Electoral College Breakdown

Using tools from www.electoralvote.com, and www.fivethirtyeight.com, I have expanded upon my research that I used to breakdown the electoral map a month, and a half ago. With Barack Obama vs. John McCain as the match-up for the election set for just about 16 weeks from now, the state-by-state polls are starting to become a bit clearer. Most websites (Five Thirty Eight, and www.realclearpolitics.com) currently show that Obama has about a 65% to 70% chance of winning the election, as of right now. While that number could drastically change over the next few months most notably because of the impending selection of vice presidents from both campaigns, that number is a rough estimate based upon the current state-by-state totals.

In this article, I want to breakdown the states that will decide the election this coming November. To find the states that will be most crucial to this election, I compared the election results from the 2000, 2004, and then looked at the most recent four-day average from the polling estimates on Five Thirty Eight. All states that have consistently voted for one particular party, and look to vote for that same party by a margin of at least 7% in 2008, are placed into the easy point column. In terms of easy electoral votes, Obama leads McCain by a total of 183 to 154, with 201 toss-up electoral votes remaining.