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This is the 01:00 Update. South Carolina Called for McCain. This was a Strong McCain state, so the summary does not change: Summary: McCain SuperBest: McCain 291, Obama 247 Current “everybody gets their leans”: Obama 349, McCain 189 Obama Best Case: Obama 406, McCain 132
Kentucky called for McCain, Vermont for Obama. Both were strong states, so no surprises and this does not change the summary at all: Summary: McCain SuperBest: McCain 291, Obama 247 Current “everybody gets their leans”: Obama 349, McCain 189 Obama Best Case: Obama 406, McCain 132
YouGov looks like they have done polls in all 50 states plus DC. I’ve processed them up through Tennessee in alphabetical order. So far only one category change. New Mexico (5 ev): Obama’s lead in the five poll average goes over 10% for the very first time. As such the state moves from “Weak Obama” to “Strong Obama”. This will reduce McCain’s “SuperBest” scenario. New Summary: McCain SuperBest: McCain 291, Obama 247 Current “everybody gets their leans”: Obama 349, McCain 189 Obama Best Case: Obama 406, McCain 132
I actually took a few hours to sleep, so I’m a couple hours late posting these changes, but with some new Zogby polls, we have two states changing status: Pennsylvania (21 ev): Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania once again hits 10%. McCain’s managed to pull Obama’s lead down from 14.1% to 5.4%… but then it stalled and Obama’s lead started growing again. As of now with the new Zogby poll added to the five poll average, Obama’s lead is exactly at the 10.0% mark, but that is enough for the state to move back into “Strong Obama” territory. Virginia (13 ev): McCain had also reduced Obama’s lead in Virginia, making it poke below the 5% line. But with the new Zogby poll, it pushes again above 5%, making the state move back to “Weak Obama”. Virginia is once again NOT a swing state, and is not included in McCain’s best case scenario. It is still however included in the “SuperBest” scenario I added for election day. New Summary: McCain SuperBest: McCain 296, Obama 242 Current “everybody gets their leans”: Obama 349, McCain 189 Obama Best Case: Obama 406, McCain 132
Another change from a new poll, this time from me reviewing each of pollster.com’s state charts one by one, which I usually do daily, but I’m doing every 6 hours today. I’m not sure about this one though, as I’ve found no other reference to this poll yet, and it looks like an extreme outlier, but would fit in EXACTLY with the trend if you reversed Obama and McCain’s numbers. So I suspect this may actually be a typo on Pollster which will be corrected later. If so, I will undo this change if/when I see evidence of the other result. But in case this is real, it causes Obama’s lead in Michigan to dip under 10%, moving the state from Strong Obama to Weak Obama. New Summary: McCain SuperBest: McCain 317, Obama 221 Current “everybody gets their leans”: Obama 349, McCain 189 Obama Best Case: Obama 406, McCain 132
I have logged 15 polls since my last daily update but I just logged the first one that moved any state to a new category. A new Rasmussen poll moves the five poll average in Missouri (11 ev) back to the Obama side of the fence. The same caveat as usual, either way the state is too close to call. We’ll see when the actual results start coming in. But for now, a new status update. In order to show any sort of McCain win scenario, I’ve added a “SuperBest” scenario, where a candidate gets not only all of their strong and weak states, and all of the swing states, but also all of their opponent’s weak states. McCain can still win if he manages that. :-) Summary: McCain SuperBest: McCain 300, Obama 238 Current “everybody gets their leans”: Obama 349, McCain 189 Obama Best Case: Obama 406, McCain 132 (Note: For election day only, I’m logging polls as soon as I find them anywhere, even if they have not yet been logged at pollster.com.)
This is the last regularly scheduled daily update, so I am including the map even though it has not changed today. Starting in just over 2 hours, at 00:00 UTC, I’ll start doing updates as soon as I get them if there are any remaining last minute polls, and starting in just over 24 hours when we start getting actual results I will make changes reflecting those results. I’ll be “calling” states based on when CNN calls them. But for today, there is only one change. North Carolina (15 ev): Since the end of September, Obama’s lead in North Carolina in my five poll average has ranged from 0% to 3.5%. It has always been very close though. Today, for the first time in a month, the five poll average moves to the McCain side of the fence. So the state moves from “Lean Obama” to “Lean McCain”. As usual, I will caution that the true condition of North Carolina (and all of the swing states) is “too close to call”, and being slightly on one side of the line vs slightly on the other side of the line, is not really a significant difference in where the state is. New summary: McCain Best Case – Obama 278, McCain 260 If everybody gets their leans – 338 Obama, 200 McCain So, once again, and for the last time before election day… if John McCain gets all of the states he is ahead in, plus all of Obama’s lean states… he still loses. However, it must be said that it certainly does appear to be the case that McCain has had some momentum over the last week or so. He has pulled several “Lean” states from Obama’s side to his side. As we keep saying, they are still all too close to call, but it does make the task of McCain winning “all the swing states” seem a bit easier. He now only had to pull three more states from Obama’s side (Florida, Ohio and Virginia) to accomplish that goal. Of course, that still would not be enough. Which is where McCain’s Pennsylvania gambit comes in. As of today in the last five poll average, Obama is ahead by 8.8%. If there is more tightening there than the polls are showing, because of a Bradley effect or anything else, and McCain can somehow pull out a win in Pennsylvania, after already sweeping all of the swing states, then he could pull it off. His other paths involve a combination of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, but those seem less likely. There is still not a path for victory for McCain in these numbers. If I had to make a guess based on the polling pattern of the past two weeks rather than just trusting my numbers completely and going for the “everybody gets their leans” results, I would say that the final result will be closer to McCain’s best case than Obama’s best case. On the other hand, the reports of super high early voting turnout which is leaning democratic, plus the massive Democratic Get Out the Vote effort this year, and the “enthusiasm gap”, and some last minute one off polls showing Alaska and Louisiana close… which are probably outliers… but… all of those things would lead me to guess something closer to Obama’s best case. And well, since there are conflicting reasons to go one way or another, I’ll stick with the numbers. If I had to make a prediction, I’d use the “everybody gets their leans” numbers. Obama 338, McCain 200. But I don’t really want to be nailed down that way either. So as a final prediction, I’ll just say that I’m pretty confident that the final result will be somewhere between the “Obama Best Case” and “McCain Best Case” I have outlined above. Which means an Obama win. We shall see if I am right. Election day coverage on abulsme.com starts shortly.
Two states change status today, both in McCain’s favor: Ohio (20 ev): After maxing out at an 8.2% Obama lead a week ago, Obama’s lead in Ohio falls below 5%, making it a swing state again, and putting it once again within reach for John McCain. Virginia (13 ev): With a pattern very similar to Ohio, Obama maxed out with an 8.0% lead a week ago, but his lead in the five poll average drops below 5% today, making Virginia once again a swing state. New summary: McCain Best Case – Obama 278, McCain 260 If everybody gets their leans – 353 Obama, 185 McCain Now, the bottom line remains the same as it has for quite some time. McCain can win all of his strong and weak states, plus all of the swing states, and he would still lose. However, it is important to note that his loss in that case is narrower than it has been in a couple of weeks, plus since then he’s taken the lead in a couple of states, and Obama’s had a couple of swing states weaken… most notably Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania is at a 6.4% Obama lead now. Way down from Obama’s 12.0% peak. So, once again gaming out what McCain would have to do to win given where things are now… First he must win in ALL of the states he is ahead in. Then he has to win ALL of the swing states Obama is ahead in (but barely): Florida (Obama ahead by 2.8%), Ohio (Obama ahead by 3.8%), North Carolina (Obama ahead by 0.4%) and Virginia (Obama ahead by 4.8%). And then he must find 10 electoral votes by winning some combination of Pennsylvania (Obama ahead by 6.4%, 21 electoral votes), Colorado (Obama ahead by 7.2%, 9 electoral votes), Nevada (Obama ahead by 6.0%, 5 electoral votes) and New Mexico (Obama ahead by 8.3%, 5 electoral votes). If McCain manages to pull that off by winning Pennsylvania, his move over the past few weeks into Pennsylvania will be hailed as genius just because he won. It won’t be true of course, there were better places he could have put his resources several weeks ago that he might have been able to move instead. But that will be forgotten if he actually manages it. Right now in my charts, there is no McCain path to victory because he would not only have to win swing states, but take states where Obama is ahead by more than 5%. But if he manages to tighten Pennsylvania just a little bit more, there will be such a path, although still a very difficult one. He has just over 50 hours before the first polls close on election day. (Although, as noted in yesterday’s update the polls lag slightly, so if anything big changes in those 50 hours, the polls will probably be blind to it.) There will be one more regularly scheduled update tomorrow, then starting at 00:00 UTC on election day, I will switch to updates whenever there are new polls… or actual election results as they get called. I will try to be as close to real time as I can manage.
In today’s update we have 41 new polls in 21 different states, but only two states change status. (Plus, I have a correction on the status of one additional state, see the end of the post.) The two changes: Missouri (11 ev): After being “Lean Obama” for most of October, McCain takes the lead in the last five poll average in the state of Missouri, moving the state back to “Lean McCain”. I do note that the largest lead Obama ever had in the state was 3.5%, and now McCain’s lead is 0.4%. Both “Lean” categories are considered “Swing States” for a reason. The polls are close enough that random poll variation could easily push a candidate from one side to another, or any random event that gains traction could move the state from one category to another at any moment. So these states should be considered too close to call, regardless of which side of the line they are on. Arizona (10 ev): Arizona became a swing state a few days ago, then McCain had a couple of good polls and the state moved back to “Weak McCain”. Today, with some additional polls showing a close race again, as of today McCain’s lead is once again under 5%, and the state is once again “Lean McCain”. It is once again a swing state, and it is once again too close to call. New summary: McCain Best Case – Obama 311, McCain 227 If everybody gets their leans – 353 Obama, 185 McCain This is getting repetitive to say with every update, but where we are right now is STILL that McCain can win every single state that is close, and he would still lose. To win right now, he needs to win all of his strong and weak states, plus ALL of the swing states, plus some combination of Pennsylvania (21 ev), Ohio (20 ev), Virginia (13 ev), Colorado (9 ev), Nevada (5 ev) and New Mexico (5 ev) that adds up to 43 or more electoral votes. Obama has leads greater than 5% in all of those states at the moment. Another note is probably relevant right now. If a game changing event happened in this race at this point, something that would cause people currently for Obama to change their minds in droves and switch to McCain, it is almost certainly too late to see the results of those changes in the polls before the actual election on Tuesday. When we start including the last pre-election polls into the mix on Monday, they will be reflecting the state of the race as of this weekend at the latest. If something big happens today, Sunday or Monday, the polls will be basically blind as to how that changes people’s minds (or not). OK, finally, a correction…. on my October 29th Update I stated that Mississippi moved from Strong McCain to Weak McCain as McCain’s lead dropped below 10%. This was actually the result of a math error. (For those who care, I was accidentally looking at a four poll average instead of a five poll average.) McCain’s lead had been reduced by the new poll, but it hadn’t quite dipped below 10%. At the time of the update I did on the 29th, the lead should have been 11%. Today it is down to 10.4%. But it has not actually dropped below 10%. So Mississippi is still “Strong McCain” and should have been between the 29th and today as well. I have corrected the chart in this post and the main Electoral College Prediction page. Graphs in older posts remain uncorrected. Because this was a Strong/Weak difference, the summary totals were not affected. I apologize for the error.
Two states change categories today. Indiana (11 ev): After two days in Obama’s column, the five poll average for Indiana once again falls on the McCain side of the line. As usual, I should point out that the difference between “Lean Obama” and “Lean McCain” is slight. States in either category should really be considered too close to call, which is why in our summaries we show the whole range of possibilities with those states going either way. Wisconsin (10 ev): After a single day as a “Weak Obama” state the five poll average once again indicates an Obama lead more than 10%, so the state moves back to “Strong Obama”. New summary: McCain Best Case – Obama 311, McCain 227 If everybody gets their leans – 364 Obama, 174 McCain Without Indiana, Obama’s “everybody gets their leans” count is no longer a 375 electoral vote landslide. However, just as every day since October 3rd, McCain’s best case (winning all swing states) is still to lose. To change that and make the McCain best case actually a McCain win, he needs to reduce Obama’s lead to less than 5% in enough states to get 43 more electoral votes in the swing state group. The current “Weak Obama” states that McCain could be targeting look like this right now:
If McCain can get 43 of those electoral votes to less than a 5% Obama lead, then he would once again be in a situation where if he won all of his strong and week states, and then won ALL of the swing states, then he would win. He has four days left to do it. |
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