state's Electoral votes are winner-take-all, so whether the margin of victory in a state is one vote or one-million, all of the states Electoral votes go to the winning candidate (With the exception of Maine and Nebraska whose Electoral votes are split based on the popular vote within each of their congressional districts). Electoral-Vote.com does a great job of tracking the daily statewide polls, and you can easily tell at a glance where the candidates Electoral vote count stands on any given day.
The problem with those numbers, though, is that sometimes they can be deceiving. Take August 21st, when the top-level number showed Obama 264, McCain 261. Looking at that Electoral vote count, you'd think that the race was pretty much a dead heat. And if it was the end of October, and the election was just a few days away, I'd agree with you. But this far before the election, the top-level number isn't really all that important. What really matters at this point is the strength of a candidates support. On Aug 21, McCain's "Barely" numbers (<5% lead) increased, but his stronger numbers had actually dropped off 14 points from where they were just nine days before. On that same day, Obama had 250 Electoral votes just from states where he had a lead of 5% or more. Clearly, McCain's position wasn't as strong as it first appeared to be. This chart is designed to help visualize that last crucial bit of information that makes all the difference.
This chart is updated manually. I'll try to update it each day, but life may get in the way. Expect updates each day around 11am Pacific if they're going to happen. The chart may be updated even if the rest of the site isn't, so don't take no new post to mean no new chart. Please feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments!
4 comments:
Great stuff, Mike. A hell of a lot of info on one screen.
Here's what I take away:
To win today, McCain would need to win all his strong states, medium states, and weak states, all the ties, plus all the weak Obama states.
Things have been shifting, yes, but...
Steve
http://trueconservative.typepad.com
Yup, excellent graphical representation of complex sets of data.
I would have rearranged it so that the sections go, from top to bottom, Strong McCain, Weak McCain, Barely McCain, Tied, Barely Obama, Weak Obama, Strong Obama; dividing up the full range of 538 EVs, with a lines through the middle at 269, 268, 270.
Ashley-y... Thanks for the suggestion... That was close to what I tried with my first draft of the chart. Unfortunately, putting the weaker states in the middle made a much more cluttered presentation, and tended to disguise the trends that I wanted the chart to show (Here's the draft). The reason I made the chart (originally for my own interest only and not intended for public consumption) was to show the core strength of the candidates over time, so placing the strongest states in the middle (the "base") and building outward from there makes the trends more obvious.
All that said, I like your idea of just showing the entire range of the 538 EVS,and having the center line shifting. It would show the same basic information, but often different views of the data can reveal different trends. I'll try to make such a chart and add it to the site over the next few days.
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