McCain's Must Win States

Nate did some number crunching that I've been hoping for for a long time today, and he tells us What A McCain Win Looks Like.... He shows the four most likely scenarios where McCain wins, and he gives us this useful bit of info:

"Also, there are some states that truly do appear to be "must-wins" for McCain. In each and every one of the 624 victory scenarios that the simulation found for him this afternoon, won Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana and Montana. He also picked up Ohio in 621 out of the 624 simulations, and North Carolina in 622 out of 624. If McCain drops any of those states, it's pretty much over."

I think that MT is less of a must-win, since it only has 3 EVs, but I agree with the others.

Here are the other states to watch in order of poll closing time (all times EST):

• IN: Most polls close at 6PM. Unless it's a blowout, we won't know the result until later.
• VA: Polls close at 7PM. Could be called soon after the polls close.
• FL: Most polls close at 7PM, but likely won't be called until later.
• GA: Polls close at 7PM, but likely won't be called until later.
• NC: Most polls close at 7:30PM, but likely won't be called until later
• OH: Polls close at 7:30PM, but likely won't be called until later
• PA: Polls close at 8PM. Most likely will be called fairly quickly.
• MO: Polls close at 8PM, but likely won't be called until later.

PA and VA are probably the two that will be called first. If those two go to Obama, McCain has virtually no realistic path to the White House. Obama has solid leads in both of these states, and he's polling above 50% in both of them. If there is a blowout in any of the others we may know sooner, otherwise we'll know when those two are called.

UPDATE: Added Ohio, which I had forgotten. My estimates of when the reports will come in is solely based on polling margins. The bigger the margin, the sooner we should have a solid idea of who the victor is. Poll closing times courtesy of the Green Papers.