Presidential Forecast, 10/19: 16 days left

by: Chris Bowers

Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 17:15

Things still look good. Here is the path to 270:

State by state details. 270 to win, 269 to tie

State	EV's	Obama %	McCain %	Margin	Obama Total
Untargeted	136	Rep Lock			538
Georgia	15	43.7%	51.0%	-7.3%	402
Indiana	11	44.3%	50.0%	-5.7%	387
Montana	3	44.7%	50.3%	-5.6%	376
West Virginia	5	43.3%	48.7%	-5.4%	373
Nebraska-02	1	44.0%	48.0%	-4.0%	368
Ohio	20	48.0%	46.0%	+1.3%	367
North Dakota	3	44.7%	43.0%	+1.7%	347
North Carolina	15	47.8%	46.0%	+1.8%	344
Florida	27	48.6%	45.0%	+3.6%	329
Nevada	5	48.7%	45.0%	+3.7%	302
Missouri	11	49.8%	46.0%	+4.3%	297
Colorado	9	50.0%	45.0%	+5.0%	286
Virginia	13	50.7%	44.3%	+6.4%	277
New Mexico	5	50.7%	42.3%	+8.4%	264
New Hampshire	4	52.7%	42.7%	+10.0%	259
Washington	11	53.0%	42.3%	+10.7%	255
Maine-02	1	52.0%	41.0%	+11.0%	244
Minnesota	10	51.7%	40.0%	+11.7%	243
New Jersey	15	51.7%	39.7%	+12.0%	233
Michigan	17	51.3%	39.0%	+12.3%	218
Iowa	7	53.3%	41.0%	+12.3%	201
Maine-AL*	2	52.7%	39.7%	+13.0%	194
Pennsylvania	21	53.6%	40.4%	+13.2%	192
Wisconsin	10	52.0%	37.3%	+14.7%	171
Untargeted	161	Dem Lock			161

Obama has moved all of the Kerry and / or Gore states into the "solid" category where I give McCain a 0% chance of winning. From that point, there are five six states that can put him over the top--Colorado, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia--plus Nevada, which puts him at 269. Obama currently leads in all six seven of those states, plus North Dakota, too. So really, this is an excellent position to be in, especially when voting has already begun, and when you can outspend your opponent 3-1 or more.

States that are not targeted and which are further out in either direction are not listed here. I'm playing around with a different table format, to try and make the state by state situation make more sense. How does this work for you?  

1. For each state, all polls with the majority of their interviews condcuted within the last 7 days from publication of the forecast are included in the averages. There are some necessary exceptions to this rule.
   
2. Every state has at least three polls, so the first exception are states without three polls that meet the previous criteria. In the event that three polls taken within the past week are not available, the three most recent polls are used. (Note: "Most recent" is determined by the mid-point in the dates of the polls. For example, a poll taken from 9/15-9/17 has a mid-pint of 9/16. In the event that more than one poll shares the most recent mid-point (within 0.5), all polls with that mid-point are included in the average.)
   
3. The second exception comes with polling firms that have conducted more than two poll in a state over the last 7 days. Every polling firm only has one poll per average.
   
4. Almost no polling firm discrimination whatsoever. Polls are never excluded because the organization has a bad or partisan reputation. Non-random Internet sample polls are excluded, however.
   
5. No pre-September polls. I'm just sick of including them.

During the final two weeks of the election, only polls taken entirely within the past seven days will be included in the averages (with the same exceptions listed above, of course).