538.com map

[minionofmidas]

I love 538's wonderful sensitivity...last week or so, Obama was given a >70% chance to win.  Now it's back to 52%, when nothing fundamental has really changed in the race.

538 doesn't care about the "fundamentals" of the race.  It's just designed to reflect whatever the current polling says.  The polling has shifted noticeably in McCain's direction, so 538 is going to reflect that.  The "percentage chance of winning" isn't really a forward projection of what's going to happen (in the same sense as, say, Intrade).  It's just a computation of the probability of each candidate winning if the voting were to line up with the current poll results, and their respective uncertainties.

Yeah, they're running a model, fed by poll data, through thousands of permutations. This is the percentage of permutations having Obama winning. Not reallyhis "percentage chance of winning", that's a misnomer.

[minionofmidas]

The two spikes correspond to 364 and 375 EV. The first is Kerry + NV, CO, NM, IA, MO, OH, VA, NC, FL. The second combination adds IN to that.

There also seems very little more for Obama to get in their model. It drops off precipitously after 378 EV, and I see no combinations beyond 410 EV.

378 = The above plus ND or MT. The above + ND, MT, WV, GA = 401. Where are the remaining 9 EV's for 410 coming from? AR and SD? LA? One CD is NE and, what? SC? KY? Two CDs in NE and... well, any combination that includes two NE EVs that I can find includes a wholly unreasonable state. (Either ID and a 3-voter, or OK.) Perhaps I'm wrong in insisting on including WV in getting to 410 though.

[minionofmidas]

The bottom line is that the current polling numbers indicate an Obama blowout.

The bottom line is that at current polling, Obama wins everywhere we're considering a battleground without really creating a new battleground beyond it. Therefore, Obama's EV figures are not showing anything approaching a normal distribution - they are far more likely to go down than up from where they are now.

[minionofmidas]

Why is Alaska Obama + 1.1 on the new 538 regression?

I haven't the slightest clue.

[minionofmidas]

That's my prediction map!

[minionofmidas]

If only the election was held in a week or two.

People are starting to make up their mind and it isn't so much that Obama is losing support, but rather McCain is picking up those leaners.  Check pollster: http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php

So, it is my personal opinion that even if the election was on November 11 Obama's +8 lead would hold until November 9, and it would start to fall right before election like we are seeing now...its just the effect of people making up their minds right now.

I did think polls would tighten in the final week or two. It finally started happening just as I gave up waiting for it.
 I also still think the final result will be between the pre-tightening Obama high and the final polls.
All of this happened in 2000 and 2004 too, you know (though with the Democrats as beneficiaries).