CNN has an electoral vote calculator you can play with. It’s fascinating.
On the map we see blue and red states. The darker the color, the more likely they are to vote GOP or Democratic. The yellow states are Libertarian. No, not really, but wouldn’t that be interesting? No, those are toss-up states.
Go to the map. You there? Ok. From this you can see McCain has something of an uphill battle. Just with this map as it is, Obama has 250 electoral votes to McCain’s 189. Now let’s go play with the numbers some.
Assign the following states to McCain: Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. Then give only Ohio to Obama. See what happens? McCain loses.
Let’s try a different method. Give Obama the states of Nevada, Colorado and Wisconsin, three states where I believe he’s likely to do well. Give the rest to McCain. Obama wins. Give Obama only Virginia and Wisconsin. He wins. Give Obama only Florida. He wins.
The math is really working against McCain. If Obama wins only Florida or only Ohio from the toss-up states, he gets the White House. McCain has an uphill fight. I don’t think Obama will get all those toss-up states, mind you, but I do expect he will get Wisconsin and Virginia and just those two give him the win.
Maybe, just maybe, if all goes well we’ll have only the second Democratic president I can ever remember (since I don’t remember Carter). I can hope.
