Sunday, July 06, 2008

Presidential Forecast - July 6

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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 7/6: Latest projection: Obama leads 302-236, a gain of 1 EV from July 2. Biggest move was in Montana, with 5 projections moving in Obama's direction. Also movement in GA, and CT is now all Obama-Strong, taking it off the chart.

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: MT moves 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 (new), DC, HI, IL, MA, MD, NY, RI, VT - 150 EVs.
Solid McCain: AL, ID, KS, KY, OK, SD, TN, UT, WY - 56 EVs. (Note: 538 has SD at McCain-Lean. we'll see if that holds or if anyone else moves SD before adding SD to the chart).

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
EVsElect. Proj.Open Left538.comEV.
com
RCPRMFHQCNNNBC....
Date

7/27/27/67/67/27/37/66/276/5
Obama-Strong (O)

207207214194153200175153153
Obama-Lean (OL)

778679458593427847
Tossup (T)

86513010413718122113138
McCain-Lean (ML)

921036911570561086984
McCain-Strong (M)

7691143809317191125116
Obama Total

284293293239238293217231200
McCain Total

168194212195163227199194200
Obama Est.

330322309305304295291286276

Texas
34MLMLMMLMLMMLMM
Florida
27TTMLMLTMLMLTT
Pennsylvania
21OLOLOLTOLOLTOLT
Ohio
20OLOLOLTTOLTTT
Michigan
17OLOLOLOLTOLTTT
Georgia
15MLMLMMLMLMMLMLML
New Jersey
15OOOOOLOOLOLOL
N. Carolina
15TMLMLTTMLMLMLML
Virginia
13TTTTTTTTT
Indiana
11MLMLTTTMTMLML
Missouri
11TMLMLMLTMLTTML
Washington
11OOOOOLOOOLOL
Arizona
10MLMMMMMMMM
Minnesota
10OOOOLOLOOOLOL
Wisconsin
10OOOOOLOLOLOLT
Colorado
9TOLOLTTOLTTT
Louisiana
9MMMMMLMMMLML
S. Carolina
8MLMLMMLMMMLMM
Iowa
7OLOLOLOLOLOLOLTT
Oregon
7OLOLOTOLOOLOLOL
Arkansas
6TMMMLMMMMLML
Mississippi
6MLMLMMLMLMMLMML
Nebraska
5MMMMMMMMML
Nevada
5TTMLTTTTTT
New Mexico
5OLOLOLOLTOLTMLT
W. Virginia
5MLMMLMLMMMMLM
Maine
4OOOOOLOOOLOL
NH
4OOOOTOLTTT
Alaska
3MMLMLTMLMMLMM
Delaware
3OOOOLOOOLOO
Montana
3MLTTOLMLMLTMLML
N. Dakota
3MTTMLMMTMML


Elect. Proj.Open Left538.comEV.
com
RCPRMFHQCNNNBC....































































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, 4 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.
  • Arkansas: 5 McCain-Strong, 1 Tossup
  • Connecticut: Electoral-vote.com still has it as Toss-up, and their chart shows they are ignoring the two new polls, both of which give Obama a +17 or more point lead.
  • Indiana: 4 at Tossup, Rasmussen at McCain-Strong.
  • Montana (new): EV.com at Obama-Lean, 5 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, 1 at Obama-Lean, 4 at Obama-Strong. This should move Obama's way as the older polls age out.
  • New Mexico: Five 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 - that won't last. Or will it? There hasn't been a state poll in ND since April.
  • Oregon - One of the few Obama states that seems to be closing, with Obama only up by 3 in the latest SurveyUSA poll. 1 Tossup, 2 Obama-Strong.
  • Wisconsin: 4 now at Obama-Strong. Just NBC still calling it a Tossup.
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.



Update 7/9: NBC has finally updated their map

Here are the changes from last month, most of them moving in Obama’s direction: ME and WA moved from Lean Obama to Base Obama; WI moved from Toss-up to Lean Obama; MO moved from Lean McCain to Toss-up; AK and SD moved from Base McCain to Lean McCain; and AR, LA, NE, and MS moved from Lean McCain to Base McCain.

We'll have an updated forecast out today or tomorrow.