Presidential Forecast - 7/29 - The Dog Days

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Obama leads 303-235, no change over the last two forecasts. With Rasmussen moving Ohio from Obama-Lean to Tossup, and 538 moving it the exact opposite way, there's not much in the way of trends.

Please also check out our Senate Forecast and House Forecast.

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. NC moves from Tossup to McCain.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

Note: Only 3 states have shifted categories on the consensus map and not shifted back:
6/18 FL: McCain -> Tossup
7/6 MT: McCain -> Tossup
7/9 NM: Tossup -> Obama

Of special note is NC, which has shifted 4 times between McCain and Tossup.

Unanimous solid states, not shown in the table below:
Solid Obama: CA, CT, DC, HI, IL, MA, MD, NY, RI, VT - 150 EVs.
Solid McCain: AL, ID, KS, KY, NE, OK, TN, UT, WY - 58 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 Presidential Forecast
State	EVs	Open Left	Elect. Proj.	EV. com	FHQ	538 .com	RCP	RM	CNN	NBC	.…
Date		7/29.	7/29.	7/29.	7/27.	7/29.	7/29.	7/22.	7/24.	7/9.
Obama-Strong (O)		236	190	197	175	238	153	210	153	168
Obama-Lean (OL)		28	70	49	47	55	85	63	68	42
Tossup (T)		102	107	118	159	21	137	38	128	139
McCain-Lean (ML)		85	95	91	66	70	64	62	64	53
McCain-Strong (M)		87	76	83	91	154	99	165	125	136
Obama Total		264	260	246	222	293	238	273	221	210
McCain Total		172	171	174	157	224	163	227	189	189
Obama Est.		326	319	313	305	303	302	292	284	282
Texas	34	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	ML	M	M	M
Florida	27	T	T	T	T	ML	T	ML	T	T
Pennsylvania	21	O	OL	OL	T	O	OL	OL	OL	T
Ohio	20	T	T	ML	T	OL	T	T	T	T
Michigan	17	OL	OL	T	T	OL	T	OL	T	T
Georgia	15	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	ML	M	ML	ML
New Jersey	15	O	O	O	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL
N. Carolina	15	ML	T	T	T	ML	T	ML	ML	ML
Virginia	13	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
Indiana	11	T	ML	T	T	ML	T	M	ML	ML
Missouri	11	T	T	T	T	ML	T	ML	T	T
Washington	11	O	O	O	O	O	OL	O	OL	O
Arizona	10	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Minnesota	10	O	OL	OL	O	O	OL	O	T	OL
Wisconsin	10	O	OL	O	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL
Colorado	9	T	T	T	T	OL	T	OL	T	T
Louisiana	9	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	ML	M
S. Carolina	8	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	M
Iowa	7	OL	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL	T	T
Oregon	7	O	O	OL	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL
Arkansas	6	M	ML	M	M	M	M	M	ML	M
Mississippi	6	M	M	ML	ML	M	ML	M	M	M
Nevada	5	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
New Mexico	5	O	OL	OL	OL	OL	T	OL	T	T
W. Virginia	5	M	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	ML	M
Maine	4	O	O	O	O	O	OL	O	OL	O
NH	4	OL	T	T	T	OL	T	OL	T	T
Alaska	3	ML	M	ML	ML	M	ML	M	M	ML
Delaware	3	O	O	OL	OL	O	O	O	O	O
Montana	3	T	T	OL	T	T	ML	ML	ML	ML
N. Dakota	3	T	ML	T	T	ML	ML	ML	M	ML
S. Dakota	3	M	ML	T	M	ML	M	ML	M	ML
		Open Left	Elect. Proj.	EV. com	FHQ	538 .com	RCP	RM	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.

• Indiana: 4 at Tossup, Rasmussen at McCain-Strong.
• Iowa: Two at Obama-Strong, NBC and CNN still calling it a Tossup. Only July poll shows Obama up by 10.
  
• Minnesota : 4 at Obama-Strong, CNN at Tossup
  
• Montana : EV.com at Obama-Lean, 4 at McCain-Lean. EV.com will exactly follow the latest poll if no other poll has been published within the week.
  
• New Mexico (NEW): 1 Projection at Obama-Strong, 3 at Tossup. This used to be on the 3 category list, but spanning Obama-Lean to McCain-Lean.
  
• North Dakota - CNN at McCain Strong, 3 at Tossup.
• Ohio (NEW): EV.com at McCain-Lean, 538 at Obama-Lean, everyone else at Tossup
  
• Pennsylvania: OpenLeft at Obama-Strong, 2 at Tossup.
  
• South Carolina: 1 Tossup, 5 McCain-Strong
• South Dakota: EV.com at Tossup, 4 at McCain-Strong
  

We're purposely ignoring Maine and Nebraska CD splits for now to keep things simple. We'll add them in later if we need to.

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.