Electoral College: Michigan moves further toward Obama

Map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page.

I’ve switched the color of the swing states to gold to make them stand out more. Also note this analysis is strictly Obama vs Romney. If some other candidate takes the delegate lead on the Republican side, I’ll start an analysis for them too, but not before.

The big change today is that a new poll moves my five poll average for Michigan to a greater than 5% lead for Obama. This takes it out of my “Lean Obama” swing state category and into the “Weak Obama” category, meaning that Obama has a nice lead in the state, but not so large he can take it for granted.

In terms of the range of outcomes that seem possible (again, if the election were held today, which it won’t be, and a lot will happen before November), we consider as the extremes of what is likely all the swing states going one way or the other. This is a highly unlikely outcome in and of itself, but it serves to bound the range of possible outcomes. With Michigan slipping out of the swing state category, this means Romney’s best case scenario is now Romney 311 – Obama 227. To achieve this he would need to win all the states where he is currently ahead in polling, and also pull Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa and Nevada away from Obama.

The situation if everybody wins the states they are currently ahead in remains Obama 328 – Romney 210.

Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Lines represent how many more electoral votes a candidate has than is needed to tie under several different scenarios.