Opinion: The Ticket Exclusive: National electoral map by state polls
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Today, The Ticket begins regular publication of the now-famous national electoral maps developed by Karl Rove, former chief political strategist for governor and then President George W. Bush and now a Fox News contributor.
Rove, who’s famous for attention to such detail during his working political days, regularly uses these maps on the air to illustrate the shifting sands of the evolving presidential race between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama.
Each week, we’ll be linking back to previous weeks’ maps, so Ticket readers can compare the changes from now through Nov. 4. Rove’s map methodology is explained on the jump, reached by clicking the ‘Read More’ line below.
--Andrew Malcolm
National Electoral Map reprinted by permission of KarlRove&CO.
Map Methodology
For example, if the most recent poll in Montana was taken on July 15, the average includes all polls conducted between June 15 and July 15. States within a three-point lead for McCain or Obama are classified as toss-ups; states outside the three-point lead are allocated to the respective candidate.
There are no polling data available for the District of Columbia, but its three electoral votes are allocated to Obama.
For each state, the map uses the average of all public telephone polls (Internet polls are not included in the average) taken within 30 days of the most recent poll available in each state.