Jason L Hubsch's blog

Originally posted on Righteous Ramblings by Jason L. Hubsch

While educating myself on the current election, I came across a great site called 270towin. When you first go there, you are presented with an electoral map of the United States, already filled in red or blue, depending on the leaning of the particular state. Battleground/swing/too close to call states are tan.

The unique thing is that you can click each state to turn it red, blue, or tan. This will automatically update the total electoral vote count at the bottom until one party hits 270. In effect, you can play with the potential possibilites to see which states a party would need to win to win the whole thing. In fact, 270towin even presents the 281 ways Obama/Biden can win, and the 228 ways McCain/Palin can win.

So I started playing with the map. I was curious to learn what the polls in the individual swing states showed, and to populate the map that way. So I popped on over to RealClearPolitics and looked at their Battleground States polling. I used the data that was current at that time, realizing that the reason these states are tan to begin with is because the lead keeps switching between candidates on an almost daily basis. But let's take a look nonetheless.

I filled out the map using the data from RealClearPolitics. The data from Ohio was a tie at the time of this writing, although Rasmussen Reports, who shows McCain ahead in Ohio as of Monday, September 8, 2008. But let's leave it tan for the moment.

What we're left with is this updated electoral map:

You'll notice I left Pennsylvania tan. Here's why: provided current polling data remains where it is through election day, the map will look like the above electoral map. You'll notice that, not yet counting PA and OH, the tally is Obama with 252 and McCain with 245. That means that, for Obama to win, he only needs to win either PA or Ohio. Winning both is not essential to hit 270 electoral votes.

Conversely, McCain needs to win both PA and Ohio to hit 270 electoral votes. If he loses either one of those states, he loses the election.

Therefore, the most likely winning scenario for McCain is #4, winning FL, PA, OH, NC, and VA. His campaign efforts should be focused in these key states, particularly PA and OH. While OH has voted for the Republican nominee for the past two elections, the last time PA voted for the Republican candidate was 1988. Using current trends, the final result would look this this.

Suffice to say that McCain has his work cut out for him to convince a 20-year blue state to cross over.

But it's what must be done if he is to win this election. It iss the key to victory.

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