For various reasons, some of them detailed in my recent article Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch, I think that the pollsters and the pundits and the increasingly sold-out media have missed some of the key trends in this presidential campaign. They've concluded that it's a lock for Obama and are acting like he's already won.
It's all about the electoral vote breakdown. NBC has Obama leading 286 to McCain's 157 with 95 toss-up votes. CNN has Obama leading 291 to 157 for McCain with 90 electors up for grabs. The normally very solid RealClearPolitics has the electoral race at 278 for Obama to 132 for McCain with a big 128 electors undetermined. That shows a substantial shift away from Obama and towards undecided from their numbers yesterday.
My take on this is simple. I think that somewhere between 3% and 6% of voters who may claim to support Obama when they are polled will change their mind and vote for McCain in the privacy of the voting booth. I think this is a small factor in the northeast, slightly larger in the mid-Atlantic and west, and most significant in the south and among working class voters in the midwest. I think enough voters in these areas fear change and are attracted to McCain's populist, anti-socialist message that last minute doubt will sway their vote.
The map below shows how I think the electoral vote will break down.
I have McCain at 250 electors, Obama at 228 and 60 undecided. For McCain to get to 270 electors and win he needs to take either Pennsylvania or Ohio or the western combo of New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada which would produce a tie. For that to turn into a win he'd also need to pick up one of the electoral districts in Maine or Nebraska, which is a possibility. For Obama to win he would need to pick up either Ohio and Pennsylvania plus one of the western states. If I were to project a final result I'd say McCain gets Pennsylvania, Nevada and the upstate Maine elector, for a total of 277.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
If you read the transcript of what Obama said to the Chronicle, he wasn't actually pledging to destroy the coal industry. He was talking about coal-fired power plants that haven't even been built yet.
Newsbusters seems so intent on exposing liberal media bias that they're introducing a rather precarious lean of their own.
2 - Lee Richards
Karl Rove has it Obama 338-200, with PA +10% for Obama.
3 - zingzing
you know, the irony of this article is that dave's last article was saying that liberals were proclaiming victory... and here we are with two articles saying mccain's gonna win and not one article (at least not of this sort, or so directly) predicting an obama victory.
4 - Lee Richards
More predictions:
George Will picks Obama 378-160;
Ed Rollins says Obama 353-185;
Morton Kondracke has Obama 379-159.
The list could go on and on and on.
5 - Dave Nalle
Zing, the left is just slower off the mark - speaking of which, Mark Schannon has just finished his article predicting an Obama win.
Dave
6 - zingzing
we aren't slower off the mark... oh the pun... we've actually got the polls on our side, so what are we going to say? everyone--everyone--is predicting an obama victory. just go look at any reasonable poll. it's got obama well ahead. and it's been that way since, oh, i dunno... july? earlier?
i'm confidant that obama will win this. the numbers--which is what mark's article is about--also say that it's his to lose. something extraordinary will have to happen for him to lose it. i'm not saying that's out of the question... but to see mccain taking every toss-up state is quite ridiculous. then again, there's 2004... and 2000...
7 - zingzing
confident...
8 - Jonathan Scanlan
Lets just be honest... no one knows who'll win... it is is just as likely that the media have covered the story for so long that they can't step back and reappraise.
But that said, a person would have to be a pretty firm supporter to stick it out through those long lines. At the very least they'll have to spend the time in line deciding, and in all liklihood they'll end up talking to supporters of one candidate or another.
Heck, I bet the campaigns could get away with providing election booklets in place of flyers.
9 - Cindy D
ROFLOL! Dave you are freaking KILLING me here!!!!!
That is your electoral map???
HAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
10 - Cindy D
My husband is asking me what is wrong. He hasn't heard me laugh this hard since Dr.D gave his interpretation of the McCain hugging Bush book cover which made me laugh out loud really! all day long, (once when I was alone I got a look from a neighbor) and my poor husband repeatedly asking what is so funny, I had to keep saying "same thing".
Dave! Your map is nearly that funny!
11 - Chris "UZ" White
...Are you serious? You made Colorado Blue and every other state Red? That right there tipped me off that there is a problem here.
12 - zingzing
have you really got maryland going your way? what kind of research did that take? last i saw, maryland was +20% or so for obama.
13 - Dave Nalle
Chris, every poll shows Colorado as a toss-up or Obama leaning, so I wouldn't say my choice to put it as a toss-up (not blue) is that surprising.
Zing, I counted Maryland as part of the Obama total, but apparently I made it the wrong color. I'll see if I can fix it.
Dave
14 - zingzing
dammit.
15 - zingzing
still, you're really putting your load on pennsylvania there. florida is running (as usual) totally fucked up right now. and north carolina and vagina, as we north carolinians are apt to call it, fucking little teenagers that we are, are not in the pocket yet. one little thing goes wrong for mccain and it's all obama all over your mama. yeah, i made that up. it sucks. i know. get used to it. he's gonna fuck the shit out of all your republican mothers. a good old raping! uh! get used to it! delete that. it's awful, i know. but, it is election day in the middle of the atlantic somewhere. so, it is useful to know. that we will rape your asses. have you noticed my good mood today?
16 - Dave Nalle
Oops, looks like tiny little Rhode Island was the wrong color too. Fixed now.
Dave
17 - Jet
Dave, in the spirit of giving you equal time, and before you get too excited, you might want to look at this... Click Here
...and revise your cute little map there
18 - Jet
Instead of running your cursor over a state, actually click on it for detailed poll results.
19 - Jet
Okay, here's what the latest CNN poll of polls shows.. I'll leave you guys to do the math...
Alabama-McCain
Alaska-McCain
Arizona-McCain
Arkansas-McCain
California-Obama
Colorado-Obama
Connecticut-Obama
Delaware-Obama
D.C.-Obama
Florida-Obama
Georgia-McCain
Hawaii-Obama
Idaho-McCain
Illinois-Obama
Indiana-Tied
Iowa-Obama
Kansas-McCain
Kentucky-McCain
Louisiana-McCain
Maine-Obama
Maryland-Obama
Massachusetts-Obama
Michigan-Obama
Minnesota-Obama
Mississippi-McCain
Missouri-Tied
Montana-McCain
Nebraska-McCain takes all 5
Nevada-Obama
New Hampshire-Obama
New Jersey-Obama
New Mexico-Obama
New York-Obama
North Carolina-McCain
North Dakota-Obama
Ohio-McCain (unfortunately)
Oklahoma-McCain
Oregon-Obama
Pennsylvania-Obama
Rhode Island-Obama
South Carolina-McCain
South Dakota-McCain
Tennessee-McCain
Texas-McCain
Utah-McCain
Vermont-Obama
Virginia-Obama
Washington-Obama
West Virginia-Obama
Wisconsin-Obama
Wyoming-McCain
20 - Dave Nalle
Jet, my map isn't based on CNN's polls. It's based on the aggregate of polls at realclearpolitics.org adjusted for what I perceive as the conceptual errors in the polling.
Repeating CNN's projections which are based on those same faulty assumptions and suspect weighting doesn't address the basic problems.
Dave
21 - Arch Conservative
Jet did the CNN poll really say that it was unfortunate that McCain is leading in Florida?
22 - Arch Conservative
I meant Ohio. sorry.
23 - Jet
I can't believe you couldn't figure out that that was an editorial comment. I put it in parenth-parentzse-uh pre-uh those curvey things.
24 - Maurice
We all have our morning rituals. I like to look at the Yahoo pictures and get an idea of what they consider the news. This morning it is loaded with pictures of Obama. No pictures of McCain. Not sure if that is their way of promoting Obama or if they just think McCain is going to lose so why put up pictures of him.
Certainly the media has made colossal blunders.
25 - bliffle
This is an interesting comment:
"...Obama promising to destroy the coal industry makes it into the major media outlets in..."
I'm not in favor of destroying the coal industry, but it's influence must be constrained. Coal supplies about half of our electric power and a disproportionate share of our CO2 emissions.
Big Coal has achieved this through political influence, not merit. Mostly from small states which have disproportionate influence because they have 2 senators, just like a big state. Wyoming, for example.
Coal picks up research projects with the promise of 'clean coal' , but there is no such thing. All coal is dirty. The best they can do is capture the emitted CO2 (by employing an expensive oxygen-enriched burn environment) and then piping the CO2 to a remote location, pumping it a mile or two underground to a (hopefully) stable substrate.
It better be stable, because if it leaks to the surface then mammals (like us) can die of asphixiation. that's why they haven't been able to get site permits for pilot plants.
There are no operating pilot plants for 'clean coal'.
Coal will remain dirty.
The emissions from coal threaten to kill us all.
All the USA electrical requirements could be supplied from a single large Solar plant in the Nevada desert, estimated to be 25 to 90 miles on a side (by various calculations). No emissions.