| If the election were held today and... | Obama | McCain |
| ...all McCain <5% went to Obama | 383 | 155 |
| ...all Obama <5% went to McCain | 282 | 256 |
| Shift since yesterday: | +3 | -0 |
| Shift this week: | +8 | -18 |
Today's Numbers: | Yesterday's Numbers: |
The chart at the left shows the distribution of electoral votes based on statewide polls. The colors represent the gap in the poll. The darker the color, the larger the gap. 50% +1 or 270 Electoral votes are needed to win, out of a possible 538.
This site is really designed to be used along with Electoral-Vote.com. I provide one useful way to interpret the data, but without the information that is provided at that site, you won't get as much use from this chart.
For a complete explanation of the methodology used, see the Electoral-Vote.com polling FAQ. The raw data used to generate the chart is also available there. Please note that other than using the data that they make available, this site is not affiliated with Electoral-vote.com
5 comments:
Part 1 of the X factor: 900 point rise in the DOW.
Man... You are really a pessimist, aren't you? The Dow going up is a good thing for the nation, but it's really probably a wash for the election. Americans have notoriously short memories, but it's not like the Dow going up means that the crisis is over. Things will stay very scary for many months. Even the dimmest bulb will be able to see that. Besides, the farther down the Dow fell, the more chance that the Republicans would turn around and argue that Obama shouldn't have voted for the bailout bill. Never mind that McCain voted for it too... That didn't stop them from running such ads when it first passed, so why should it stop them now?
Palin's script for tomorrow: "John McCain suspended his campaign, went back to Washington, and led the fight for this bill which has boosted the Dow 900 points!" etc "and saved your 401K!" etc. "Obama and the Democratic Congress created this crisis when they…" blah blah
Just because it's a lie doesn't mean they wouldn't say it -- or that it wouldn't work.
I think the earlier reporter established that the swing voter has an average IQ of 80.
;-)
But, FWIW, I don't think that would be enough to upset Obama's lead, either.
I just don't see more lies as working-- especially if they throw in the bit about "suspending the campaign"! They've been lying for weeks now about Obama's ties to William Ayres. If Obama really was consorting with terrorists in any meaningful fashion, that would be a very damning charge that probably should disqualify him for the presidency. But of course the allegations bear virtually no resemblance to reality, and amazingly, it seems like even the swing voters aren't buying the line. McCain is no longer considered a "Straight Talker" and Palin's reputation was destroyed about three minutes after she was announced. At this point, more lies from McCain might increase the turnout from the Republican base, but I just don't see anything negative having any substantial effect on his numbers (at least in a good way).
I really don't see any way that McCain can close these numbers at this point without a major turnaround in his campaign. Perhaps not quite as substantial as I proposed in my interesting theory, but it would almost certainly require real, substantial policy announcements along with a complete change in campaign tactics. And even if he makes these changes, he would have to make up ground unlike virtually any previous race. Keep in mind that even Reagan's famous comeback didn't happen in a vacuum. Without the Iran hostage situation working against him, Carter almost certainly would have won the election. In this case, the tables are turned and it is the incumbent party that will bear the brunt of the responsibility for any world events between now and election day (yet another factor that works in Obama's favor).
And of course remember that if McCain makes the change that he almost certainly has to it will make him look even more erratic. He's truly damed if he does and damned if he doesn't. In the longer term, I think that such a change would be the best thing for him, but with only three weeks left before the election, I'm not sure that "longer" is short enough. All things considered, I just don't see any way that McCain can make the necessary changes to come back and win. His campaign has just been too badly run for too long for people to suddenly believe that he will be the better president.
Just came across this interesting tidbit on the ARG website:
"Because of McCain's electoral inefficiency, even if McCain were to proportionately increase his national ballot share to 49% for a tie, Obama would still lead with 316 electoral votes. Obama is running a race in the Electoral College while McCain is running a national race."
ARG doesn't support direct links to the posts, but the comment is the third paragraph of the entry "October 7, 2008 - National General Election Ballot".
ARG is not the most reliable pollster, but that bit of analysis seems pretty accurate to me. As shown in the chart, McCain's support is highly concentrated in relatively few states. Just increasing his numbers won't be enough, he has to change where those numbers are coming from. With 21 days left before Election Day, that will be hard to do.
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