*** State of the GE race: McCain vs Clinton or Obama ***

I won't editorialize this time, just post my findings and let y'all post your own thoughts.

My methodology was to take an average of all recent polls from all polling companies (usually since February 2008); compare this to pollster.com's composite average; and take the average between my result and pollster's result to come up with a final composite number for each state. Where no current numbers exist I averaged the actual win/loss percentages in each state (democrat vs republican) over the last several election cycles.

Essentially I'm doing the same thing as electoral-vote.com, but instead of using only the latest poll (which can lead to wild fluctuations and the possibility of some outlier polls) I'm taking an average of many polls.

In my last post on this subject, McCain was leading Obama 281 to 257; and leading Clinton 297 to 241.

This time around, NH and NM have slipped out of Obama's column; MN has left Clinton's column.

For those who can't see the picture below, that leaves us with:

McCain 290, Obama 248; McCain 307, Clinton 231.

The maps on the right side reflect the possible end result if the election were held today.

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Ok, I WILL make one editorial comment: It seems that McCain has been the beneficiary of this extended battle for the Democratic nomination. The sooner this is decided, the better.

what's helping him. About 8-10 % percentage points. Give it time until the bruised feelings heal, and it will be much different.

for Obama, those two states will be VERY important.

McCain is sleeping on his coach. Given Obama's ability to turn things around from 20 points down, I think those few points won't be a big deal at all.

(Check the color-coding chart)

McCain.
Now let’s do a small calculation. About 35% of them say that now. That's 35% of 50% ( Approximate HRC base) of roughly 50% of the voting population (the DP Party).

That's 9% of the voting population voting on emotions right now. That’s an 18% swing (because you took the 9% from Obama and give them to McCain so -9 from Obama and +9 to McCain).

If half of HRC supporters came to their senses, Obama wins PA with 7-8 points.
That’s why all those GE polls are irrelevant now.

while Hillary takes WV, but not NH????

And Obama doesn't take PA? Why??

And of course take some of 'em with a grain of salt. Hillary's only barely not carrying WA and MN. WI has always been right on the edge for us - don't know about MI. NH is of course a very annoying swing state - can't explain Hillary's support in WV at this point. Obama's extremely close to taking PA and OH both.

They know which demographics and counties to plug in to get the answers they want. There isn't any way in the world McCain is taking those states so please let's not feed into it. We need to move this election to the west and the south and not let them force us to fight it in states that are already ours.

McCain's camp isn't reading my post and rubbing their hands with glee. They have their own internals and they know where they have a chance. We should be prepared to vigorously defend our own turf at the same time that we cut into theirs. We won WI by 0.5% in 2000, and by only 1% in 2004. Of course McCain will be focusing on it. I'm not too worried about WA (being from there myself) but it would be more competitive for McCain if Hillary won, I'm sure of that. We won MN by an average 2.5% in the last two elections. PA by only 2% in 2004; MI by 3% in 2004. We would be targeting red states with such close numbers, so it only makes sense that McCain will be targeting these close blue states. It's not like I'm giving him ideas he doesn't already have. Being more centrist than Bush, he has a legitimate shot and we must be prepared and GOTV, take nothing for granted.

That's the exact thing that everybody said in 2004, nobody cares what gets posted at DU. But we are real people, and we go out there and talk to other real people. So what gets said here does filter out to the rest of the population. You start people talking about problems in places like Washington and Minnesota, and next thing you know it's all over the teevee and we've got to fight in states that should be gimmees. When will we learn to set the agenda ourselves and stop letting the pollsters and pundits do it.

That has been a problem for her throughout the campaign.

But we're still not voting for McCain. I don't think tradtional blue states would either, not that it matters anymore.

Only difference from yours is I gave Nevada to McCain and Pennsylvania to Obama. I think the best possible outcome for a Obama win would be Obama 278 (all the Kerry states + IA, NM, CO, NV) and McCain 260.

Best possible outcome for McCain would be all the Bush states + NH, PA, MI, WI). So McCain 338 - Obama 200. I'm not to worried about Minnesota flipping to McCain, no republican has won it since Nixon in 72.

However it's been pretty close and McCain is a centrist so I wouldn't want to take it for granted. First time for everything.

I'm glad someone here is doing this. I'll be watching with interest.

Two quickies.

First, using polls this year is like betting on professional wrestling. You can do it but you need to
have a good sense of irony. The PTB have not told the polling companies how the election will come
out yet Check this out - it shows, without any doubt, that the final 2004 exit poll, the version that
the network consortium said was their best and final was, in fact, fundamentally flawed - they had
"big city" turnout up 66% from 2004. We pointed that out to them and showed how they'd have to have
known that their "big city" turnout was wrong. They never changed, never explained. It makes any
further effort flawed.

See Election 2004: The Urban Legend & Notes from the Underground

Second, that McCain 290 - Obama 248 is intriguing. Is it right that flipping Pennsylvania makes it an
Electoral College draw - 269 each. Damn.

But on election night, before even turning on the TV, I was able to tell that it was all going to come down to OH and that there was a very good chance Kerry would lose. I was NOT happy about being proven right. I used the same system - averaging all polls (not exactly the way Pollster does it though, I've found some problems with their method).

If the polling models take into account the large influx of democratic voters?

Obama's map will probably look more like this
Landrieu's not a weak as I expected, so maybe we get LA..and Ron Paul & Huckabee BOTH beat Mccain in Alaska & they are pretty bummed out over their republican scandals

You could even remove PA from Obama's column & still end up with 282... remove NM too, and the little bit of NE and he still has 276

the way things seem to be going right now and what it is we need to do. Where we should focus our efforts the most..

If it's Clinton, obviously FL. If Obama, we might be better off putting more resources elsewhere - but that's not to say he can't catch up and shouldn't try. 50-state strategy is a winner when we have more money than McCain.

Colorado, Virginia & New Mexico have much smaller populations, and are easier to politick in...
The "big three" can come along or not..but he does not NEED them as much as they need him :)

Once we have a unified party, and a two-person race, these number will shift quickly.

Unfortunately McCain does well with independents so we won't be able to take anything for granted.