The New Numbers

Why reports about national polling numbers can be safely ignored.

Big news! Polls taken after the Republican National Convention have John McCain up by as much as ten points! How can Barack Obama possibly recover from this? Is the election already wrapped up?

Hardly. Pundits tend to emphasize national polling numbers as a way of taking the pulse of the nation as a whole, but that's not the way presidents are elected. As we learned in high school civics class, the electoral college is responsible for choosing a new president, and those electors are chosen on a state-by-state basis. It's the individual state polls we need to look at, and those mask a significant advantage for the Barackstar.

Pollster.com is a great source for analyzing current numbers for any of the states. Using that as a guide, we see that Obama holds statistically significant leads (at least five points) in enough states to account for 243 electoral votes. That's huge, considering a candidate only needs 270 to win. John McCain, on the other hand, can only claim safe leads enough to pick up 179 votes. That leaves 116 votes in swing states, though it's telling that most of those states have been safely Republican in recent elections. Let's examine, shall we?


Traditionally Republican Swing States (90)

• Montana (3)
  
• Colorado (9)
  
• North Dakota (3)
  
• Virginia (13)
  
• North Carolina (15)
  
• Florida (27)
• Ohio (20)
  

Traditionally Democratic Swing States (26)

• Nevada (5)
• Michigan (17)
• New Hampshire (4)

We can read two things from this. First, it's possible that since so many more electoral votes are from traditionally Republican states, Johnny Mac stands to pick up more than the Barackstar. That's certainly possible. It's equally worrisome for McCain that so many traditionally Republican states are up in the air, though. When was the last time Montana's vote was in question? Or North Dakota? It's possible that the addition of Sarah "Frostbite" Palin could shore up the conservative vote in those states, but that still remains to be seen. My evaluation is that McCain is in worse shape than the mainstream media would like us to believe. Strange though it may sound, the MSM could be biased in favor of McCain rather than the Barackstar.

One last harrowing thought - if each set of swing states holds like we have laid them out here, then the electoral vote will be tied at 269, throwing the decision to the House of Representatives. Are you any happier than I am about the prospect of Nancy Pelosi choosing our nation's next president?