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This is the DemConWatch Presidential Forecast, a summary of the best election projections on the web. Please also check out our Senate Forecast and House Forecast.
Update 7/2: Latest projection: Obama leads 301-237, no overall change from the last forecast, but plenty of projection changes in both directions. McCain had movement (2 or more projections moved in his favor) in GA, LA and MO, enough to move MO into his column in our consensus. Obama had movement in MN, TX and WI. Also, the last holdouts for KS, MA and SD moved to Strong, taking them off the chart. A history chart is at the bottom of this post.
Map showing consensus of sources. This table will show a state Blue or Red if a majority of the sources show it Leaning or Solid for that candidate. Changes: MO moves to McCain.
Unanimous solid states, not shown in the table below:
Solid Obama: CA, DC, HI, IL, MA (new) , MD, NY, RI, VT - 143 EVs.
Solid McCain: AL, ID, KS (new), KY, OK, SD (new), TN, UT, WY - 56 EVs
The sources are sorted by each projection's estimate of Obama's Electoral Votes (Algorithm at bottom). The states are sorted by the number of electoral votes.
| DCW General Election Tracker | |||||||||||
| State | EVs | Elect. Proj. | Open Left | 538.com | RCP | EV. com | RM | FHQ | CNN | NBC | .... |
| Date | 7/2 | 7/2 | 7/2 | 7/2 | 7/2 | 7/2 | 7/2 | 6/27 | 6/5 | ||
| Obama-Strong (O) | 207 | 207 | 207 | 153 | 187 | 200 | 175 | 153 | 153 | ||
| Obama-Lean (OL) | 77 | 86 | 86 | 85 | 42 | 93 | 42 | 78 | 47 | ||
| Tossup (T) | 86 | 48 | 29 | 137 | 111 | 18 | 119 | 113 | 138 | ||
| McCain-Lean (ML) | 92 | 106 | 93 | 70 | 103 | 53 | 96 | 69 | 84 | ||
| McCain-Strong (M) | 76 | 91 | 120 | 93 | 95 | 174 | 106 | 125 | 116 | ||
| Obama Total | 284 | 293 | 293 | 238 | 229 | 293 | 217 | 231 | 200 | ||
| McCain Total | 168 | 197 | 213 | 163 | 198 | 227 | 202 | 194 | 200 | ||
| Obama Est. | 330 | 321 | 314 | 304 | 297 | 294 | 287 | 286 | 276 | ||
| Texas | 34 | ML | ML | ML | ML | ML | M | ML | M | M | |
| Florida | 27 | T | T | ML | T | ML | ML | ML | T | T | |
| Pennsylvania | 21 | OL | OL | OL | OL | T | OL | T | OL | T | |
| Ohio | 20 | OL | OL | OL | T | T | OL | T | T | T | |
| Michigan | 17 | OL | OL | OL | T | OL | OL | T | T | T | |
| Georgia | 15 | ML | ML | M | ML | M | M | M | ML | ML | |
| New Jersey | 15 | O | O | O | OL | O | O | OL | OL | OL | |
| N. Carolina | 15 | T | ML | ML | T | T | ML | ML | ML | ML | |
| Virginia | 13 | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | |
| Indiana | 11 | ML | ML | T | T | T | M | T | ML | ML | |
| Missouri | 11 | T | ML | ML | T | ML | ML | T | T | ML | |
| Washington | 11 | O | O | O | OL | O | O | O | OL | OL | |
| Arizona | 10 | ML | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | |
| Minnesota | 10 | O | O | O | OL | OL | O | O | OL | OL | |
| Wisconsin | 10 | O | O | O | OL | O | OL | OL | OL | T | |
| Colorado | 9 | T | OL | OL | T | T | OL | T | T | T | |
| Louisiana | 9 | M | M | M | ML | M | M | M | ML | ML | |
| S. Carolina | 8 | ML | ML | M | M | ML | M | ML | M | M | |
| Conn. | 7 | O | O | O | O | T | O | O | O | O | |
| Iowa | 7 | OL | OL | OL | OL | OL | OL | OL | T | T | |
| Oregon | 7 | OL | OL | OL | OL | T | O | OL | OL | OL | |
| Arkansas | 6 | T | M | M | M | ML | M | M | ML | ML | |
| Mississippi | 6 | ML | ML | M | ML | ML | M | ML | M | ML | |
| Nebraska | 5 | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | ML | |
| Nevada | 5 | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | T | |
| New Mexico | 5 | OL | OL | OL | T | OL | OL | T | ML | T | |
| W. Virginia | 5 | ML | M | M | M | ML | M | M | ML | M | |
| Maine | 4 | O | O | O | OL | O | O | O | OL | OL | |
| NH | 4 | O | O | O | T | O | OL | T | T | T | |
| Alaska | 3 | M | ML | ML | ML | T | M | ML | M | M | |
| Delaware | 3 | O | O | O | O | OL | O | OL | O | O | |
| Montana | 3 | ML | ML | M | ML | ML | M | ML | ML | ML | |
| N. Dakota | 3 | M | T | ML | M | ML | M | T | M | ML | |
| Elect. Proj. | Open Left | 538.com | RCP | EV. com | RM | FHQ | CNN | NBC | .... | ||
Notes:
538 - FiveThirtyEight - Safe and Likely mapped to Strong (O or M), Lean to Lean (OL or ML), Tossup to Tossup (T)
CNN - Safe mapped to Strong, Leaning to Lean, Tossup to Tossup
Elect. Proj. - Election Projection - Solid and Strong mapped to Strong, Moderate to Lean, Weak to Tossup
EV.com - Electoral-Vote.com - Strong mapped to Strong, Weak to Lean, Barely and Tossup to Tossup
FHQ - FrontLoading HQ - Solid mapped to Strong, Lean to Lean, Tossup (Dem and Rep) to Tossup
NBC - Base mapped to strong, Lean to Lean, Tossup to Tossup
OpenLeft - Solid mapped to Strong, Lean to Lean, Tossup to Tossup
RM - Rasmussen - Safe and Likely mapped to Strong, Lean to Lean, Tossup to Tossup
RCP - RealClearPolitics - Solid mapped to Strong, Lean to Lean, Tossup to Tossup
Here are the states that span 3 categories.
- Alaska: Now only 1 at Tossup, 4 at McCain-Strong. Rasmussen's own poll shows McCain only up by 4, yet they still have AK as Likely-Republican, which we convert to McCain-Strong.
- Arkansas (new): 5 McCain-Strong, 1 Tossup
- Connecticut: Electoral-vote.com still has it as Toss-up, and their chart shows they are ignoring the two new polls, both of which give Obama a +17 or more point lead.
Georgia: 2 at Tossup, Rasmussen still has it as McCain-Strong.- Indiana: 4 at Tossup, Rasmussen at McCain-Strong.
- New Hampshire: 4 at Tossup, 1 at Obama-Lean, 4 at Obama-Strong. This should move Obama's way as the older polls age out.
- New Mexico: Five projections have it as Obama-Lean, CNN has it at McCain-Lean. Two recent polls show Obama up by 3 and 8 points.
- North Dakota - Two have it as tossup - that won't last. Or will it? There hasn't been a state poll in ND since April.
- Oregon - One of the few Obama states that seems to be closing, with Obama only up by 3 in the latest SurveyUSA poll. 1 Tossup, 1 Obama-Strong.
- Wisconsin: 4 now at Obama-Strong. Just NBC still calling it a Tossup.
The overall projection is just a straight average of each projections' estimate of Electoral Votes (EVs) for each candidate. For each projection other than FiveThirtyEight, we give Obama 100% of the EVs in a state that is solid for him, 80% of the EVs for a leaner, 50% of the EVs for a Tossup, 20% of the EVs for state that is McCain-Lean, and 0% of the Solid McCain states. Exact opposite for McCain. For FiveThirtyEight, we use their overall estimate of Obama's EVs, not the state-by-state categories.
Note: Rasmussen has just released a poll from Montana that has Obama up by 5 over McCain.
It would be truly stunning if Obama could turn Montana into a competitive state this November. George W. Bush won Montana’s 3 Electoral College Votes by twenty percentage points in 2004 and by twenty-five points four years earlier. Even Bob Dole managed to win Montana, albeit by a narrow 44% to 41% margin (Ross Perot picked up 14% of the vote).
The last Democrat to win Montana was Bill Clinton in 1992. He did so with 38% of the vote. The first President Bush got 35% of the Montana vote while Ross Perot picked up 26%.
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