Presidential Forecast - 8/3 - As the Summer Turns

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Obama leads 301-237, a gain of 2 EVs for McCain since the last forecast, and putting us back to where we were on June 28th. But almost all of the change came from one projection, Election-Projection, which moved 6 states in McCain's direction.

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. MT 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: With MT moving back to McCain, now only 2 states have shifted categories on the consensus map and not shifted back:
6/18 FL: 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, NE, OK, TN, UT, WY - 50 EVs. Note: KY is longer unanimous McCain-Stronge (RCP has it at ML), but has not been placed on the chart at this time. (All numbers, however, are correct).

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	EV. com	FHQ	RCP	538 .com	Elect. Proj.	RM	CNN	NBC	.…
Date		7/31.	8/3.	8/3.	8/3.	8/3.	8/1.	7/22.	7/24.	7/9.
Obama-Strong (O)		236	197	175	153	238	183	210	153	168
Obama-Lean (OL)		28	46	47	85	55	60	63	68	42
Tossup (T)		102	130	159	137	21	121	38	128	139
McCain-Lean (ML)		85	68	60	72	67	41	62	64	53
McCain-Strong (M)		87	97	97	91	157	133	165	125	136
Obama Total		264	243	222	238	293	243	273	221	210
McCain Total		172	165	157	163	224	174	227	189	189
Obama Est.		326	312	304	304	303	300	292	284	282
Texas	34	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	M
Florida	27	T	T	T	T	ML	T	ML	T	T
Pennsylvania	21	O	OL	T	OL	O	OL	OL	OL	T
Ohio	20	T	T	T	T	OL	T	T	T	T
Michigan	17	OL	T	T	T	OL	T	OL	T	T
Georgia	15	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	ML	ML
New Jersey	15	O	O	OL	OL	O	O	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	T	T	T	ML	ML	M	ML	ML
Missouri	11	T	ML	T	T	ML	T	ML	T	T
Washington	11	O	O	O	OL	O	O	O	OL	O
Arizona	10	ML	M	M	M	M	ML	M	M	M
Minnesota	10	O	OL	O	OL	O	OL	O	T	OL
Wisconsin	10	O	O	OL	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	M	ML	M	M	M	M	M	M
Iowa	7	OL	O	OL	OL	O	OL	OL	T	T
Oregon	7	O	OL	OL	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL
Arkansas	6	M	M	M	M	M	ML	M	ML	M
Mississippi	6	M	M	M	ML	M	M	M	M	M
Nevada	5	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
New Mexico	5	O	OL	OL	T	OL	OL	OL	T	T
W. Virginia	5	M	ML	M	M	M	ML	M	ML	M
Maine	4	O	O	O	OL	O	O	O	OL	O
NH	4	OL	T	T	T	OL	T	OL	T	T
Alaska	3	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	ML
Delaware	3	O	OL	OL	O	O	O	O	O	O
Montana	3	T	T	T	ML	T	ML	ML	ML	ML
N. Dakota	3	T	T	T	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	ML
S. Dakota	3	M	T	M	M	M	ML	ML	M	ML
		Open Left	EV. com	FHQ	RCP	538 .com	Elect. Proj.	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. Only polls in July has Obama up 6. 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. Obama averaging up 7 in 3 late July polls.
  
• 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.