Hello everyone! The last time I posted was on May 29, 2008. Hillary Clinton was still officially in the race, but the primary season mathematically ended on her weeks prior to that. She has finally since given it up, endorsing Barack Obama this past Saturday. The wounds will begin to heal after 17 months of primary campaigning between these two rivals for the nomination. Barack Obama secured the 2,118 delegates needed to become the Democratic Party’s nominee on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, becoming the first African American nominee of any party in our country’s history. He did it with a win in Montana, the final Democratic primary of the season.

With the primaries behind us, the map is begin to shape up more favorably for Obama, as should be expected. Things will only get better for him between now and November as Hillary supporters come home, Democrats unite, voters become more familiar with Barack Obama and the economy continues to falter. This latest update sees only one state (Texas) move out of “competitive” territory while a whole slate of states move into the gray area of “toss-up” and “competitive” as we move the marker from being less than 5% to less than 10%.

As we really don’t know what to expect yet and polling remains limited in many states, it makes more sense to not rule out upsets in states like Montana, Louisiana, South Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. This mainly hurts McCain, as he is enjoying slight edges in states that would in any other year be considered solidly Republican. But since his margins in states like Nebraska, Montana, Missouri, North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana and a whole slew of states are under 10%, these states are certainly far from safe. With enough time on the ground and ads on television, Obama could put all of these places in play.

This map compares strikingly to the map that we first unveiled on May 29, 2008 (shown below):

Another thing to keep in mind for Nebraska is that they distribute their electoral votes. They have a statewide winner, then winners by Congressional District. The statewide winner gets 2 of the state’s electoral votes, and the winner of each of the three Congressional District will receive 1 a piece. Polls show that Obama is statistically tied with McCain in the Omaha-anchored Congressional district in Nebraska, which could net him 1 electoral vote. He is also within five points in another, while trailing statewide by less than 10%. Right now we have Nebraska in the “competitive” category on the <10% map and on the map without toss-ups, McCain is receiving all 5 electoral votes. This may change within the next few updates. Below is my projection map without toss-up states:

Posted in Election 2008, Election Projection, Politics

Tags: 2008, barack, election, john, mccain, obama, polls, prediction, president, projection, united states