The Wordforge Election Predictor - July 2008

Okay so when reading about some of the fun memories people have of the 2004 Presidental Election and also about how much we like to all make fun of when anybody is wrong about anything, I thought it would be a good idea to combine the two! So here's the jist: You, esteemed Wordforger, predict the final map for this years Presidental Election. You can use http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/ as a way of quickly making a map. We should do this each month to see how our views change over the summer and the fall. As gay marriage is now legal in California, evenflow is dropping his pretense of a marriage will be announcing he is running off there with Tex in the coming days. So so sweeten the pot, I believe the winner should get Mrs. Flow.

To make this a Red Room thread: Anybody who disagrees with my prediction can only be described as someone who eats cat shit for breakfest, lunch, brunch, and a late night snack.

Here's my instinct right now:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...,ind,ne0,ne1,ne2,ne3,wv,ky,id,mt,sd,ks&uList=

And if anybody has a better way of doing this that's easy to access on the internets and you can save your choices, feel free to post it.

Could go either way at this point. If I had to say, it looks to me like Obama's got a slight edge.

My map

You've got Obama winning Virginia but not Ohio?

Ohio will turn before Virginia, but I think both will.

This site has been very accurate in forecasting polls with its regression model before the polls even come out.

That was my reaction too. Ohio is going to be very blue this time around. The state Republican party has been busily disintegrating over the last four years. Obama's in a hell of a lot of trouble if he doesn't carry Ohio.

I think Obama's going to win, but it might be close enough that McCain has a real chance and it might be a blowout, and I really don't know which at this point. If Cheney decides to bomb Iran before the election and gas jumps up to $7.50/gallon in response, Obama will top 400 electoral votes.

If you take 2004 results and flip Ohio, that's a good starting point for guessing what's going to happen, and that's a narrow Obama win. I'd guess Obama takes a state or two more than that, but without any real confidence in the prediction. I'd consider Obama a "buy" on intrade (he's about a 2-1 favorite there now) but not a very strong "buy."

The Senate and House are easier predictions IMO. Democrats to gain 3-5 in the Senate, 15-25 in the House. Barring an appropriately spinnable terrorist attack, I feel pretty safe in those ranges, with the most likely significant deviation being the Democrats picking up more seats in the House.

What Ohio was to 2004, Indiana will be to 2008. They've been more or less tied there for several weeks.

The only Kerry state that Obama has much of a chance to lose is Michigan, but I don't see it happening. From that base, he only needs Ohio to win. Ohio is looking as certain as Pennsylvania at this point, and Iowa and New Hampshire even more so. Throw in Colorado and New Mexico, which are leaning his way, and Virginia and Indiana, which are looking like at least 50/50 shots, and Obama is up to 321.

I did that in the guise of "nothing ever goes as planned so I am goign to try and be different somewhere."

The yellow states are the ones Obama is advertising in...generally ones where he either leads or trails by single digits in public polls (and presumably by his own internal polling). He took Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Maine off his list...he must feel good enough about them now, and added Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, and Alaska.

!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...d,ne0,ne1,ne2,ne3,wv,ky,id,mt,nm,sd,ks&uList=

Also, I think it's not unlikely that McCain could take the primary vote and lose in the Electoral college. In most of the red states (on that note, I REALLY wish some network would buck the trend and destroy this whole red states/blue states thing) McCain will win big. Really big. Whereas in many blue states, Obama's win will be marginal.

Obama winning Virginia but losing Wisconsin...there's some crazy ideas going on here

Politics is 50% Policy 50% Personality and 50% Unexpected. So who knows.

It's certainly possible...but if Obama manages to take Virginia, it will most likely be in the context of an evening where he also wins Ohio and Wisconsin by even more confortable margins.

As far as the Upper Midwest goes, I'd say Michigan is the more likely Kerry state loss than Wisconsin.

I actually think the flipside is true. I think that Obama has the popular vote locked up, barring some major character flaw revealing itself. He's going to exceed 50 percent almost for sure.

He's going to lose most of the South as Democrats have done electorally. But I think that his registration efforts and the novelty of a black president will get a lot of black people and younger voters to the polls there. Not enough to win any of them, but enough to make them much closer contests than Kerry, Gore or even Clinton experienced, generally speaking.

Most of the states Kerry and Gore won, Obama should also win and by fairly comfortable margins. Voter reg efforts and getting out the youth and black vote should give Obama a much larger lead in those states than you're giving him credit for.

So it could come down to a few of those rust belt states, and I could see them going either way, with the margin of victory in those likely to be less than 3 percent.

I think the opposite is much more likely. Things could easily go similarly to the last two elections, except for Obama getting much-higher-but-still-losing popular vote totals in the South because of increased black turnout. A lot of states that were 65-35 Bush might go 58-42 McCain even without any electoral college shift. And Obama is going to pile up more votes and a higher percentage of votes in Illinois than any Democrat's ever gotten. McCain will win bigger than Bush did in Kentucky and West Virginia, but that's not going to make up for an extra several million electorally useless votes in Illinois and the South that Obama will get.

I'm been saying this too, particularly the huge-but-not-quite-enough totals Obama will likely get in Southern States. I can see Obama losing the Electoral College while winning the popular vote by millions.

Plus, I think the states in which McCain wins "huge" will be few. He just isn't stirring up the base, and he isn't inspiring the centrists that might otherwise sit it out that much either. Obama will probably do better than Gore or Kerry even in states like Idaho and Utah, though still no where close to winning them.

I think it's interesting how the "get out the black vote" is assumed to succeed, while "get out the youth vote" is not incorrectly assumed to fail.

There are several of those yellow states he has no chance in, or at least if he ends up having a chance the election will already be a landslide anyway. The reason he's advertising in Georgia and North Carolina is to help in congressional races. Higher black turnout in those states won't get Obama any electoral votes, but it might give the Democrats several additional seats in the House.

The black vote really doesn't trail the white vote by all that much generally - they already vote at higher rates than hispanics or asians. With Obama running, I think they'll catch whites in voter turnout this year.

The youth vote is a greater crapshoot, but with them the well is so much deeper if it pays off...under 30 voters generally only have turnout rates in the 20s. If they actually turned out in real numbers this year - a colossal if to be sure - the electoral map could easily be turned on its ear.

Here's my map...

And yes, I think MO will turn before FL will. The spillover Obama effect from IL, combined with high voter turnout in St Louis and depressed turnout in rural MO will make it eke by for Obama. Same reason why I think IN will turn...

That's probably Obama's map on a pretty good, but not great day. Your map, plus Florida and North Carolina, are the ones where his chances are placed at 30% or better. Your map, minus Nevada and Missouri, are states where his chances are placed at 50% or better.

I don't see the spillover effect of Illinois into Missouri being any stronger than the frankly ridiculous notion going now in some circles that choosing Pawlenty as a VP would net McCain not only Minnesota but Wisconsin.

Illinois is Illinois and Missouri is Missouri. Plus, Obama isn't particularly strong even in southern Illinois.

[action=NAHTMMM]checks on this Pawlenty person.[/action]

Somebody thinks that carrying a Minnesotan as his V.P. candidate would endear McCain to Wisconsin?!

Rasmussen has Obama up by 5 in Montana, the state with the highest per capita gun ownership in the country

It's also where he's spending the 4th.

Montana may be gun country, but it's not religious right country, and it's definitely a place where people tend to have an anti-authoritarian streak. If Obama continues to run on a platform of state funding of religion and granting the imperial president his entire anti-constitutional wishlist of power, he's not going to keep that lead. He'll win anyway, but maybe he'll realize that the reason some people vote their guns is because idiotic candidates don't give them any other issues to vote on.

My picks

You don't know which way DC, RI, AK, and HI are going? And North Carolina without Virginia? No way.

NC will be carried by the black vote and hard core christian fundies sitting out the election. I missed the others, but paint them blue in your mind.

North Carolina before Virginia raises an eyebrow.

Kentucky before Virginia is the true here.

Like I said, Christian fundies will stay home rather than vote for McCain. The black vote will carry NC.

Kentucky and Southern Illinois are two peas in a pod and Kentucky has taken an economic azzraping despite its formerly rabid support of the GOP.

They have been abandoned.

Hell, I voted for Reagan twice, Bushdaddy once, Clinton twice (economics) and Dubya twice. I, like many my age who aren't Christian fundies, vote based on my wallet. Consider my area to be Northwestern Kentucky.

I live in a small area consisting of Southeastern Missouri (Go SEMO!), Western Kentucky (Go Murray State!) and Southern Illinois (Go SIU!) centered where the Ohio river meets the Mississippi known as The Heartland. The GOP has lost the Heartland.

So your instinct is the Washington Post?

And the link-following and reading comprehension prize goes to ...