Presidential Forecast - 8/6 - Delayed Reaction

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Obama leads 299-239, a gain of 2 EVs for McCain since the last forecast, and the first time Obama has been below 300 EVs since June 20th. McCain picked up some movement in Florida and Ohio, and anytime a large state changes category, it's worth about 1 EV in the overall numbers. On the other hand, NBC did their monthly update, moving 3 states in Obama's direction, including Iowa finally out of Tossup.

Remember that state polls lag behind national polls, and some projections don't update as frequently as others, so the projection could be better thought of as an average over the last 3 weeks or so.

One other note about NBC's projection. One of the things they look at is whether the campaigns are contesting a state. In NJ, 3 of the last 4 polls show a 10 point lead or less, so one could argue it should be Obama-Lean. But McCain is not contesting the state, so it's very unlikely to shift. That's one difference between the CNN and NBC type projections, and the purely poll driven projections.

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. No changes from the previous map.

<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 2 states have shifted categories on the consensus map since early June 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, MD, NY, RI, VT - 138 EVs. Note: MA is no longer unanimous Obama (Elec-Vote and RCP have it as OL), but has not been placed on the chart at this time.
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	FHQ	EV. com	RCP	538 .com	Elect. Proj.	RM	NBC	CNN	.…
Date		8/6.	8/6.	8/6.	8/3.	8/6.	8/6.	7/22.	8/6.	7/24.
Obama-Strong (O)		236	175	185	141	238	183	210	190	153
Obama-Lean (OL)		28	47	58	97	26	60	63	27	68
Tossup (T)		102	159	103	137	50	121	38	132	128
McCain-Lean (ML)		75	63	95	72	67	31	62	53	64
McCain-Strong (M)		97	94	97	91	157	143	165	136	125
Obama Total		264	222	243	238	264	243	273	217	221
McCain Total		172	157	192	163	224	174	227	189	189
Obama Est.		324	305	302	302	298	298	292	288	284
Texas	34	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	M
Florida	27	T	T	ML	T	ML	T	ML	T	T
Pennsylvania	21	O	T	OL	OL	O	OL	OL	T	OL
Ohio	20	T	T	T	T	T	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	OL	O	OL	O	O	O	O	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	T	ML	T	ML	T	ML	T	T
Washington	11	O	O	O	OL	O	O	O	O	OL
Arizona	10	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Minnesota	10	O	O	OL	OL	O	OL	O	OL	T
Wisconsin	10	O	OL	O	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL
Colorado	9	T	T	T	T	T	T	OL	T	T
Louisiana	9	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	ML
S. Carolina	8	ML	ML	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Iowa	7	OL	OL	O	OL	O	OL	OL	OL	T
Oregon	7	O	OL	OL	OL	O	OL	O	O	OL
Arkansas	6	M	M	M	M	M	ML	M	M	ML
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	M	ML	M	M	ML	M	M	ML
Maine	4	O	O	O	OL	O	O	O	O	OL
NH	4	OL	T	T	T	OL	T	OL	T	T
Alaska	3	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	ML	M
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	ML	M
S. Dakota	3	M	ML	T	M	M	ML	ML	ML	M
		Open Left	FHQ	EV. com	RCP	538 .com	Elect. Proj.	RM	NBC	CNN	.…

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, CNN still calling it a Tossup. Only July poll shows Obama up by 10.
  
• Minnesota : 4 at Obama-Strong, CNN at Tossup
  
• New Mexico: 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.
• Pennsylvania: OpenLeft at Obama-Strong, 2 at Tossup. Obama averaging up 7 in 3 late July polls.
  
• South Dakota: EV.com at Tossup, 3 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.