Most national polls of late show the race to be very tight with Obama ever so slightly up; one poll out today (Reuters/Zogby) shows McCain has pulled ahead by 5 points.   Let’s call it statistically tied for argument’s sake.   The important point is that the change has happened fairly quickly.

The simulator is based on state-level polls.  Ultimately, the election will be decided at the state level, so this is the right approach.  However, at this point, most states are only being polled once or twice a month.   Until this polling gets more frequent, be aware that the simulator results will lag behind what the national polls are saying.

We hope that as Election Day nears, everything will sync up nicely and the tool will be quite useful, but until then, use caution in reading too much into the simulator outcomes.

Some people have written and asked why we don’t update the swing states on our interactive map for changes in polls.   Our answer has been that the interactive map is based on a combination of both history and polls; the latest poll results show that it is far too soon to move states like MI, OH, FL and NH out of swing status.  Visit the polling map to see how the electoral college looks purely based on current polling.

Putting all the recent polls together, Obama is ahead, outside the margin of error, in states with 259 electoral votes, compared with 151 for McCain.    As always, we caution that the campaign has just begun…. running mates haven’t been picked and the candidates haven’t even formally been nominated…. so take the numbers for what they are… an indication of where things stand today, and nothing more.

Given the current polls, we don’t think it will change the current bottom line results (Obama wins most of the simulations), but it should introduce a wider spread in outcomes.

And, as a reminder, the simulator isn’t predicting the future (i.e., the election).  It merely says:  If the election were today, given the current polls (and assuming they are accurate), what would the outcome likely be.   However, the election isn’t today, and the general campaign has only just started.

Until the middle of last week, the simulator was behaving quite nicely (especially for a site like ours that will get more traffic if the race is competitive) — it was about 50-50 for Obama and McCain.   However, toward the end of the week, Quinnipiac released polls that gave Obama a substantial lead in three pivotal swing states (PA, FL, OH) and other swing state polling moved toward Obama as well, including significant leads in IA and WI.

As a result of the above, if the election were held today (and if the polls are accurate…always a big if)…Obama would win. This can also be seen in the national polls that have come out over the weekend, with Obama ahead from 5 to as much as 15 points.  (While the popular vote ultimately doesn’t matter, if a candidate wins by that much on Election Day, he isn’t going to lose the Electoral College vote).

The dilemma, of course, is that the election is not today and the current polling likely reflects a temporary post-nomination bump. We discuss that in another post.

So, it is important to note that the simulator doesn’t say Obama will win the election, it merely reflects what would likely happen based on current polls — if the election was today.    Since Obama is currently polling well ahead in important swing states and there aren’t that many states currently polling inside 5%, this leads to a tighter range of outcomes and the near 100% victory for Obama in the simulations.