Also relevant, the current 538 projection is just one state off from the 2012 map:
And their polls-plus model is exactly the same. But that doesn't change the idea that there is only a 0.4% chance of it ACTUALLY being the same. Take the probabilities of the current projection being right in each state and multiply them, and the result is a very small number.
This assumes those probabilities are independent, which is completely false.
The 0.4% certainly does NOT assume that (the 538 simulations take into account the covariance between states). My quick-and-dirty "multiply the values" was, and I should have been more clear about that. The point is (as has been noted several times earlier in this thread by other posters), while there are certainly correlations between states such as OH and PA, they're nowhere near 100%, even for the most highly-correlated swing-state pairs. Then you consider pairs like FL and CO, or PA and NV, and there's enough variability such that getting the same map is STILL extremely unlikely.
