The Electoral College Map (7/2/08)

Thirteen new polls in 9 states since Sunday clarified the electoral college map a bit further. The closer the campaign gets to November, the clearer the state of the game is going to appear. Georgia, for instance, continues to tread the line between being a strong or lean state for McCain. All that does is put the Peach state right at the cut line for states in which Obama can play offense. There has been some movement in Georgia's weighted average but that number continues to hover around that 10% margin. The longer that back and forth persists (without trending one way or the other), the less likely the Peach state is to actually be competitive in November.

New Polls (June 29-July 1)
State	Poll	Margin
Alabama	Rasmussen	+15
Arizona	Rasmussen	+9
Florida	PPP	+2
Florida	Strategic Vision	+6
Florida	Rasmussen	+7
Georgia	Rasmussen	+10
Georgia	Strategic Vision	+8
Louisiana	SMOR	+16
Massachusetts	Rasmussen	+20
Massachusetts	Survey USA	+13
New York	Survey USA	+20
North Carolina	PPP	+4
Virginia	Survey USA	+2

Other than Georgia, Massachusetts was the only other state to have switched categories since the weekend. The Bay state moved from being an Obama lean to being a more comfortably strong state for the Illinois senator. Obviously, this pulls Massachusetts in line with where it would be expected to be given its past voting history. Some early tighter polls have kept Massachusetts under the 10% mark, but with the inclusion of more information, those polls are now acting as outliers in the formula.

Changes (June 29-July 1)
State	Before	After
Georgia	McCain lean	Strong McCain
Massachusetts	Obama lean	Strong Obama

And what about the map? Well, both Georgia and Massachusetts get darker, but the underlying electoral college breakdown remains the same. Obama leads McCain by 298 electoral votes to 240. The Obama part of the map continues to solidify. Very few states are still "leans" for him. Most states that are in shades of blue are either solidly Obama or toss ups favoring the Illinois senator. The movement out of the lean category for Obama has been in the direction of more strongly supporting Obama as opposed to becoming any more weakly associated with him. For McCain, the story is a bit different. His "toss up" numbers have been fairly static for a couple of weeks now while there has been some shift between his "strong" and "lean" statistics. Overall, as we saw yesterday, McCain lost ground to Obama in 31 states during June while gaining in only 6 (though it should be noted that those six states are considered by many to be swing states).

[Click Map to Enlarge]

As the week continues, there are several states to look for new polling from. Those states have not changed much since Sunday, but we can add Florida to the list. The trio of new polls from the Sunshine state pulled the average for Florida toward toss up status. It still leans to McCain, but only barely at this point. I don't want to set a precedent here, but Virginia, by virtue of several small polling victories for Obama is close to being added to the Watch List as well.

The Watch List*
State	Switch
Alaska	from McCain lean	to Toss Up McCain
Florida	from McCain lean	to Toss Up McCain
Georgia	from Strong McCain	to McCain lean
Massachusetts	from Strong Obama	to Obama lean
Minnesota	from Strong Obama	to Obama lean
Mississippi	from McCain lean	to Strong McCain
Missouri	from Toss Up McCain	to McCain lean
Nevada	from Toss Up Obama	to Toss Up McCain
New Mexico	from Toss Up Obama	to Obama lean
North Carolina	from McCain lean	to Toss Up McCain
Ohio	from Toss Up Obama	to Toss Up McCain
Texas	from McCain lean	to Strong McCain
Wisconsin	from Obama lean	to Toss Up Obama
*Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Recent Posts:
Did Obama Bounce Everywhere in June?

The Electoral College Map (6/29/08)

The National Popular Vote Plan...and Other Ways of Reforming the Electoral College