Sunday, July 13, 2008

Presidential Forecast - July 13

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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 7/13: Latest projection: Obama leads 305-233, a gain of 2 EVs from July 9. Movement towards Obama in the larger states, highlighted by the first projections moving PA and MI into Obama-strong, and movement towards McCain in the smaller states.

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: IN and NC move McCain to Tossup.
<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>

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 General Election Tracker
State
EVsOpen LeftElect. Proj.538.comFHQEV.
com
RCPRMCNNNBC....
Date

7/107/117/137/137/137/137/116/277/9
Obama-Strong (O)

227207235175183153199153168
Obama-Lean (OL)

665758475685947842
Tossup (T)

771032716711813718113139
McCain-Lean (ML)

8195645810173596953
McCain-Strong (M)

8776151918090168125136
Obama Total

293264293222239238293231210
McCain Total

168171215149181163227194189
Obama Est.

335323311308307304295286282

Texas
34MLMLMMLMLMLMMM
Florida
27TTMLTMLTMLTT
Pennsylvania
21OLOLOTTOLOLOLT
Ohio
20OLTOLTTTOLTT
Michigan
17OOLOLTOLTOLTT
Georgia
15MLMLMMLMLMLMMLML
New Jersey
15OOOOLOOLOOLOL
N. Carolina
15TTMLTTTMLMLML
Virginia
13TTTTTTTTT
Indiana
11TMLTTTTMMLML
Missouri
11MLTMLTTTMLTT
Washington
11OOOOOLOLOLOLO
Arizona
10MLMLMMMMMMM
Minnesota
10OOOOOLOLOOLOL
Wisconsin
10OOOOLOOLOOLOL
Colorado
9OLTOLTTTOLTT
Louisiana
9MMMMMMLMMLM
S. Carolina
8MLMLMTMLMMMM
Iowa
7OLOLOLOLOLOLOLTT
Oregon
7OOLOOLTOLOOLOL
Arkansas
6MMLMMMLMMMLM
Mississippi
6MMLMMLMLMLMMM
Nevada
5TTMLTTTTTT
New Mexico
5OLOLOLOLOLTOLMLT
W. Virginia
5MMLMMMLMMMLM
Maine
4OOOOOOLOOLO
NH
4OLOOTOTOLTT
Alaska
3MLMMLMLTMLMMML
Delaware
3OOOOLOLOOOO
Montana
3TTTTOLMLMLMLML
N. Dakota
3TMMLTTMLMLMML
S. Dakota
3MMMMMMMMML


Open LeftElect. Proj.538.comFHQEV.
com
RCPRMCNNNBC....

































































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, 3 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.
  • Indiana: 5 at Tossup, Rasmussen at McCain-Strong.
  • Michigan (NEW): 1 Obama-Strong, 4 Tossups.
  • 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 Hampshire: 4 at Tossup, 2 at Obama-Lean, 3 at Obama-Strong.
  • New Mexico: Six 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 - Three now at tossup. Now that we finally have a recent poll, all tied at 43, it's the 2 McCain-strongs that are the outliers.
  • Oregon - 1 Tossup, 3Obama-Strong.
  • Pennsylvania (NEW): 1 Obama-Strong, 3 Tossups.
  • South Carolina (NEW): 1 Tossup, 5 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.