The Electoral College Map (7/30/08)

Yesterday we passed the 14 week marker on the way to election day (But who is counting?). And things seem to be heating up...unless, of course, you are talking about state-level polling. After a flurry of polls came out at the end of last week, the polling firms took a couple days off before picking back up yesterday. Still, a paltry three polls is all they had to offer. [But hey, if you average that with the 17 polls that came out in the window of the previous electoral college post, you come up with 10. And that so happens to be the number polls that we have become accustomed to seeing lately. Amazing things, these averages.]

New Polls (July 27-29)
State	Poll	Margin
North Carolina	Public Policy Polling	+3
Pennsylvania	Strategic Vision	+9
Washington	Strategic Vision	+11

These numbers don't stray too terribly far from the established averages in North Carolina and Washington. The Pennsylvania result, though it is outside of where our weighted average has the state currently, is within one standard deviation of the average and is consistent with the direction polling has gone in the Keystone state of late. With only three polls, though, the chances of having any change -- significant or otherwise -- to the electoral college map are slim.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

And that happens to be the case: there were no changes to the map. However, that gives us an opportunity to unveil a new feature to these posts. Our discussion on Sunday of where South Carolina ranks on Obama's list of states to potentially pick off from McCain (and Paul's response) got us to thinking about ways that we could show the current balance within the electoral college projection. It is one thing to show this on a map, but the goal is differentiate between even the states within one category, not simply across categories. The Watch List gives some indication of this, but the graphic below is logical stepping stone from the map to that list. So, though Obama's 278-260 electoral vote advantage remains unchanged from Sunday we have this new graphic to help us better understand the state of play in the race for the White House.

The Electoral College State Rankings
HI	WA	NH	FL	NE
VT	MN	PA*	AK	LA
RI	DE	NV	SC	KS
MD	OR	OH	SD	WY
IL	NJ	VA	TX	AR
CT	IA	ND	GA	TN
CA	WI	MT	MS	OK
NY	NM	IN	AZ	KY
ME	MI	MO	WV	AL
MA	CO	NC	ID	UT
* Pennsylvania is the state where Obama crosses (or McCain would cross) the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election.

Let me explain what you see. Basically, this is a fleshed out version of what I posted in response to Paul the other day. The five columns align the states from the most Democratic to the most conservative, working from top to bottom and left to right. Hawaii, in the top left corner, is the state most heavily for Obama at the moment and Utah is its counterpart on the other end of the spectrum, favoring McCain. The color scheme from the map is the same, so we can see that when light blue switches to pink, the states thereafter begin shifting toward McCain, increasing in their intensity of support for the Arizona senator as they move toward that lower right corner. For example then, the color change tells us that Alaska more strongly favors McCain than Florida, but that within the Toss Up category, Florida is a more solid McCain state than North Carolina. You'll also see Pennsylvania is shaded in yellow. Pennsylvania may not have this distinction in the future, but a state shaded yellow denotes the state that puts or would put either of the candidates over the top in the electoral college. The Keystone state is among the 23 states (and the Distict of Columbia -- which is excluded for aesthetic purposes and because it will undoubtedly go for Obama in November.) that comprise Obama's current electoral college coalition. In fact, it ranks 22, which would mean that McCain would have to change his fortures in Nevada and Pennsylvania to get to 270.

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

The new graphic enhances The Watch List. We can see that, for example, Washington (the only new addition to the list today) is close to potentially shifting from a strong Obama state to merely leaning toward the Illinois senator. But we also know that, in conjunction the two figures add yet another line of gradation to our discussion, between states that are comfortably within one category and those likely to change with new polling. That adds some complexity to our discussions, but at the same time provides everyone with a bit more information on how things are progressing in the race.

Note: You'll notice that I annoyingly referred to the new graphic as "the new graphic" way to many times. Yes, there's a name atop that addition, but I'm not necessarily sold on permanently calling it The Electoral College State Rankings (too long and probably too boring). Obviously the Tipping Point is being used, and even though that isn't proprietary, it has been overused over the years in these sort of analyses (Plus, you never want to seem like a copycat.). So I'm open to suggestions about what to call not only the entire thing, but the state where the 270 threshold is crossed. If you have any thoughts, the comments section awaits.


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