Tim Russert Is A Pretty Smart Guy April 9, 2008
Posted by justingerman in 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain.Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, electoral college, Electoral Map, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
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I say that because his 2008 electoral map prediction for an Obama-McCain race looks very similar to the state-by-state probabilities that I made in my post predicting the electoral college expected values. This map can be found on theelectoralmap.com.
The only real differences between this map and my probabilities are the states of Arkansas, South Carolina and Michigan. It’s more or less imperative that Obama wins Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to win the election. I think Russert is right in assuming that Michigan will be the closest of the three, but I still think it leans to Obama due to the economic circumstances in the state and McCain’s support for freer trade.
For some reason Russert also thinks that Obama stands less of a chance in South Carolina than Georgia or North Carolina. This may be true to a point, but I still have trouble writing it off to McCain at this point.
Geoff pointed out in a comment to my expected values calculation that he thought my probabilities for Arkansas and West Virginia were escessively low and that Obama has at least a marginal chance of winning in each state. However, I stand by my projections and say that Hillary likely would win in both states but Obama really doesn’t stand a chance in either due to the highly white, low income, low education democraphics. Russert seems to agree with me on West Virginia and with Geoff on Arkansas.
Below the fold I added Russert’s Clinton-McCain map just for fun. I think this map shows that Obama’s and Clinton’s expected values would be about the same, but with different strengths in different places. But I’m definately not going to take the time to add up Clinton’s values.
The Clinton map doesn’t adequately reflect how she might do in West Virginia – it’s still dark red. One thing I also noticed is that unless Minneapolis and St. Paul recently quintupled in size and Lake Wobagon saw a surge in Canadian immigration (I wonder how many people actually know “Prairie Home Companion”), Minnesota does not have 22 electoral votes. In reality, the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes has 10.
I’ll go ahead and add things up:
Obama vs. McCain
Obama: 210 (42 from lean states)
McCain: 216 (81 from lean states)
Toss-up: 112 (50 of which Gore won in 2000 since Kerry shouldn’t count)
Clinton vs. McCain
Clinton: 216 (44)
McCain: 212 (47)
Toss-up: 110 (50 of which Gore won in 2000)
After looking at this, it seems to me that for straight up winning, the Democrats should go with Obama (though I personally continue to feel Hillary is a bette choice on policy) because of the fact that he makes so many states toss-ups. The only advantage in the electoral college for backing Hillary is that she gives the Dems a shot of picking up earstwhile Democratic states Arkansas and Louisiana and most importantly, a better chance of winning the 27 electoral votes of Florida.
However, my support of Hillary is at odds with where I think the Democratic Party is headed and where it should concentrate on growing and that is out west where Obama gives the Dems a great shot of picking up New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and maybe even a state like Montana if the election wave, so to speak, breaks the right way. Moreover, the chance that Virginia could go to a Dem makes me very excited, though I do feel McCain was the worst candidate to run into for winning the military-laden Old Dominion. Plus, a chance at Missouri which went with a Dem senator in 2006 (McCaskill) doesn’t hurt either.
As you’ve mentioned, forcing the Republicans to spend money in so many states can’t hurt and an Obama candidacy does that better than a Clinton one. So while I feel Clinton can win, Obama has more states in play, clearly increasing the odds of victory. And considering his lead in the delegates race, he’s going to be the candidate one or another so we (Democrats) should be pleased with his prospects.