We preface this by saying that we have no better idea how this will turn out than anyone reading this post.  In addition, this is not an endorsement of either candidate.   Everyone who is registered should get out and vote.  (BTW, you can get a free ice cream cone and a free Starbucks coffee for voting.

In terms of the Electoral College total, the last two elections have been somewhat of an anomaly in how close they were.   If you look back at the historical maps you’ll see few elections with outcomes within 50 electoral votes.  We’re thinking this election returns to that norm.   We think the outcome, electorally, will be somewhere between Bill Clinton’s re-election victory over Bob Dole (379-159) and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 landslide victory (489-49) that ushered in the Republican revolution that has more-or-less dominated American politics for the last quarter century.

Our map shows 393-145, with Obama winning most of the tossup states.  Perhaps the biggest upset projection is for Georgia.   It is a bit of a reach, but we think the nature of the population (big urban center plus lots of African-Americans) and a liberal early/absentee voting policy could yield this upset.    More broadly, across the country, we think that the “group enthusiasm” created by the social network websites (e.g., Facebook) plus more early voting opportunities will shake off some of the traditional apathy of young voters, leading them to vote in record numbers.   Their seems to be a solid preference for Obama in this group.

Just playing around with the map today and speculating how it could turn out if the voters ultimately decide to go in a different direction this year.    These six ‘red’ states, while obviously not decisive to the race if it were to play out this way, could end up being the closest in popular vote totals.    Thoughts?

We’ve moved New Hampshire from toss-up to Obama today, as several recent polls show him with a 10+ point lead.   As of today, we show Obama with 264 EV and McCain with 163 EV.  This is based on states that are >5 point spread based on a composite of recent polls.

As of today (and we want to emphasize the importance of “as of today” since the polls have bounced around quite a bit), McCain would have to win all 8 states that remain in play:   NV, CO, MO, IN, OH, VA, NC & FL.   (If he wins all but NV we end up with a 269-269 tie).      The good news for McCain supporters is that the last time ANY of these states voted Democratic was 1996.  The bad news is that many of them voted for Clinton that year and Obama has pulled slightly ahead in the largest of these undecided states, Ohio and Florida.

Early polling is showing that the race in Virginia, a state that hasn’t voted Democratic since 1964, may be very close this year.  We were just playing around with a scenario where that state could be decisive.

In this scenario, Obama maintains his lead and wins the block of states in the economically struggling upper Midwest, including IA and WI which have been very close in recent elections.  He also wins the southwestern states of NV, CO and NM based on the evolving demographics in those states.    However, in this scenario, Obama is not able to overcome the difficulties he had in the primaries with the working-class white voters and loses both Ohio and Pennsylvania.

This leaves McCain with 268 electoral votes and Obama with 257, and Virginia becomes decisive.

Thoughts?