MORE OBAMA….In response to my prediction of a 6-8 point Obama win in November, commenter John Wilheim asks: “When are we going to stop paying attention entirely to the national poll numbers?….What matters are the numbers in the individual states, as translated into the electoral map. Period.”
Fair enough. And by coincidence, I just now got an email from Sam Wang announcing the re-launch of his Meta-Analysis of State Polls for 2008, an automated compilation of state-level polls from around the country. Read here to understand how his methodology differs from Nate Silver’s of fivethirtyeight.com fame. A pay-per-view cage match is expected shortly.
So what’s his bottom line? Simple: as of noon today, he predicts that Obama wins 306 electoral votes to McCain’s 232 [if the election were held today at noon]. As you can see by eyeballing the chart on the right, he basically projects about a 99% chance of Obama winning the presidency, and that’s after McCain’s recent minor climb in a few of the national polls. It’s not over til it’s over, but the numbers still heavily favor Obama.
UPDATE: Bracketed phrase added. As Sam Wang points out in comments, he’s not making predictions. He’s just offering a snapshot in time. Apologies for the casual writing.
