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Adam Naddelman's Blog

My thoughts..........

Election Predictions and last thoughts before the big day

By Adam - Nov 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 pm EST

This has been a long 2 years, but election day is nearly upon us. Let’s start with the easy states:

In the bank for McCain— Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. These states total: 142 ev’s for McCain. The only (remote) upset possibilities here are Arizona where polling is within the margin of error in the last few days, one of the congressional districts in Nebraska (Nebraska is one of two states that actually split their EV’s by district, and Obama has a shot at winning 1 of those), and Louisiana where African-american turn-out is unknowable because it depends on evacuees returning to vote. The early vote numbers look better there than expected for Obama, but I’m still putting this one in the safe McCain column. West Virginia looked like an option earlier, but they lost ground after Obama and Biden campaigned there. In summary, going into election day, I think McCain has 142 EV’s in the bank.

In the bank for Obama—California, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. These states total 227 EV’s for Obama. Remote possibilities for a McCain upset are Michigan and Wisconsin, although it’s almost impossible to realistically consider either of those since McCain and the RNC pulled out of both weeks ago.

With 270 needed to win, I believe the race sits at 227-142 when looking at just the rock solid states. Obviously McCain starts from a tougher position than Obama, but it’s not impossible for McCain to pull it out.

Now for the toss-ups, and I’m listing these on the Strong ObamaàStrong McCain spectrum:

The first 5 I would put in the Likely Obama column: Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Colorado totaling 46 electoral votes. Iowa has been in the bag for Obama for months now, as has New Hampshire. Despite McCain’s efforts there, most polls have both states in double digits. Pennsylvania has been remarkably stable despite the all-out blitz of Palin and McCain of the last 3 weeks. The strategy made sense, but none of the tactics have worked as the race looks to be in the 7-10 point range (should narrow before election day obviously). New Mexico is the second Bush state (after Iowa) that Obama looks poised to pick up easily, primarily on his strength with Latinos (polls have Obama at 2:1 Latino support, so much for the argument during the primaries that hispanic voters would resist supporting an African-american). Colorado had been a battleground up until a few weeks ago, but it looks like Obama has put it away. The state has trended blue recently with a democratic governor and 2 democratic senators, as well as an increasing latino population. McCain basically pulled out of the state 2 weeks ago. Those Likely Obama states total 44 EV’s, and put Obama at 273. Barring an upset in one of these states, with Pennsylvania, because of the resources devoted by McCain and Palin (and some questionable racial attitudes in the western part of the state) and New Hampshire, because of McCain’s history there, being the best two possibilities, this should be enough to give Obama the presidency. The good news for Obama is he has other paths to 270 should Pennsylvania or New Hampshire falter.

The next 2 states I would put in the lean Obama category: Virginia and Nevada totaling 18 EV’s. Virginia has been a target of Obama’s since the primaries, when he overperformed there relative to expectations in February. He has opened a tremendous number of offices here, and with higher than expected turnout among African Americans and northern Virginian (the “fake” Virginia) voters, Virginia should turn blue this year. Obama is helped by a slam dunk for the dems Senate race (Mark Warner) as well as a popular governor (Tim Kaine) who has been working the state hard for him. Nevada is slightly less in the bag, and is probably more of a toss-up state that leans ever so slightly towards Obama. Apparently, the RNC and McCain’s campaign devoted very little resources here, and with a big GOTV operation, this looks like a state Obama should be able to carry, but we probably won’t know these results until late. With those two states for Obama, we’re at 291.

The interesting thing is, if the scenario above holds, he could lose Pennsylvania and still have 270.

The next 5 states are true toss-ups. I don’t think anyone can be certain of who will carry them. I would put Florida a hair closer to Obama, followed by Ohio (right at the 50:50 mark), then North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri. These states total 57 ev’s and McCain can’t lose any of them. Each of them presents an opportunity for both candidates. Florida moved towards Obama after the Palin pick and never moved back. Ohio looks to be dead even, but I think McCain probably has an edge there unless the evangelicals who showed up in huge numbers in 2004 stay home or the voting problems that happened last time disappear in heavily African-american districts. North Carolina should be red unless African-american turnout is overwhelming. Indiana is usually the first state to report results because it’s such a deep shade of red, but Obama has performed better than expected (since it neighbors Illinois). And lastly, Missouri is too close to call. Missouri often votes for the winner overall, and Obama did win the primary here, but I still think it’s a little more likely to go red.

The last three are in the red category, but circumstances in each state could turn them blue—Montana has seen a democratic surge lately with a democratic governor and senator, and the governor is up for reelection and should win big (and Obama is running ads here now); Georgia has seen just ludicrous early voting numbers among democrats and a close senate race, but the state in all likelihood will stay blue, and North Dakota has almost no state GOP structure any more. That, along with same day voter registration, gives a glimmer of hope to the Obama campaign in North Dakota.

So, what do I predict? Obviously, Obama isn’t likely to pull all of these toss-ups into his column, but I do think he will pull a lot. I think 2006 was the beginning of the wave, and this will be the end of it. People forget, but almost no on was forecasting the gains the dems ended up achieving in 2006 (gaining control of the senate, etc).

For comparison:

2004: Bush over Kerry: 286-251; 50.7% to 48.3%
2000: Bush over Gore: 271-266; 47.9% to 48.4%
1996: Clinton over Dole: 379-159; 49.2% to 40,71%
1992: Clinton over Bush: 370-168; 43.0% to 37.7% to 18.9%
1988: Bush over Duke: 426-111; 53.4% to 45.4%
1984: Reagan over Mondale: 525-13; 58.8% to 40.6%
1980: Reagan over Carter: 489-49; 50.7% to 41.0%

You can see how often a race that gets to 5 points or more turns into a landslide.

We should get a good idea of where the race is by 8-9 pm EST. Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and Indiana all close by then (VA is at 7), followed by Ohio and North Carolina at 7:30 PM, and Missouri and Pennsylvania at 8 pm EST. Colorado and New Mexico are closing at 9 pm EST.

The networks will declare a winner if they have enough raw data and the data correlates well with their projection. If the network says “too close to call” it means they don’t know who will win yet. If they say “too early to call” it means they are waiting for confirmatory data to support their projection. It’s a distinction with a difference.

With all of that being said, here’s my best guess after spending entirely too much time on this:

I think we’re going to see 52-47 (ish) popular vote, and electoral vote of around 340-198, with Obama sweeping all the Kerry states (including Pennsylvania), and adding on Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina. Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Georgia, and North Dakota should all probably stay red.

I think an Obama win probably has a floor of about 271 and a ceiling of 396. Anyone who predicts above 400 is giving Obama surprise states no one else is seriously considering.

McCain can pull this out, but it really looks like a steep hill to climb for him. If you go back to the 2004 map, keep it at the Kerry-Bush breakdown but move Iowa and New Mexico into the Obama column, and push PA back to McCain. He can do it. Even if you give Obama Colorado, pushing PA red will give it to McCain. If you keep that scenario and give Virginia to Obama, it shifts the winner overall back to Obama. In other words, for McCain to realistically have a shot, he has to hold Virginia and snag Pennsylvania. I don’t see that happening, but that’s been the rationale behind the McCain PA/VA strategy. If Obama picks up Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado and either Virginia or Pennsylvania, it’s basically over, no matter what happens in those other toss-up states.

One other note—I think we’re looking at another 30+ seats in the House (currently 235-199 in favor of the dems), somewhere around 265 dems 169 repubs at the end of the night. In the senate, the dems are going to get very close to 60 seats—they start at 51-49 (including Lieberman and Sanders who are both independents who caucus with the dems). They have easy pick-ups in Virginia (Mark Warner- key note at convention), New Mexico (1 of the 2 Udalls, I can never remember which is which), New Hamsphire (Shaheen ex governor to beat Sununu), Alaska (Begich should beat convicted felon Stevens easily), Colorado (the other Udall). That would get the Dems to 56 seats. 3 other likely pick-ups are Oregon (Merkely), Hagan (should beat Dole after her absurd godless ads—would be the first time a dole or a bush isn’t in office in 50 years!), and Franken who is leading against Coleman and a 3rd party candidate. That gets the dems to 59 seats.

There are three chances for the dems to get one more to hit the magic number of 60—Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Mississippi looks to be a safe GOP seat now. Kentucky would be interesting because the GOPer there is Mitch McConnell the minority leader who is suddenly in a dead even race. But most interesting is Georgia, where Martin is looking to beat Chambliss. There is a very good chance that neither Martin nor Chambliss will hit 50%, despite the huge African American turnout. If that happens, we’re looking at a run-off in December, possibly for a filibuster proof majority. That election would look like a national general election, exactly what no one (except crazies like me) wants after this interminable season.

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