Prediction Map

Prediction States Won

		270 |	538 |
Dem	364
Rep	174
Ind	0

Confidence States Won

		270 |	538 |
Dem	277
Rep	141
Ind	0
Tos	120

State Pick-ups

	Gain			Loss			Hold			Net Gain
	ST	CD	EV	ST	CD	EV	ST	CD	EV
Dem	+9	0	+112	0	0	0	20	2	252	+112
Rep	0	0	0	-9	0	-112	22	3	174	-112
Ind	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Prediction Score (max Score = 112)

Score	State Wins	State Percentages	CD Wins	CD Percentages
95	49	39	4	3

Analysis

Final prediction: Changes since last prediction

Arizona R Strong to R Lean
California D 50% to D 60%
Delaware D 50% to D 60%
Florida D 50% to D 40%
Georgia R Lean to R Tossup
Indiana R 50% to R 40%
Montana R Lean to R Tossup
Maine-AL D Lean to D Strong
Maine-2 D Lean to D Strong
Nevada D 40% to D 50%
New Hampshire D Lean to D Strong
New York D 50% to D 60%
North Dakota R 50% to R 40%
Nebraska-1 R Strong to R Lean
Nebraska-2 R Lean to R Tossup
Pennsylvania D Strong to D Lean
West Virginia R Tossup to R Lean
Wisconsin D Lean to D Strong

Prediction History

Comments History - hide

Version: 78

Many, many changes as I did a comprehensive review rather than just focusing on a state or two with poll results coming out today. In my predictions Lean means a predicted margin of 5 to 10% inclusive.

Alaska, Idaho, and Nebraska-AL from R 60% to R 50%.

Arkansas and South Dakota from R Strong to R Lean.

Maryland from D 50% to D 60%

North Dakota from R Lean to R Tossup.

Oregon and Washington from D Lean to D Strong.

Virginia from D Tossup to D Lean.

Version: 77

Moving Colorado from D 40% to D 50%. If there were some recent polls I trusted more than the ones that have been done there lately, I'd have moved it From Tossup to Lean as well.

Version: 76

Getting uglier for McCain as I move Missouri from R 40% Tossup to D 40% Tossup.

Version: 75

Very slight change:

Nebraska-1 from R Lean to R Strong.

Version: 74

Moving New Jersey and Pennsylvania from D Lean to D Strong and West Virginia from R Lean to R Tossup.

Version: 73

Florida, Ohio, and Virginia go from D 40% Tossups to a D 50% Tossups in my prediction today. And Maine-AL and Maine-2 go from D Strong to D Lean. But all that is just cosmetic. The more important change is that North Carolina goes from an R 40% Tossup to a D 40% Tossup in this prediction.

This prediction isn't hopeless for McCain, but he'll need to get every single tossup state to win. Either that or pick up an upset in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire or Maine-2 to not need to run the board with the tossups. The other leans aren't close enough for an upset to be possible at the moment.

Version: 72

Moving New Hampshire from D Tossup to D Lean (5 to 10 point margin).

Version: 71

Took longer than I thought it would for this to show up in the polls, but I'm finally seeing enough polling results to justify moving Nevada from a barely McCain tossup to a barely Obama tossup. I'm also bumping Obama's probable support level in New Hampshire up from a plurality tossup to a majority tossup.

Version: 70

Moving Michigan from D Tossup to D Lean just as McCain is just plain moving out of Michigan. On the other hand I'm moving Virgina back from a D 50% Tossup to D 40% at least until there is a bit more consistency in the polls.

Version: 69

I'm moving both Ohio and Florida from being the barest of McCain tossups to the barest of Obama tossups. If it weren't for the changes also seen in the national polls, I'd have left them where they were.

This makes this the most pro-Democratic of my predictions, save for a string of early predictions in which I was positing a Guiliani-Clinton-Bloomberg race.

UPDATE: Also moving Georgia from R Strong to R Lean as I feel McCain is down to a 9 to 10 point lead there.

UPDATE 2: Moving Virgina from a 40% D Tossup to a 50% D Tossup. I think I need to wait until evening in the future to make predictions if I want to avoid these intraday updates.

Version: 68

Pennsylvania from D Tossup to D Lean; sorry Phil. Colorado D 50% to D 40%. Judging by the presidential polling, would it be too much of a stretch to say that the bailout is less popular in the heartland than the coasts? It certainly would explain the trends I've noticed.

Version: 67

Moving Missouri from R 50% to R 40%.

Lean = a 5 to 10% margin.

Version: 66

Moving North Carolina from R 50% to R 40%.

Lean = a 5 to 10% margin.

Version: 65

New Hampshire D 50% to D 40% as it looks like the economic news is concentrating the minds of Granite Staters on taxes.

Version: 64

Just a couple of percentage changes from my last prediction:
Kansas R 60% to R 50%
Colorado D 40% to D 50%

Version: 63

Changing Michigan from D Lean to D Tossup as I see Obama as about +4 now.

Version: 62

Returning back to the correct colors and changing Florida from R 50% to R 40%.

Version: 61

No change from my last prediction, but it's been a while since I got a comment, so I thought I'd see if I could scare up a comment or two by reversing the color scheme. I'll go back to the correct one in my next prediction.

Version: 60

Diverging a bit from the polls, as I don't think they've had time to catch any changes due to this week's Wall Street hubbub. Shading things 1 to 2 per centum more towards Obama that a pure poll-based prediction would be. As usual for me, Lean indicates a 5 to 10% margin.

Changes from last prediction:

Alaska R 50% to R 60%
Florida R Lean to R Tossup
Hawaii D 50% to D 60%
Illinois D 60% to D 50%
Iowa D Lean to D Strong
Kentucky R 60% to R 50%
New Mexico D Tossup to D Lean
North Carolina R Lean to R Tossup
Pennsylvania D 40% to D 50%
Rhode Island D 50% to D 60%
West Virginia R Strong to R Lean

Version: 59

Changes:

CO D 50% to D 40%
OH D to R
PA D 50% to D 40%
VA R to D

Version: 58

Moving South Dakota from R Lean to R Strong. Probably should have done so earlier, but I didn't want to assume that the Palin effect would generate a double digit lead instead of a high single digit one until I'd seen some actual poll numbers.

Version: 57

The VP and Convention bounces have finally stabilized enough that I'm willing to alter my prediction again. McCain clearly was the winner of the past few weeks, but only enough to close the gap. I'm still predicting that Obama wins, but it won't be with the 300+ EV he would need to be able to claim he has a mandate.

Here's the full list of changes from my last prediction for those who are interested:

FL R Tossup to R Lean
GA R Lean to R Strong
HI D 60% to D 50%
ID R 50% to R 60%
KS R 50% to R 60%
MI D Lean to D Tossup
MT R 40% Tossup to R 50% Lean
NM D Lean to D Tossup
NC R Tossup to R Lean
ND R 40% Tossup to R 50% Lean
OH D 50% to D 40%
PA D Lean to D Tossup
VA D 40% to R 40%
WA D Strong to D Lean
WI D Strong to D Lean
NE-AL R 50% to R 60%

Version: 56

I was going to wait until after the conventions to do any updating, but with Palin as the VP nom, I'm moving Alaska from R Lean to R Strong as the margin should be more than double digits now.

Version: 55

Moving Ohio from D Lean to D Tossup. This despite Obama doing 5 points better in this month's Rassmussen poll compared to last months.

Version: 54

Moving Minnesota from D Strong to D Lean, as I now think Obama will only have a single digit victory here.

Version: 53

Since I now view the probable Obama margin as under 5% in Colorado, I'm shifting that state from D Lean to D Tossup in my prediction.

Version: 52

Moving Florida from R 40% to R 50%.

Version: 51

Moving Oregon from D Strong to D Lean

Version: 50

Since its been a few days since my last entry, I've got quite a few changes from my last map

Georgia from R Strong to R Lean
Missouri from R 40% to R 50%
Montana from R 50% to R 40%
Nebraska from R Lean to R Strong
NE-1 and NE 2 from R Tossup to R Lean

Version: 49

I've decided to move Pennsylvania from D Tossup to a marginal D Lean.

Version: 48

Florida from R 50% to R 40%.
Maine 1 from D 60% to D 50%.
North Dakota from D Tossup to R Tossup.

Version: 47

I'm moving South Dakota from Strong R to Lean R as I now think McCain will only eke out an 8-9 point victory. Similarly, Michigan goes from Tossup D to Lean D as I now expect a 5-7 point Obama victory there.

Version: 46

The string of favorable polls for Obama in Wisconsin is now long enough that I'm changing that State from D Lean to D Strong in my prediction.

Version: 45

Granted, it's a summer poll and all that jazz, but the Montana poll released today is enough to cause me to move the state from R 50% Lean to R 50% Tossup.

Version: 44

Moving Virginia from R 40% to D 40%. There are a few too many polls for me to ignore, tho since they are summer polls, I have no idea whether this will still hold come September, let alone November.

Version: 43

Same map as last time. Just wanted to indicate in my analysis that I'm at the verge of reducing Kentucky from R 60% to R 50% (i.e. the percentage is a tossup)

Version: 42

Moving Minnesota from D Lean to D Strong.

Version: 41

Changing Michigan from 40% D Tossup to 50% D Tossup.

Version: 40

Changing New Hampshire from D Tossup 40% to D Tossup 50%. Those last couple of polls are impressive for Obama, but absent some news to explain a sudden 10 point jump, I'm attributing a good deal of that to random error and summer polling.

Nevada also changes: from D Tossup 40% to R Tossup 40%. McCain's been doing steadily well there and the state was IIRC Obama's only State caucus loss, so his weakness there is certainly believable.

Version: 39

Made some changes, all favoring Obama:

Florida R Lean to R Tossup
Maine-1 D 50% to D 60%
Pennsylvania D 40% to D 50%
Virginia R 50% to R 40%

Version: 38

I'm moving:
Minnesota from D Strong to D Lean;
Ohio from D Tossup to D Lean; and
Virgina from R Lean to R Tossup

Version: 37

Shifted Nevada from D 50% Lean to D 40% Tossup.

Version: 36

Changes:
Wisconsin from D Tossup to D Lean
North Carolina from R Lean to R Tossup

Version: 35

Changes:
NJ: D Tossup to D Lean
TX: R Lean to R Strong
WI: D Lean to D Tossup

Version: 34

Moving Missouri from R 50% to R 40%.

Version: 33

Moved Missouri from R Lean to R Tossup.

Version: 32

Changed NE-2 from R 40% to R 50% and NE-3 from R 50% to R 60%.

Version: 31

Changes since last prediction:
New Hampshire: R tossup 40% to D tossup 40%
Ohio: D tossup 40% to D tossup 50%

Version: 30

Only change from my last map is that Utah is now at 60% instead of 50%.

Version: 29

Obama v. McCain. I've taken NE 2 out of the Obama column for now, but it and NE 1 are still possible Obama gains. Since campaigning in the Omaha area will also help with western Iowa, I expect eastern Nebraska will see some visits.

Version: 28

McCain v. Obama:

I did a rather thorough reexamination of the current trends and polls. Here's my best current projection.

Version: 27

McCain v. Obama:
Latest poll from Texas is enough to make me change it from a McCain 40% Tossup to a McCain 50% Tossup. Maybe its just a glitch in the polls, but with four polls in, it is looking like Obama will be able to make the race in Texas more interesting than the CW says it should be.

Version: 26

McCain v. Obama

The latest set of Quinnipac polls overstated Democratic support, but were enough for me to nudge Florida from Strong McCain to Lean McCain and Pennsylvania from Tossup McCain to Tossup Obama.

Version: 23

Washington goes form lean Dem to strong Dem and Indiana goes from strong GOP to lean GOP.

We've had three polls now for the McCain v. Obama contest in Indiana, and all have shown McCain at a steady 50-51% with Obama gaining as time goes on. That suggests that McCain does not have much upside left in Indiana, so bringing him back from strong to lean is appropriate, since for me strong indicates I expect a double digit margin, and that is no longer the case for me.

Version: 22

Some tweaks from the SUSA 14-state poll.

Version: 21

Changes in FL, ND, and SD based on new polls.

Version: 20

Today's batch of polls caused me to move FL, NC, and PA all one notch in favor of McCain.

Version: 19

More poll driven changes:

AZ: R 50% strong to R 60% strong
NC: R 50% lean to R 50% tossup
PA: R 50% tossup to R 40% tossup

It had bothered me that I had North Carolina as being more strongly Republican than South Carolina. I had expected that new polls would close the gap by moving South Carolina out of the toss-up category, not the reverse, but I'm not going to start second guessing the polls until later in the season.

Version: 18

McCain v. Obama

I'm flipping Ohio from lean Dem to lean GOP, though some of McCain's strength has to be coming from the brutal crossfire between Obama and Clinton. How well that strength maintains itself after the Democrats have decided for certain in their nominee, will have to wait to be seen.

Version: 17

McCain v. Obama:

Changes since last prediction:
MI: 50% D Tossup to 40% D Tossup
WA: 50% D Strong to 50% D Lean

Version: 16

Strengthening McCain from a 40% tossup to a 50% tossup in Virginia against Obama.

Version: 15

McCain v. Obama

Small tweak to Oregon

Version: 14

McCain v. Obama, assuming that the currently available polls can be reasonably trusted. For some of these I have my doubts, but a McCain v. Obama race is not going to be a simple repeat of 2000 and 2004, especially in States where a State's politics haven't been mirroring their results in national elections.

Version: 13

Some more tweaks.

Version: 12

More tweaks, but the only flip is NE1 from Dem tossup to Rep tossup.

Version: 11

Minor tweak to the Colorado confidence.

Version: 10

Still largely based on the SUSA 50-state poll, but I'm taking other factors into consideration, making this my first "real" prediction. Since I think the Democrats would be stupid politically to not pick Obama over Clinton at the current time, I'm sticking with the general election being McCain v. Obama.

Version: 9

Based on SUSA's McCain v. Obama 30 state poll, but adjusted to assume a uniform 3% of the popular vote for third party candidates instead of the ~10% undecided vote they had in most states.

link: http://www.surveyusa.com/ECV_50-State_results_030608_vs_Obama.html

Version: 8

Yet another prediction made with no input from current State-level polling as I feel that until the primary races are over, polls there are just way too preliminary to use, even if I were to assume that Obama or Clinton gets the nod. Main changes from my last prediction are less GOP erosion of support and I further reduced the chance that a third party candidacy will gain traction in my analysis.

Version: 7

There are enough state-level polls that I'm willing to use them to adjust my prediction now, but only to add a uniform national swing to my underlying prediction. My change from the last poll was a lazy one of assuming a net 1% shift to the GOP compared to my last prediction. Still not doing any changes for individual states based on the polls. We still don't know who the candidates will be for sure, especially for the GOP, and there are as of yet too few polls for individual states that I'd be comfortable using them for that purpose.

I am assuming that on average the current polls are overstating the Democratic strength come next November. Given the impressions that most people have already formed of Hillary, I expect undecideds to break in favor of the GOP starting from this far out. If I had assumed that the current polls accurately reflected what would happen next November, I'd have adjusted my prediction to be more favorable to the Democrats by 1% instead of to the Republicans.

Version: 6

I've decided to remove a Bloombergish Independent candidacy from my calculations for now. I see no evidence of one forming. I do have a Libertarian-style candidacy attracting about 3.5% of the PV, mainly from socially liberal anti-war types and thus hurting the Democrats more than the Republicans. This choice for the primary third party was chosen for no other reason than to make things interesting and close. It's way too early to judge which way the third party winds are blowing or how strong they will be next November. I also widened the margin for what I consider to be Tossup and Lean to a 5% and 10% margin of victory respectively.

Version: 5

Moving some of my projected I vote over to the R. Mapwise it only affected the Carolinas (NC from lean to strong GOP; SC from 40% to 50% GOP)

My new national PV split is:
D 48.3%
R 43.3%
I 6.7%

Version: 4

Updating based on impressions generated from the 16-state Giuliani-Clinton-Bloomberg SUSA poll.

My new national PV split is:
D 48.3%
R 42.8%
I 7.2%

Version: 3

Update for Katrina-effect which bumps Louisiana from lean GOP to safe GOP compared to my previous prediction.

Version: 2

Revised prediction with some consideration of the 2000 numbers in my opinion and a slightly revised (and improved) outlook for the third party and the other parties. Change in outlook is due to a gut feeling about how the economy is going over the next seventeen months. We're going to have a significant correction, and possibly a mild recession, that will be over by election day. So whoever wins will point to how the economy is improving under their stewardship.

Projected national popular vote is:
48.7% Dem
43.7% GOP
5.8% Biggest third party

Version: 1

Initial prediction assumes a third party candidate such as Bloomberg grabs most of the votes the GOP bleeds from 2004, but gains little traction otherwise. Way too far out to have any idea what regional issues might have traction, especially with both parties' nominations so wide open at the moment.

Version History

79: 2008-11-03 @ 23:59:33 78: 2008-10-15 @ 17:41:47 77: 2008-10-14 @ 18:13:39 76: 2008-10-13 @ 21:10:43 75: 2008-10-12 @ 12:12:15 74: 2008-10-09 @ 20:55:10 73: 2008-10-07 @ 16:14:38 72: 2008-10-06 @ 20:44:31 71: 2008-10-03 @ 18:24:15 70: 2008-10-02 @ 17:43:17 69: 2008-10-01 @ 18:44:48 68: 2008-09-29 @ 20:31:37 67: 2008-09-26 @ 17:55:07 66: 2008-09-25 @ 20:22:37 65: 2008-09-24 @ 20:09:49 64: 2008-09-23 @ 18:25:42 63: 2008-09-22 @ 18:31:44 62: 2008-09-21 @ 00:55:38 61: 2008-09-18 @ 15:44:22 60: 2008-09-17 @ 21:35:54 59: 2008-09-15 @ 20:26:21 58: 2008-09-13 @ 13:35:01 57: 2008-09-11 @ 22:50:36 56: 2008-08-30 @ 21:06:57 55: 2008-08-20 @ 22:08:39 54: 2008-08-19 @ 19:19:43 53: 2008-08-14 @ 19:17:07 52: 2008-08-12 @ 21:46:24 51: 2008-08-07 @ 18:27:39 50: 2008-08-03 @ 23:57:09 49: 2008-07-29 @ 13:43:54 48: 2008-07-24 @ 19:36:45 47: 2008-07-16 @ 22:30:00 46: 2008-07-10 @ 19:20:31 45: 2008-07-03 @ 14:19:54 44: 2008-06-30 @ 16:51:19 43: 2008-06-29 @ 21:01:30 42: 2008-06-26 @ 20:32:58 41: 2008-06-24 @ 16:46:54 40: 2008-06-20 @ 16:40:37 39: 2008-06-18 @ 13:59:28 38: 2008-06-17 @ 16:08:52 37: 2008-06-15 @ 19:18:03 36: 2008-06-12 @ 16:27:44 35: 2008-06-09 @ 18:57:58 34: 2008-06-06 @ 23:46:06 33: 2008-06-03 @ 16:32:38 32: 2008-06-01 @ 20:34:39 31: 2008-05-23 @ 15:59:00 30: 2008-05-21 @ 20:27:19 29: 2008-05-18 @ 21:57:47 28: 2008-05-10 @ 18:05:05 27: 2008-05-05 @ 19:46:28 26: 2008-05-02 @ 15:33:03 25: 2008-04-25 @ 13:58:00 24: 2008-04-24 @ 14:44:49 23: 2008-04-18 @ 16:28:51 22: 2008-04-17 @ 16:10:16 21: 2008-04-15 @ 22:39:07 20: 2008-04-14 @ 17:53:49 19: 2008-04-12 @ 16:32:02 18: 2008-04-10 @ 19:00:19 17: 2008-03-31 @ 16:57:30 16: 2008-03-29 @ 14:51:27 15: 2008-03-27 @ 23:20:21 14: 2008-03-21 @ 18:34:17 13: 2008-03-20 @ 20:20:07 12: 2008-03-19 @ 16:22:01 11: 2008-03-18 @ 19:14:35 10: 2008-03-17 @ 16:00:50 9: 2008-03-06 @ 19:37:25 8: 2008-02-25 @ 21:43:04 7: 2007-11-16 @ 22:37:50 6: 2007-07-20 @ 01:44:14 5: 2007-06-20 @ 23:52:37 4: 2007-06-18 @ 18:36:14 3: 2007-06-15 @ 12:52:50 2: 2007-06-14 @ 18:40:08 1: 2007-06-05 @ 17:40:20 View Version

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