What A Landslide In The Making Looks Like

[babylonsister]

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8840

What A Landslide In The Making Looks Like
by: Paul Rosenberg
Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 21:00


This is one view of what a coalescing landslide election looks like. It's from the Princeton Election Consortium, and it's a distribution map of all possible election outcomes in the Electoral College. On the left is the distribution based on polling through September 30. There is just the tiniest tail of the distribution across the red line where McCain wins. The highest peak of blue lines is close to 7% for one specific distribution giving Obama a vivtyory with over 320 votes. On the right is the distribution based on polling just two days later, on October 2. There is no longer any part of the distribution across the red line, giving McCain a victory. What's more, the highest peak of blue lines now reaches 14% and it is for more than 350 electoral votes. Of course these are just two snapshots in time. But they do show how dramatically the race has moved in the direction of an Obama landslide, just as early voting is about to begin.

Here are the full-size versions, September 30 first:


And October 2:


October 4 is very similar to October 2, so this is a good representation of where the race is right now, through this lens.

Here is an additional angle on the race, from Pollster.com. Their scoring system has 250 EVs as "lean Dem" or better, compared to 163 "lean Rep," and the distribution of tossups heavily favors Obama. Indeed, the addition of Colorado and Minnesota bring Obama to 269--a tie--giving him five different ways to win with states he currently leads in:



As Kos notes, McCain has been outspending Obama 10-1 in Minnesota this month, with over $1.25 million in ads, but he still can't flip it. If McCain did come any closer, Obama could easily dump $100k, no doubt quickly gain back a few points. McCain faces this same sort of uphill terrain everywhere he looks, as the earliest voters are about to start casting votes.

And with another debate on Tuesday, and the Troopergate Report on Friday, this week doesn't look to be any better for McCain than last week was.

[ClarkUSA]

1. Nice, but we've still got a month to go, which means October Surprise by BushCo

We've got to work our tails off. This is the crunch time when every volunteer counts, no matter if they contact one voter a day or a hundred.

Let's enjoy the moment but do not get complacent. This is about as good as it'll get with the bailout in every voters' mind. A month from
now, it'll be something else -- like a couple of tapes released by BushCo's CIA a few days before the election (just like 2004).

[cali]

4. actually, it doesn't mean anything of the sort. could happen.

or not. And the release of tapes in 2004, did not tank Kerry. take a look at the polling in that year throughout October. Having said that, I agree that this is the time to work harder, not get complacent.

[MindMatter]

2. It still begs the question why McCain pulled out of Michigan

Statistically, Michigan doesn't look much different from Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.

And given how one-sided a few of the most recent PA polls have been, one wonders if McCain pulled out of the wrong state.

[babylonsister]

3. According to this, he had to. He hit his spending limit:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7316815&mesg_id=7316815