Monday, October 6, 2008

Obama's upper limit?

As of writing, things are looking very good for Obama - as per Pollster.com, Obama leads McCain 296-163 in the electoral vote count, including strong- and lean-Dem states, with Florida and Colorado moving in to the lean-Obama column.  Further, Obama has slender leads in New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada - and North Carolina!  In OH, VA and NC, use of the "sensitive" smoothing shows Obama leads from 4% to 7%, close to or beyond MOE (likely also the case for NH, but Pollster's map for NH has a bug).  The only toss-up states where McCain is ahead are Missouri and Indiana (where Obama will likely spend his third debate prep-time).  This should be Obama's upper limit - 296 strong/lean-Dem + 57 slight leads = 353 EV.  Add in Indiana, and that makes 364 EV Obama's high water mark.
Of course, Obama winning all 364 electoral votes is highly unlikely, and I will settle for 270!  In the mean time, here's the Pollster.com electoral vote map, which is now offered as an embed by the awesome Mark Blumenthal:


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