Vanity: In polls, what about electoral college?

Here’s how I see it shaking out, the analysis is the same no matter the nominee. Baring of course any third party disaster like Fieldmarshaldj suggests. Frankly I don’t see that happening even if Romney wins. No conservative prominent enough that he or she could get on every ballot and hand Obama a sure plurality win would want the responsibly for reelecting Obama. Gary Johnson as the Libertarian and whoever the Constitution party nominates will probably have a limited impact.

The McCain states gained a net of 6 EVs. That’s 179 EVs.

Are there any of them we need to worry about? I say no, Missouri was 50/50, it’s a fundamentally Republican state now. If Obama is winning it then he’s winning easily and it doesn’t matter. The next closest was Montana, thanks to Ron Paul being on the general election ballot McCain won 49-47-2. Obama should get closer to 40% (or less) than 50% in that state. Arizona would have been closer if McCain wasn’t the nominee but it’s a Republican state we’d only lose in landslide.

So what gains do we have? Nebraska’s errant vote from the 2nd district (they split E votes by cong district) is a gimee. (again if we lose that Obama is winning big)

Even the democrats concede Indiana, some still have some illusions about NC but I don’t think so. Obama barley “won” either state, even if he wins he is very likely to do worse this election. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a swing against him in every state. That puts us at 206.

And that brings us to the big three, Florida, Ohio, and VA. They are must wins, I’m thinking Ohio is the toughest. If for some reason we don’t get all 3 we’d probably need another big state, PA or MI to make up for it.

If we win the big 3 that puts us at 266, 4 votes shy. NH alone would then be enough to win. Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, PA, MI, NM, MN, OR. Any one of them.

Maine also spits by district, Maine CD2 should be in play but it’s 1 vote is very very likely to be irrelevant.

I agree 100% with what you wrote. But I think that I’m a bit more optimistic about VA, FL and OH than you are, and believe that Obama has to thread the needle very carefully in order to eke out a narrow victory in the Electoral College: basically, Obama has to run the table, winning every remaining state in order to keep the Republican nominee below 270. If states like WI, PA and MI fall our way, it will be a comfortable, 320+ EV win for the Republican nominee, but if they don’t, and the Interior Western states of NV, NM and CO stay Democrat (which, if I had to place odds today, I would say is more likely than not), it will all boil down to New Hampshire and its 4 EVs.

Indeed. btw the libs hate, hate, HATE the electoral college. I was going to try to find an article i’d seen on alter-net
about how, yay, lib talk radio was back in D.C. with a small AM station; apparently it was totally missing from the
dial. (Um, what about NPR? Powerful FM stations, with taxpayer funding). Anyway on the main page a big headline along the lines of “why the Right loves the electoral college”
(i.e., America should strictly do a popular vote. Care to guess why?) I didn’t read the article, but just saying....

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