First Look At The New Electoral Map, Nate Silver breaks it down.

[jefferson_dem]

Monday, September 8, 2008
First Look At The New Electoral Map

Rasmussen has just released polling from five key swing states. When coupled with PPP's new poll of Michigan and SurveyUSA's new release from Virginia, we see a race that is relatively unchanged from the pre-convention period, but with incremental trends in different states that might portend changes in electoral strategy:

State/Pollster WAS NOW SWING
OH Rasmussen McCain +5 McCain +7 McCain +2
MI PPP Obama +3 Obama +1 McCain +2
PA Rasmussen Obama +3 Obama +2 McCain +1
VA Rasmussen McCain +1 McCain +2 McCain +1
VA SurveyUSA McCain +1 McCain +2 McCain +1
FL Rasmussen McCain +2 TIE Obama +2
CO Rasmussen McCain +1 Obama +3 Obama +4
====================================================
AVERAGE McCain +0.6 McCain +0.7 McCain +0.1


A few thoughts, and caveats:

The best news for McCain at a micro level is that he appears as though he might have gained just a tiny bit of ground in the Midwestern Rust Belt states, something which may also have been reflected in the new ABC/WaPo national poll, which showed him performing well in the Midwest. I still think that Pennsylvania isn't going to close quite enough for him to qualify as a top-tier swing state, especially as there are a lot of Clinton voters out there who should be returning to the Obama ticket. But Ohio now looks like it probably isn't Obama's path of least resistance to 270 electoral votes, and I'd expect Michigan to continue to be very competitive.

The best micro-level news for Obama is in Florida, where there are a couple of favorable dynamics in play:

(i) the Joe Biden selection probably went over well there;
(ii) the consolidation of the Clinton vote is also valuable in Florida, and
(iii) something is likely to be lost in translation between Sarah Palin and swing groups like Jewish voters and Cubans; moreover, Floridians tend to be fairly socially liberal but more conservative on fiscal and foreign policy, not necessarily the best match for Palin's politics.

We need more evidence to confirm this, but at this point, it feels to me like Florida is a better target for Obama than Ohio.

It also looks to me like the Palin selection may have increased the income/economic gap. That is probably good news for McCain in Ohio and good news for Obama in states like Colorado. It theoretically might also be good news for Obama in Virginia, but I think his gains there might be offset by McCain consolidating evangelicals.

At a macro level, these numbers seem like basically good news for Obama, since the overall numbers in swing states haven't moved much at all - just shifted around some from region to region. McCain is polling about 3 points better right now than he was at the pre-convention equilibrium. It's possible that those 3 points are manifesting themselves mostly in states that were already very red. Maybe Obama will lose Idaho and Nebraska and Alabama by 30 points rather than 20, but that doesn't help McCain very much electorally (an exception might be in a state like Indiana).

In other words, I suspect that the probability of Obama winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote probably increased as a result of the post-convention dynamics. If you literally just looked at the polling out today, McCain would win the popular vote by 2-3 points, but Obama would probably be at least even money in the electoral college, by just barely holding onto Michigan and Pennsylvania and then either winning the Colorado/Iowa/New Mexico parlay, or perhaps Florida.

Note: These polls won't officially be reflected in our model until tomorrow, unless the White Sox game gets rained out.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/peak-at-new-electoral-map.html

[cloudythescribbler]

1. Any remaining traces of the smugness that in the past we've seen on DU need to be TRANSCENDED!!!!!

Here's a chilling observation from another recent thread about the polls:

<i>White women shifted from an eight-point pre-convention edge for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage now. . .</i>

Palin may be disgusting, and her anointment by McCain undermines all REASONABLE credibility of the much touted "Country First" slogan (I suppose the logic is that it's more important for the COUNTRY for McCain to WIN than for him to pick from at least a small GROUP of the most qualified GOPers as his running mate) but it's crucial to admit that, at least thus far, it was a decision, much derided by pundits at first, of political (electoral) genius.
At the supermarket last nite I noticed her & family on the covers of People, National Enquirer, Us and numerous other publications which, let us remember, are read and seen by more Americans than the entire collection of the WaPo, NY Times, Phil Enquirer, Boston Globe, Oakland Tribune, Christian Science Monitor and ALL the leading publications of PROGRESSIVE leanings (as distinct from these MSM pubs) COMBINED. She has enormous "soap opera" type (as I call it) appeal to the great majority of Americans who are really barely if at all political/ideological. It isn't that she's less ideological or divisive (HARDLY!) but that that kind of glamour that the Kennedies, the British Royal Family, and Eva Peron had, is crucial, the degree to which it is media-created being another question.

For all the supposed criticism in the MSM of Palin, there's a "made in Hong Kong" stamp discernible on the bottom of their supposedly authentic Ming vase: There was the situation at the Repuke Convention of 04, where pretense of a critical stance towards the GOP was maintained by the MSM (as in noting that Bush himself had used the term "occupation" about Iraq, which he and Repukes were criticizing Kerry for doing), they NEVER exposed or even criticized the brazen flimsiness of the FlipFlop spin (later debunked by Jonathan Chait in THE NEW REPUBLIC in October when it was about 4 months too late) . This year, while there were critiques of Palin aplenty (but not a drop to drink) NO ONE IN THE MSM seems to be addressing one of the key elements of a key issue regarding her politically -- the infamous bridge to nowhere (an issue, remember, in which THE NEW YORK TIMES played a major part). The same Democratic Congress that was elected in the same national election that elevated Palin to the governorship of Alaska, when they ditched the 'bridge to nowhere' that Palin had supported as long as it was politically feasible, turned around and made an AMAZING and, at the time but not now widely publicized, sweetheart deal IN WHICH ALASKA GOT TO KEEP BASICALLY ALL THE MONEY, WITH DE FACTO COMPLETE FREEDOM TO SPEND IT HOW THEY PLEASED!!!!!. This AMAZING generosity towards Alaska (toward Palin? -- getting with the program, anyone????? hmmmmm?) really puts the lie to the whole 'thanx but no thanx' claim, and also puts the lie to the notion of really standing up to Palin on the part of mainstream Democrats OR media (like w/the so-not-privileged FlipFlop spin).

I would also note in passing that Wasilla, according to Wikipedia, has a workforce 35% of whom work in Anchorage, which is HUGE for ANY suburb, and is described in a leading guidebook as "the worst kind of suburban sprawl" with malls and gravel lots lining highways, in this rapidly expanding/sprawling suburb. It was palmed off as Mayberry and again, the emperor's clothes were a subject avoided, even amidst those maintaining the IMAGE of MSM independence.

Reality is such a rude bastard, ain't it???????

[amborin]

2. we need

michigan and...ohio or penn

we can't get by without them