Electoral Math
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A few people are freaking out or making snarky remarks about the speculation being floated that Obama could win without Ohio and Florida. In all likelihood I think Obama can win Ohio but I think Florida is no longer the swing state it was in 2000 and before. It’s certainly not an Obama thing, Democrats have had trouble winning statewide there in the last 8 years with the exception of an incumbent Senator like Bill Nelson who had the luck of going up against nutter Katherine Harris.
I especially find the criticism of David Plouffe kind of funny. David Plouffe’s strategy just beat Hillary Clinton, who many of these same people had in the Oval Office already.
20 Responses to “Electoral Math”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
People need to calm down. Obama is going to campaign hard in Ohio. He’s just shaking the TradMed idiots out of their stupid thinking. He’s just going to make the TradMed travel to more than just Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Obama doesn’t need Ohio to win the White House. In fact, if he wins Ohio, he will have probably won more than 300 EC votes.
That said, if McCain doesn’t win Ohio, there is almost no chance of him winning the White House. For that matter, it is the biggest ‘Must Win’ state for 2008. (Check out the numbers here…fivethirtyeight.com) So the best way to stop McCain is to stop him from winning Ohio.
On the other hand, I think once Obama starts campaigning in Florida, he will close in on McCain and it will be too close to call in the final days of the election.
I’m sure I’m naive, but it’s just hard to believe an old fossil tied to Bush Administration follies, who represents himself with only marginal coherence, a lousy speaker and total weathervane in principles, could win a single state.
I know I shouldn’t underestimate the “0000H, he’s black” fear factor facing Obama, nor the smears and dirty tactics waiting to be played, but still…
Goldwater and Bob Dole looked so much better by comparison.
fivethirtyeight.com give Obama a 26% chance of winning 375 or more EC votes. That’s not a shutout, but it is an ass whooping. Hopefully as more people learn about McCain less than Maverick record, that number will go up. I want to see Obama’s chances at a landslide victory to be large than McCain’s chances at winning at all.
Obama will not win Florida. Northern Florida votes the same as Southern GA, Obama has not been able to connect with seniors and Liberman is heavily courting the Jewish vote.
Ohio is still up in the air, since Obama and the white male blue collar workers have not connected. Too close to call.
I would not trade FL and MI for VA and Colorado. Better get on the phone to Hillary if you want to have a chance in either state.
Nice job slipping Michigan into a discussion of Florida and Ohio.
Obama can win Michigan.
“Obama will not win Florida.”
Don’t be so sure. The site I posted above has his with a nearly 40% shot at it. That’s hardly worth of such a declarative statement.
“I would not trade FL and MI for VA and Colorado. Better get on the phone to Hillary if you want to have a chance in either state.”
Obama is leading McCain is Michigan, so I think your analysis is less than reliable.
Oliver,
you live in Florida, right? Can you say what happened to Florida? The entire country it seems moved left since 2004. Why not Florida?
Oliver lives in Maryland.
Yeah I left Florida in ’99 and Dems have had trouble there ever since. Coincidence?
Lieberman is not an asset with the Jewish vote in Florida. Ask Al Gore.
Obama can win Michigan.
The last Republican candidate to win Michigan was George H.W. Bush. Sen. Kerry won the state by about 160,000 votes. Since 1983 they’ve had 12 years of Republican governorship and 13 years Democratic. The Republicans hold a 9-6 advantage in the state’s representatives, but both of its Senators are Democrats. And, as C.S. pointed out, Sen. Obama is leading in Michigan.
Why would anyone think Obama doesn’t ‘have a chance’ in Michigan? Are certain among us overestimating the importance of disaffected Clinton supporters?
Oliver, with Lieberman on the ticket in 2000, the Democratics got as near to a tie as statistically possible. Without Lieberman, the state is pretty close to being reliably red. While I’m not sure anyone knows whether Lieberman is an asset in Florida NOW, he WAS without a doubt a significant factor in 2000.
Michigan is kind of a perfect storm for Democratics this year, with the abundance of blue-collar whites (one of Obama’s weakest constituencies) and the whole “not counting your votes” snafu. Under normal circumstances, Michigan is a Dem gimmie. And IMHO if Hillary had been the nominee, it still would be. But events have conspired to put in play what would otherwise be a safe haven for the Dems in November.
“Oliver, with Lieberman on the ticket in 2000, the Democratics got as near to a tie as statistically possible. Without Lieberman, the state is pretty close to being reliably red. While I’m not sure anyone knows whether Lieberman is an asset in Florida NOW, he WAS without a doubt a significant factor in 2000.”
Huh? Bush only won over Kerry by 5%. Clinton won in 1996 by 6%. With Lieberman on the ticket it was closer to Kerry than Clinton, so you can’t claim Lieberman was any help in 2000.
“Under normal circumstances, Michigan is a Dem gimmie.”
What? Are you on crack? Gore won by 5%, Kerry by 3%. Again, your assertions don’t match reality and there’s little point in accepting your analysis.
The response to this is so funny. It’s a pretty bad week for Obama opponents when the best reason they can find to be hopeful is an article from his campaign bragging about how good their map looks.
Isn’t the Robert Stacy McCain to whom you link a racist sh–head lately of the Washington Times (best coverage of inanity in the Potomac region, as far as I remember)? Why should we lend what he writes any credibility?
Michigan? For McCain? Michigan’s been pretty screwed economically under the Bush plan. As more and more voters realize, that when applied to McCain, ‘Maverick’ means “in lockstep with Bush”, you can take Michigan and Ohio off the table.
I think McCain will have trouble in North Carolina as well.
Oliver, with Lieberman on the ticket in 2000, the Democratics got as near to a tie as statistically possible.
We’ll never really know, will we?
I contend that Lieberman is not an asset to ANYBODY.
“We’ll never really know, will we?”
Exactly. That is a claim that is impossible to prove or disprove with the limited experiments we were able to run. (One.)
quinnipiac.edu/x2882.xml?ReleaseID=1187
Obama is up by four points, in FLORIDA. I guess that means he doesn’t need Clinton to make it competitive.
He’s up by five in Ohio and up 12 in Pennsylvania. Sweet lord, that’s awesome. If he can win all three of those, the odds of McCain still winning the White House is less than 1%.
In fact, not taking these polls into account, fivethirtyeight.com has Obama with a better than 67% chance of winning and a nearly 32% chance of a blowout. Hopefully the media will catch up and stop talking about a horse race.