I have been thinking about likely electoral outcomes and here are four that I am considering.

Scenario 1 — McCain Wins By Holding GOP 2004 States

McCain wins 31 states

Under this scenario, Senator McCain wins the Electoral College vote by carrying the exact same 31 states that President Bush won in 2004 giving McCain 286 Electoral College votes to Obama’s 252. Though certainly a plausible scenario, this scenario is not supported by current polling data. Obama leads by double digits in Iowa (which never even entered the battleground realm) and New Mexico and by high single digits in Missouri, Colorado and Virginia. Obama’s lead in Nevada and Florida is narrower. Ohio at the moment is a dead heat. Losing Iowa and New Mexico isn’t fatal to McCain’s chances. Losing any of the others is.

Scenario 2 — Obama Wins Based on Current Polling Data

Obama wins 26 states plus DC

Under this scenario which largely reflects current polling data (North Dakota is technically leaning towards Obama but this is the conservative model), Senator Obama wins 26 states plus the District of Columbia giving him 329 Electoral College votes to McCain’s 209. The difference between this scenario is that Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia and Florida are flipped from McCain to Obama. Without question, this right now seems the most likely scenario.

Scenario 3 — The Case for the Obama Landslide & Why North Dakota Matters

Obama landslide of 30 states plus DC

As a historian, one of the beauties of analyzing US elections is noticing how various states behave through time. This is the case for why that poll by the Fargo Forum that I reported on earlier this week matters. North Dakota is a reliably GOP state but the state does have its quirks. It was once a hotbed of prairie populism and it is a state with some remarkably socialist tendencies (the grain silos are state owned) and North Dakota has broken from the GOP column just three times in the past hundred years — 1932, 1936 and 1964. The margin in those years wasn’t much but it was enough to swing the state Democratic. With polls in North Dakota showing a narrow Obama lead (it’s effectively a dead heat since Obama’s leads are within the margin of errors), the case can be made that we have an Obama landslide in the making.

The map above represents the scenario for the Obama landslide scenario. Obama wins 30 states plus the District of Columbia with a total of 372 Electoral College votes versus 166 for McCain. If the North Dakota polling turns out to be accurate, then all the other states where the race is close are likely to break for Obama. It’s even possible that Obama might add states like Montana, Georgia and Indiana to his column. That would give him another 29 Electoral College votes putting him over the 400 mark. The last to achieve this was George Herbert Walker Bush in 1988 winning 40 states with 411 Electoral College votes. Possible but basically everything would have to go Obama’s way and I’m not sure it will.

Scenario 4 — McCain Keystone Hopes

McCain wins PA and 27 other states

Even though he trails by low double digits in every single Pennsylvania poll, McCain hasn’t ridden off the Keystone State. This scenario affords McCain the ability to lose a few states that Bush carried and still win the Presidency. And the reason that this scenario makes sense is that the demographics in Pennsylvania might be amendable to a McCain push if he can make a sustained and cogent case. Under the Keystone scenario, McCain would win 273 Electoral College votes to Obama’s 265. McCain would carry 28 states. A few trends would also also remain intact:

1– Missouri’s bellwether status of getting it right.

2– Nevada would also be right for the eighth consecutive time.

Nonetheless this is a long shot but that’s McCain’s position right now. A long shot.

Prediction
My prediction is that if McCain fails to carry Pennsylvania on November 4th, he will have lost because I don’t think scenario 1 is probable. Conversely if McCain does win Pennsylvania, he will have likely won the race. Still if I were to put money down on a scenario I’d go with the second scenario though I am tempted to bet the house on the third scenario.

Return to Main

Here are seven articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.

Obama Leads Among White Independents
By David Paul Kuhn writing for Politico.

Barack Obama has taken a slight lead with white independent voters for the first time in the presidential race, positioning him to capture a key demographic group that has eluded recent Democratic nominees, according to a Politico analysis of independent voting patterns.

According to Gallup’s weekly average of some 6,400 registered voters, Obama now holds a 45 percent-43 percent edge over Republican John McCain with white independents. About eight in 10 independents are white.

Should Obama’s support hold, he is positioned to become the first Democrat to win white independents in a two-man race since the advent of exit polling.

As recently as last week, McCain led within this group by eight percentage points. His lead was as high as 16 points in mid-September, in the week before the stock market’s first meltdown.

Pelosi Predicts 250-seat Democratic majority
By Alexander Bolton in The Hill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says Democrats will expand their majority to 250 seats in the House next year and might have gone further if the party had more money.

Pelosi’s claim to talk show host Charlie Rose — that resources are the only obstacle holding the party back in the fall elections — is surprising given that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has raised $120 million, or nearly $30 million more than the House Republican fundraising committee.

Obama Ahead in Critical Counties
By Alexander Burns writing for Politico.

Sen. Barack Obama holds leads in four key counties that will go a long way toward determining the eventual winner in four important swing states — Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — according to a new Politico/Insider Advantage survey.

Obama is poised to expand on recent Democratic gains in three populous suburban counties — Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, Missouri’s St. Louis County and Virginia’s Prince William County. In a fourth, Ohio’s Franklin County, home to Columbus and its suburbs, the survey also found Obama with the lead.

(more…)