Stealing Borrowing an idea I first saw over at TMV, I’d be interested in seeing how readers of Poligazette think this election will turn out. Make predictions for how many electoral votes the candidates will get, the popular vote, the number of seats in the Senate, and number of seats in the House.
Good luck! Here’s what I already posted at TMV:
Electoral: Obama 292 McCain 246
Popular: Obama: 53% McCain 48% Other 2%
Senate: 55 Dem/43 Rep/2 Ind.
House: 256 Dem/179 Rep
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I just sent Jason an e-mail with predictions. You can make your own map on Real Clear Politics.
I hope McCain narrowly wins the popular vote and Obama narrowly wins the electoral vote, so everybody who took sides on the popular vote in 2000 will now find themselves in the opposite position. And maybe that type of dissonance will move us in the right direction..
Here are my predictions that I already made on TMV:
Electoral College: Obama 338 McCain 200
Popular Vote: Obama 52.9 McCain 46.7 Other: 0.4
Senate: Dem 57, Rep 41, Other 2
House: Dem 258 Rep 177
That’s the only one I agree with you on, and think you’re pretty good with House as well.
Popular vote: Obama wlil not make it over 50% I believe. 49.6% perhaps. McCain: 47.5%. Rest other.
Electoral college: Obama 290, McCain rest.
actually I think MM’s predictions are going to be fairly on target. With exception of popular vote %. I do not think that Obama will get as many votes as Bush did in 04.
Yea, I’ve been wondering about that myself. I think it may be a little high myself. Maybe if he was getting Claudia’s number of EVs.
My EV count is kind of arbitrary. I made an educated guess based on thinking it’d end up tightening up, but the actual numbers may not add up correctly.
Whatever the case, it’s not going to be over 300 I think. I’d be surprised if it was. Perhaps if Obama looks to be getting to 270 early on it might be, but I doubt it.
OB : 348
McCain : 190
I haven’t done the map to see where I think the EV will come out, but my general sense is along the lines of MM and MdVG- somewhere between 290 and 300 for Obama would be my guess.
And I definitely agree with MvdG and Interested on Obama’s popular vote percentage- I think it will be 48-49ish on the high end. I think that’s where his vulnerability is in the polls- he rarely goes over 50% and when he has hit it it’s often not sustained. I think particularly in the swing states, where some pollsters are saying that as many as 1 in 7 are still undecided, those people more likely will vote McCain if they do vote at all (their continued indecision likely represents a desire for change but discomfort with Obama himself and/or confusion about whether or not he’s really a centrist/postpartisan) and that means he probably won’t top 50% and he may not take as many of those ‘leaning’ states as some are predicting.
I’ve also condsidered the possibility that redfish mentions- McCain winning the popular vote by a narrow margin and Obama taking the EV for the win.
I’d like to think, as redfish does, that this reversal of 2000 might precipitate some partisan healing as each side reflects on what it feels like to be on the other side; unfortunately though I think our darker sides would probably prevail and the GOP would be the sore losers complaining of a stolen election (plenty of ammo for that accusation with the ACORN fiasco) and the Dems saying that since Bush didn’t govern in a uniting way after his non-popular vote win, then Obama has no obligation to do so either.
EV: 311/227 Obama (worst case 278/260, best case 344/194)
Popular: 51/47/2 Obama
Senate: 56/42/2 D/R/I (best case 59/39/2 worst case 52/46/2)
House: 243/192 D/R
MM your popular vote totals 103%. I know there’s some rounding but…
“Whatever the case, it’s not going to be over 300 I think.”
I looked at the map and that would require every R leaner and every toss-up going McCain’s way. That would give 291/247 (pretty close to your guess).
CS
“…I think our darker sides would probably prevail and the GOP would be the sore losers…and the Dems saying that since Bush didn’t govern in a uniting way after his non-popular vote win, then Obama has no obligation to do so either.”
Unfortunately I agree with your assessment here.