FiveThirtyEight.com's latest batch of simulations has Obama winning a 375+ EV landslide 33.6% of the time. The single most likely scenario (by a fairly large margin) has Obama winning all of the swing states resulting in 375 electoral votes*. That scenario accounts for only about 5% of the outcomes, which means that somewhere around 28% of the simulations have Obama winning states that are not currently considered swing states. Overall, they give Obama an 88.5% chance of winning with an average of 343.8 EVs. The simulations also predict a popular vote margin of 5%, down 2% from today's average of 7% in the national polls. Granted these are only simulations, but they are sure good looking numbers.
Obama also had his best day of the year in the statewide polls, with two polls showing double digit leads in PA, two in VA (though a third VA poll only shows a 2% lead), a 13 point lead NH, among several other good results. The only good result for McCain is his 1 point lead in Ohio. McCain's 7 point lead in GA looks great until you realize that just two weeks ago he had an 18 point lead in GA.
BTW, FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight. As always, great analysis from Nate.
* I think that this is the most likely scenario. FiveThirtyEight doesn't actually breakdown which scenario is which, they just have an Electoral Vote Distribution chart which lets you guess as to what the actual vote count for a given spike is. The biggest spike actually looks to be above 375 EVs, so the most likely scenario might actually have one or more non-swing states switching over to Obama.
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5 comments:
Don't you mean Pessimists SHOULD Read This? --You're trying to convince them, right? (or convince yourself?). I'm almost certain Obama will win, just as I was certain Al Gore won and certain that Kerry would win (and still suspect that he did). Actually, if voters are overconfident of an Obama win, his turnout could drop and endanger some swingy states, so I don't recommend talking the lead up too much (as a part-time partisan). There is only one poll. (…and unfortunately, it is often managed by Diebold using purged voter roles). These pre-poll polls are make-believe.
The chart has been favorable but stable for a few days, but as you say, the clock is running out, boosting probabilities of a win on 538, 270towin, Sam Wang, and the IEM. Those are encouraging, but I have just seen the October 7th E-V.c, which is a very nice upward bump for Obama. Funny thing is, when I see the map now and toggle between days, I can mentally see how your chart will look.
Thanks for the Nate Silver embed. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. I don't think he dumbs down to TV-level very well tho; probably better for me to just spend the time/bitstream reading his posts. At least he had more than 90 seconds.
typo in your header: it's Oct.7
Ick- Right, and he posted it last night, when it was Oct. 6.
??? Dates and times seem to display OK from here. I see the post at 9:44 PM Oct 6, comments at 4:11 AM Oct 7, 5:23 AM Oct 7 and 2:29 PM Oct 7. They are all displayed local blog time (Mountain?). Maybe you are in Hawaii or there is a bug or system incompatibility somewhere. Can't be a typo.
It's October 8 where I am but this post will display blog-local time. That's what I see anyway.
If you mean yesterday's mini-map, that has to be manually updated by poll junkie.
But…
Where's the new chart? Will check back in about 12 hours.
Blues:
You may be right about the title... I did mean pessimists shouldn't read it, though, since I get tired of rationalizing why I believe that Obama will win. While I do appreciate all viewpoints, I get tired of covering the same ground over and over again.
I do agree with you about not being overly optimistic, but at the same time, I fear that many people are UNDER-optimistic. But that point is too big to address here, so I'll be making a post to the blog explaining my viewpoint on this issue tonight or in the next few days.
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