Mark Halperin
Editor-at-large & Senior analyst, TIME Magazine
The Page, TIME.com
Barring an extraordinary shock, Barack Obama will win more than 270 electoral votes on Tuesday, giving him the White House. Hours before voting starts, John McCain has no clear path to reaching that same goal.
In fact, based on interviews with political strategists in both parties, election analysts and advisers to both presidential campaigns — including a detailed look at public and private polling data — an Obama victory with well over 300 electoral votes is a more likely outcome than a McCain victory.
Under the Electoral College system, a candidate wins all of a state’s electoral votes as long as he or she achieves a popular vote victory of any margin. Obama’s commanding position results from the fact that he holds seemingly impregnable popular vote leads in twenty-four states, plus the District of Columbia, with 291 electoral votes, more than he needs to win. Obama’s geographic anchors are the northeast, the mid-Atlantic, the upper industrial Midwest and the west coast, all areas that Democratic presidential candidates have dominated for several election cycles. But he is encroaching on other states as well that have recently gone dependably Republican, including Nevada, Virginia and Colorado.
With his superior spending, better organization on the ground, and poll standing, in fact, Obama actually seems poised to win the majority of the remaining toss-up states. If there is a pro-Democratic/anti-Bush wave cresting, as some top strategists in both parties believe, Obama could take all of the still contested battlegrounds, giving him nearly 400 electoral votes, and a significant multi-regional mandate. The remaining toss-up states are all large ones — Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri — with a total of 84 electoral votes, and were all won by Bush in 2000 and 2004. And some additional western and southern states that are currently leaning towards McCain (such as North Dakota and Georgia) could end up in the Democratic column, lifting Obama over 400.
McCain’s challenge — and only hope — is to find a way to get just over 270 votes, starting with pulling back into the Republican column some states that appear to be titling clearly towards Obama. Then he needs to sweep the toss-ups, where in almost every case polling shows him behind. Right now, McCain leads solidly or more narrowly in 21 states with 163 electoral votes.
| Fred Durant |
November 3rd, 2008 11:46 am ET As a Canadian I find this election in my neighbor’s backyard absolutely fascinating: fascinating that a country of such great power and global influence so fears change, so fears accepting the catastrophic error of laissez faire conservative governance, that it might, just might, bury its head in the sand and elect another conservative administration. And leadership? America has the most grueling, comprehensive and most revealing, leader hiring process in the world. The primaries – the pre job interview, and the presidential election – the final interview, have revealed your two candidates in leadership roles. McCain has been positively embarrassing in his leadership of his campaigns. Obama has rewritten the campaign text book and has shown outstanding leadership. Will America’s wisdom match its power on election day? I fear not. God help America, God help the world! |
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| jamie,hatt.MS |
November 3rd, 2008 11:20 am ET What don’t add up is the fact that McCain won’t release Palin’s medical records. |
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| Linda/Michigan |
November 3rd, 2008 11:44 am ET I predict that McCain will take MI, OH, FL, and PA. There are many voters out there who can see past the hype that the mainstream media tries to put out there about Obama. All you have to do is listen to the words that Obama says and not what you want to hear. For example, when referring to Ayers, Obama said “I do not talk to him on a regular basis, he is not part of my campaign and he does not advise me on my campaign’. If you paid attention, he said he does not talk to Ayers on a regular basis but he still talks to him. There are many instances, if you listen closely, he double talks, and unless you are an astute listener you will miss these remarks. |
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| Cindy |
November 3rd, 2008 1:13 pm ET Mark, Cindy…Ga. |
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| Mz Leah |
November 3rd, 2008 1:48 pm ET McCain camp talks how the polls are wrong. Is he trying to inspire his supporters or does he know the “fix” is in? People like Rove cut their teeth on cheating, lying & conniving. They aren’t going to roll over and allow some 1 term Sen. to remove them from power. |
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| Ursula |
November 3rd, 2008 3:50 pm ET What are white American conservatives really afraid of? If Barack Obama wins tommorrow given the fact that he’s half black/half white will that somehow cause you to feel inferior? Will you become afraid that little black boys and girls will finally believe that they can do anything? Will black America began to truly believe that this land is our land? I suspect that all of the above is true and if so, welcome to our world! Honestly, I believe your fears have less to do with politics and more to do with the fact that this will be the last obstacle that black Americans have to overcome. People like you hated Jackie Robinson but sports as we know it would not be same had he not paved the way. I think it’s awful that you would rather have a president that’s so old that he can’t remember the name of the person that’s he speaking to and a vice president that can’t even run her household let alone a nation than to have a bright, intelligent man whose only real crime is that he’s black. If this is true go ahead and tear up your ticket to heaven because Jesus has dark skin too! |
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