Abulsme.com

This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne, also known as Sam Minter. In addition to the blog below, be sure to check out the other sections of the site above and to the left! IM me on AIM as Abulsme or email me at abulsme@abulsme.com. Comments are always appreciated! Thanks!

If you came here from a link on another site, chances are high you are looking for the Electoral College Prediction page.

Fri 23 May 2008

Just a Flesh Wound

About two weeks ago, I was thinking about this exact clip with regards to Hillary. Glad to see someone went ahead and put it together. Although I think they should have used actors with British accents rather than actual clips from Hillary. Oh well!

(via DailyKos)

	Abulsme - Fri, 23 May 2008, 17:05:10 UTC - Fun
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Electoral College: Obama takes the lead as Ohio Flips

Obama does seem to be on a roll. With the new polls today, three states move in Obama's direction. The most critical is Ohio, which now moves from Leaning McCain to Leaning Obama. Ohio has 20 electoral votes, so this is a huge shift. It is enough to put Obama in the lead (barely) in the situation where you give both candidates all of the states where they are ahead by even a tiny bit. The lead is less than 5% though... actually less than 1%... so really this is a state that very much could easily go either way. But with all the leaning states (and DC) Obama is once again in the lead.

At the same time, Obama strengthens his lead in Pennsylvania. He is now ahead in Pennsylvania by more than 5%. This makes me take the possibility of McCain winning Pennsylvania out of his best case scenario. With Pennsylvania being a pretty large 21 electoral votes though, I fully expect McCain to work hard to bring this state back into play.

Finally, Virginia, which had only strengthened to a more than 5% lead for McCain a few days ago, weakens again and comes back into play as a leaning state, therefore strengthening my "best case" model for Obama.

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case - McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case - Obama 333, McCain 205

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) - Obama 277, McCain 261

Now, note we still have 11 states and 105 electoral votes in states where the leading candidate is ahead by less than 5%. Either candidate could easily win by pulling the right mix of those states. Right now, all of this basically just means everything is completely up in the air.

Not to mention, this is of course a snapshot of NOW. (Actually, now and the recent past, as many states have very sparse polling, sometimes less than one poll a month.) And between now and the convention, we'll have, as one pundit whose name I can't remember right now called it, two or three "geologic ages" in the state of the race. Things will happen, the candidates will react to them. VPs will be selected. Candidates will make mistakes. Candidates will actively start campaigning in the battleground states. General election TV ads will start airing. Etc.

We have a long way to go. And certainly from this far out, it is completely wide open still.

Having said that, Obama has had a very good last few days in terms of the state by state polls. We shall soon see if this is a long term trend, or if it quickly gets reversed. This is the first time Obama has been ahead since April 20th. And the first time since April 15th that Obama's best case was better than McCain's best case.

Looking back though, in the time since we first had polls in all 50 states back on March 8th, Obama has been in the lead with the "all the leans" metric two other times. Neither time lasted more than a week.

So we shall see. My initial prediction is that this time will last longer and be the beginning of a trend in Obama's direction now that we essentially have a nominee (even if Hillary continues to fight).

I think we'll see more leaning states flip to Obama soon. (I'll go out on a limb and say Michigan will flip soon.) And we'll see some states strengthen for Obama and several more weaken in their McCain support and come back into play for Obama.

I could be wrong though. We'll know soon enough.

	Abulsme - Fri, 23 May 2008, 16:27:32 UTC - ElecColl
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Final Round of KY, OR Updates

103 out of 103 delegates from KY/OR are now in.

The final results... Clinton 58, Obama 45.

My prediction was... Clinton 58, Obama 45. Woo! Go me!

Today's batch from KY/OR was an even split, 2 for Clinton, 2 for Obama. In addition today Obama picks up one more super delegate. So over all for today, Obama up 3, Clinton up 2.

New stats:

Delegate count is: Obama 1965, Clinton 1779, Edwards 9

In percent terms that is: Obama 52.4%, Clinton 47.4%, Edwards 0.2%

2026 delegates are needed to win.

There are 297 delegates yet to be determined.

Obama needs 61 more delegates to win.

Clinton needs 247 more delegates to win.

In percentage terms, that means:

Obama needs 20.5% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 28.3% before KY/OR.)

Clinton needs 83.2% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 74.4% before KY/OR.)

In the last couple of updates, I've also shown stats for what the situation would be if Clinton got her dream result and had Florida and Michigan fully seated based on the current results. I won't do that every day since it is not the situation today, and is a very unlikely result. I just give it occasionally to show that even if that were to happen, Clinton would need to be getting significantly more than 60% of the remaining delegates to be on pace to catch up and win. This would be a DRAMATIC change from the 47.4% of the delegates she has been pacing at so far. And every day where she doesn't get that margin in the delegates... which is almost every day... the percentage she needs continues to go up. She is not doing what she needs to be doing to win EVEN IF she gets what she wants in Michigan and Florida... which she won't.

In any case, if and when there is a revision to the policy on Michigan and Florida that officially changes the number of delegates required for a win, then I will of course make adjustments here. This may well happen on the 31st. (And even after that what is decided may be appealed and have the possibility of changing again later.) But in the mean time, the number needed to win is 2026.