CNN's Electoral Map Calculator

[W_HAMILTON]

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/calculator/

I put Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Hampshire in the Obama category, since I don't see him really losing those usually Democratic states.

That puts Obama at 264. All it would take is Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, or Florida to win the election. I don't feel all that well about Florida, but I think it's very likely Obama will win at least one of those other states. That makes me feel a little bit better about everything.

I failed to include Nevada, but that's because it's 5 electoral votes wouldn't put Obama over the edge.

Fun little calculator.

PS - It looks like in a worse case scenario (where McCain wins Florida, Virginia, AND Ohio), whoever wins Colorado would end up winning the presidency. I never quite understood why we put so many resources into Colorado, just to win its 9 votes, but I can see why now :)

[Schulzz]

1. Obama is up 6 in Colorado in an average of the last 5 polls (50.2-44.8)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/co/colorado_mccain_vs_obama-546.html

He is in a very good position today.

[TheWraith]

2. Obama's now up by 9 points in Colorado.

So says the latest poll.

[DarthDem]

3. Nevada Gets a Tie

. . . with the Kerry states, IA, and NM. And Obama wins in the House. Not the best scenario for governance, but better than having the Supreme Court select the president.

[W_HAMILTON]

4. How has Obama been doing in Nevada?

It's listed as a "battleground" on CNN's calculator, but I always figured it has been traditionally a Republican state, so I wasn't sure what the odds were of flipping it. Do you know what the Nevada polls are saying right now? Who's ahead?

[Schulzz]

6. Nevada is very close but I haven't seen a poll that shows Obama leading in the last weeks.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nv/nevada_mccain_vs_obama-252.html

[DarthDem]

9. New Poll Out Today . . .

. . . had Obama +2. It is a partisan (D) poll, though. I imagine Nevada is probably tied right now - - there has been a huge surge in registrations since 2004 (and especially recently), and most of those are assumed to favor Democrats.

[ronnykmarshall]

5. Here's mine.

[W_HAMILTON]

7. I hope it turns out that way :)

My worst case scenario would be Obama winning 273-265.

But how I think it will turn out, Obama wins 293-245. I'm not quite as optimistic as you :)

[LynneSin]

8. I can see a strong 269 for Obama which means we need one more state

I think Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado will all go clear Obama and with those states we're at 269.

I think there are too much corruption in Florida and Ohio to count on those states (although to be fair Ohio's new Sec. of State is trying to clean up that mess but may not see the light until 2012).

So that leaves us with Virginia, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Two of those states have strong Senate races with the democrat challenger polling extremely strong numbers so we have to hope that Warner and/or Shaheen can pull their states in for Obama with their senate wins.