Just before the 2006 midterm elections, Karl Rove said:
I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I'm entitled to THE math.
The Senate election was part of the Democratic sweep of the 2006 elections, in which no Congressional or gubernatorial seat held by a Democrat was won by a Republican. Democratic candidates defeated six Republican incumbents: Rick Santorum (Penn.), Mike DeWine (Ohio), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Jim Talent (Mo.), Conrad Burns (Mont.), and George Allen (Va.). Incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman (Conn.) lost an August Democratic primary challenge but won re-election as an independent. Democrats kept their two open seats in Minnesota and Maryland, and Republicans held onto their lone open seat in Tennessee. In Vermont, Bernie Sanders, an independent, was elected to the seat left open by independent Senator Jim Jeffords.
With a mere 1.6 million seconds to go (about 19 days) until the 2008 election, Dick Morris has come out with his prediction for the electoral map:
If the election took place this week, it would be a wipeout of major proportions. Even McCain‘s home state of Arizona has to be classified as leaning toward Obama. McCain, as of now, can be certain of carrying just eight states with a combined total of only 36 electoral votes.
Morris predicts 396 EVs for Obama to a mere 110 EVs for McCain, and only 36 EVs as solidly in McCain's pocket compared to 355 EVs solidly for Obama.
Dick Morris can hardly be considered a solid Democratic partisan. He helped Governor Bill Clinton get re-elected in Arkansas and was a successful Republican strategist before returning to work for President Bill Clinton's second presidential campaign and has since said he'd leave the country if Hillary were elected in 2008. But he's gone waaaay out on a limb to suggest that Arizona and Arkansas are leaning and solidly for Obama and South Carolina and Georgia are presently tossups. It's possible that he's trying a Hail Mary to get out in front of Republican disaster so he can later claim to have been the first to see just how bad it was going to be. Or he might be setting up a position where he can claim that X campaign element he suggested has improved McCain's situation. Or maybe his professional dominatrix told him how it would all turn out.
A More Solid Set of Projections
I've previously mentioned that I follow FiveThirtyEight.com and Electoral-Vote.com. Pollster.com is also good. As of 2008.10.14, FiveThirtyEight's map looks like:
While Electoral-Vote.com's looks like:
There are minor variations, but both show Obama in the 355-360 EV range whereas Pollster.com shows Obama at 313 EVs (but shows 70 tossups -- a far higher number than either FiveThirtyEight or Electoral-Vote):
Right now, polling shows us a rockslide (less than a landslide, but getting there) for Obama. Trends are also encouraging for the Democratic party. Electoral-Vote shows us two different graphs, with and without "leans" EVs:
Even without leaners, Electoral-Vote has Obama over 270 EVs. Pollster.com's trend is harder to read, but shows us more information:
You can see that polls are coming thicker and faster now than earlier in the cycle, and that we're starting to see some real clumping of results and divergence between the red (Republican) and the blue (Democratic).
It looks good for the Democratic party. Republicans are starting to abandon states they would normally win easily. The national Republican organization is beginning to pull money from the national race to shore up state candidates long thought "safe".
The only game-changer left that I can see working for McCain is a successful terrorist attack and even that is unlikely to succeed, since more and more Americans see Obama as more trustworthy in a crisis.
She's warming up in the wings....
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