Presidential Forecast - 9/17 - a lagging indicator

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Obama maintains the slimmest of leads, 270-268, an decrease of a 11 EVs from our last forecast. Bottom line, the state polls are still showing McCain's convention bounce, even as the national polls are starting to go Obama's way. We used to abuse our slow moving projections, FHQ, CNN, NBC and Rasmussen - now we love them. It's the sensitive projections, led by our friendly left blogs OpenLeft and 538, that give McCain his best numbers.

Colorado remains our tipping point state.

Map changes: Towards McCain: FL: T-> ML; NC, ND and SD, ML->M

Please also check out our Senate Forecast and House Forecast.

The sources are sorted by each projection's estimate of Obama's Electoral Votes (Algorithm at bottom). The states are sorted from Obama-Strong to McCain -Strong. The right column shows a running total of Obama's EVs. States in 3 or more categories: FL, IN, MN, MO, WA

DCW Presidential Forecast
State	EVs	FHQ	CNN	NBC	RM	EV. com	Elect. Proj.	RCP	Open Left	538 .com	EVs
Date		9/17.	9/15.	9/15.	9/13.	9/17.	9/15.	9/17.	9/17.	9/17.
Obama-Strong (O)		157	153	172	193	133	154	157	143	197
Obama-Lean (OL)		60	80	61	66	67	43	50	86	63
Tossup (T)		143	116	78	32	122	141	104	68	13
McCain-Lean (ML)		68	64	67	47	87	26	70	80	38
McCain-Strong (M)		110	125	160	200	129	174	157	161	227
Obama Total		217	233	233	259	200	197	207	229	260
McCain Total		178	189	227	247	216	200	227	241	265
Obama Est.		290	288	273	271	265	264	263	262	258
California	55	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	55
Conn.	7	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	62
DC	3	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	65
Hawaii	4	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	69
Maryland	10	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	79
Massachusetts	12	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	91
Rhode Island	4	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	95
Vermont	3	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	98
Delaware	3	O	O	O	O	O	OL	O	O	O	101
Illinois	21	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	OL	O	122
Maine	4	O	OL	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	126
New York	31	O	O	O	O	OL	O	O	O	O	157
Iowa	7	OL	OL	OL	OL	O	OL	OL	O	O	164
New Jersey	15	OL	OL	O	O	OL	OL	OL	OL	O	179
Oregon	7	OL	OL	OL	OL	OL	OL	OL	OL	O	186
Washington	11	OL	OL	OL	O	T	OL	OL	OL	O	197
Wisconsin	10	OL	OL	T	OL	OL	T	OL	OL	OL	207
Minnesota	10	OL	T	OL	O	T	T	T	T	OL	217
New Mexico	5	T	OL	OL	T	T	T	T	OL	OL	222
Pennsylvania	21	T	OL	OL	OL	T	T	T	T	OL	243
Michigan	17	T	T	T	OL	T	T	T	OL	OL	260
NH	4	T	T	T	OL	OL	T	T	T	T	264
Colorado	9	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	273
Virginia	13	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	ML	286
Nevada	5	T	T	T	T	T	T	T	ML	ML	291
Ohio	20	T	T	T	ML	T	T	T	ML	ML	311
Florida	27	T	T	ML	ML	ML	T	ML	ML	M	338
Indiana	11	T	ML	ML	M	T	M	ML	T	M	349
Missouri	11	T	T	ML	M	ML	ML	ML	ML	M	360
Montana	3	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	ML	ML	M	363
W. Virginia	5	ML	ML	M	M	ML	ML	M	ML	M	368
N. Carolina	15	ML	ML	ML	M	M	M	ML	M	M
Arizona	10	M	M	M	M	ML	ML	M	M	M
Louisiana	9	M	ML	M	M	M	M	M	ML	M
N. Dakota	3	ML	M	M	M	M	M	ML	M	M
Texas	34	ML	M	M	M	ML	M	M	M	M
Arkansas	6	M	ML	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Georgia	15	M	ML	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
S. Carolina	8	ML	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Alabama	9	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Alaska	3	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Idaho	4	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Kansas	6	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Kentucky	8	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Mississippi	6	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Nebraska	5	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Oklahoma	7	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
S. Dakota	3	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Tennessee	11	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Utah	5	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
Wyoming	3	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M	M
		FHQ	CNN	NBC	RM	EV. com	Elect. Proj.	RCP	Open Left	538 .com	....

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



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.