National electoral map: Obama seizes 273 to beat McCain

Here's the latest national electoral map published in The Ticket courtesy of Karl Rove & Co.

New state polls -- 39 in all -- conducted in the first three days of this month show the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden continuing to lead Republican John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and, indeed, over the weekend acquiring just enough hypothetical electoral votes to win the presidency.

For the first time since mid-July, Obama has more than the necessary 270 electoral votes (273) with the movement from the toss-up captegory into his column of Minnesota and New Hampshire.

So the totals (the state-poll methodology is explained on the jump) now are 273 for Obama-Biden and 163 for McCain-Palin with 102 electoral votes remaining in the toss-up category.

Rove's analysis notes that Obama leads in every state carried by John Kerry in 2004 plus the states of New Mexico, Iowa and Colorado.

But he adds that all these polls were conducted before the most-watched vice presidential debate in the nation's history, last Thursday. So they do not measure what effect, if any, that confrontation had on the race. State polls traditionally lag behind national ones, so the debate effect won't start showing up in them until later this week.

A chart showing the race's numerous up-and-down swings since July 1 can be viewed by clicking on the "Read more" line below. The methodology is also explained there.

--Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of electoral votes, you can still get free instant alerts on all Ticket items like this flashed directly to your cellphone by registering here at Twitter.

Methodology

For each state, the map uses the average of all public telephone polls (Internet polls are not included in the average) taken within 14 days of the most recent poll available in each state.

For example, if the most recent poll in Montana was taken on July 1, the average includes all polls conducted between July 1 and 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 is no polling data available for the District of Columbia, but its three electoral votes are allocated to Obama.

This map and chart published courtesy of Karl Rove & Co.

Comments

[Karl Rove]

...courtesy of Karl Rove & Co.

Yeah right, we can trust THOSE numbers....

[noaf d'cap]

fivethirtyeight.com has more indepth analysis for statistics freaks.

[John]

Whoa, no any comment from GOP supporters?

[Desmond]

McCain is a very unstable person and the current economic crisis has proven.McCain was indecisive,making decisions that shocked or surprised his own campaign staff. First, suspending a campaign to force himself into negotiations that never involved or required him, saying the presidential debate should be postponed when Americans wanted to hear from their future president,saying he wont debate until there is a deal and came back when there was no deal.In fact there was no deal until 7 days later.
McCain showed that he can't multi-task,a simple prerequisite of a leader,poor sense of judgment cause he wanted a game changer and a deflection of Americans from the economic crisis.
God save U.S.A if he becomes president. Gob save and bless America from McCain/Palin

[Concerned American Voter]

Obama keeps reaching back to Chicago political past for policy advisers, and pulling one despicable, vile, and even evil “rabbit” after another out of his hat.
The list of Barack Obama’s radical associations is long and it keeps getting longer. Some are now well-known, but many are not. They need to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_HZMD97nMw

(Bloomberg) -- Nigerian Stock Exchange Chief Executive Officer Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke is being investigated after holding a fund-raising event linked to U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, Agence France-Presse reported.
U.S. electoral laws forbid donations from foreigners to electoral campaigns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0cq4Nytu8

23 years at TUCC with Jeremiah Wright and James Meeks. racist sermons on Youtube.
He chose the most radical church in the country; chose to immerse himself in hard-core ideological radicalism. Never before has this country considered such a radical leftist for its chief executive.

Michael Pfleger and his hateful and race-hating ramblings, Obama met while carrying out his own radical social activism as community organizer at ACORN, (radical organization)

Penny Pritzker, heads Obama camp National Finance Committee was president of Superior Bank - massively failed and she literally bought her way out of jail paying $460 MILLION fine; was the very epicenter of subprime loan scandal” that would come to eat this nation’s financial system alive.

Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, former head of Obama’s vice presidential selection committee, discovered he benefited from sweetheart loans from subprime king Countrywide.

Tony Rezko certainly and his federal indictments and financial dealing with Obamas of course and William Ayers, US terrorist bomber, Obama-co-lecturer, fellow board member, neighbor, and friend.

Communist Frank Marshall Davis, obama mentor; Saul Alinsky and Gerald Kellman (Kellman’s Woods Fund is how Obama hooked up with terrorist William Ayers)

Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, appointed as Obama camp national coord for Muslim n affairs also stepped down after news about his stint on the fund’s board - which includes fundamentalist imam - prompting The Wall Street Journal inquiries about relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and his long personal relationship with Hamas Jamal Said.

Obama desperately needs voters to forget hes the son of a Muslim father who served an incredibly brutal and corrupt Kenyan government; to forget he attended a madrassa in Indonesia and practiced Islam; forget that he campaigned in Kenya on behalf of Raila Odinga, who relied upon chaos, corruption, and violence in his campaign; numerous associations with radical Muslims; forget the photographs of Obama in traditional Muslim clothes, hanging with Muslim radicals such as Mazen Asbahi and anti-Semite Rashid Khalidi.

The mainstream media has frankly put the security of our great country at risk with an Obama coronation media like CNN & MSNBC is the only way Obama managed to steal the Dem nom. It’s extremely concerning that so many Americans could care less about who their candidate really is?? simply amazing and frankly scarey.

[Gary Hurd]

I cannot imagine why anyone would believe anything associated with the name "Karl Rove."

[Don]

Wow, The LA Times is already calling the election for Obama. I guess no one needs to vote all we need is this Newspaper to tell us what to do.

Give us a break you liberal Rag.

[John Rogers]

I spent a couple of hours looking at poll tracking from July to November going back to the 1960. I noticed a couple of trends.

The polls fluctuate in the last few weeks and the Republican candidate gains about 4 points on average from mid-summer on.

This is an election like no other and the negative trend because of the economic crisis is a hard perception for McCain to overcome.

But McCain simply needs to win the yellow battleground states on the map, plus Colorado or Minnesota or Wisconsin where he is even according to some recent polls or within the margin of error on average.

Win all three and he has a landslide electoral college victory.

[Morris]

Arizona is in single digits. Wait until after the debate. If Obama does what he did in the last debate. Arizona will be a toss up.

[Mr Globe]

Well, I don't need any one from the left to tell me how to vote, I also don't even need anybody from the right to tell me how to vote. I do know how to tell right from wrong, and what I am seeing from the left is just dead wrong.

[Yvonne]

Wow "Concerned American Voter" - You seem to know a lot of information about Barack!! It's ALMOST like you're a mole from the McCain campaign, sent here to confuse us with your ABUNDANCE of information. Two things though:

1. The average American either doesn't have access to this amount of information, or does't have the time to look up, piece together...and dare I hope...FACT CHECK? We are too busy working to pay our mortgages, fill our tanks, keep (or find) jobs and such sundry nonsense. The only types who DO have the time to post such an information filled (notice I DIDN'T say "fact" filled) would be somebody who's JOB it is to do so.
2. You are obviously trying to scare us with all of your "muslim" talk about Obama. We truly don't care that his absent father was Muslim. We are more scared about our "Christian" president who has destroyed this nation's economy, pandered to big oil, and has led a 5 YEAR war that has no clear, obtainable objective and has no plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement (read the Powell Doctrine). We are more concerned with our "Christian" Presidential hopeful, who supported our current President's decisions 90% OF THE TIME!!

[Cru]

Wow, for someone concerned, you sure like being an alarmist about lies. "to forget he attended a madrassa in Indonesia and practiced Islam;"
C'mon, I could just skim over and see your over-saturation of mistruths. It's too late for last minute xenophobic fear-baiting. He's as American as any one of us. Now go put your tin-foil hat on, "Concerned" American Voter

[PeoplesPulse]

Concerned 'American' Voter: Guilt by association is so.. passé. Dare I say, out of touch?

[Australian Citzen]

Do not let McCain win this election, for your country and the world's sake, Vote 1 Democrats.

[whynot]

Palin has the nerve to talk about Obama - when she infact is one step away from being a felon. Troopergate, tax evasion, witchcraft. This is the best John McCain could do????

[NJ]

I like McCain because Washington doesn't. Especially in times like these we need somebody willing to cut government spending not increase it.

[RINGO]

"The mainstream media has frankly put the security of our great country at risk with an Obama coronation media like CNN & MSNBC." Who is being coronated?

From 3.30 EST today Oct 6, CNN gave McCain 10 minutes airtime to malign Obama in New Mexico. So who is being favored? CNN especially favors McCain and especially Lou Dobbs who thinks he is cute and smarter than anyone else in the world. Lou Dobbs, you disgust me.

[Lee From Treasure Island Florida]

Concerned American Voter- you can copy and paste all over the internet...NOT THIS TIME. You will not scare anyone. No more McBush. No more McSame. Keating 5 was the beginning of this economical mess we are in today...no regulators...McCain/Bush.
Wright, Ayers, talking with Iran, Hussein middle name and so called Muslim - no one is listening.
Give it up. Its the economy stupid

[young G]

vote for Obama my brothers and sisters thank you all.

[2wise2befooled]

Everyone is so down on Obama. I'm not much of an Obama fan myself, but I am an America that wants a truthful, educated and equal president. Palin and McCain has NOT proven to be either!! They can't tell the truth OR the same story/fact twice!!! Palin's entire debate was full of LIES and UNTRUTHS!! If you are here on the information super highway writing and reading comments please, Please, PLEASE take a moment to Fact Check some of Palin's statements from the debate. It clearly shows what we as Americans are dealing with this election, and I'm more scared of the sneaky yet Out- Right lies coming from my own party (republican) than anything else!

[Corey Wilde]

To the "Concerned American Voter:" I guess you weren't one of us who lost money in the Keating Savings & Loan debacle. Otherwise you would remember Sen. McCain played a big part in a lot of regular Joe Americans losing their savings. And now here we are again, facing the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, and you think that man should be put in charge. I wouldn't trust John McCain to hold my bus fare!

[wuj]

Wow, The LA Times is already calling the election for Obama. I guess no one needs to vote all we need is this Newspaper to tell us what to do.

Give us a break you liberal Rag.

Posted by: Don | October 06, 2008 at 06:41 AM

Another case of Republican conservatives wanting to kill the messenger. Unless they're focusing all their anger and bitterness on "that one"...

[JP]

John Rogers - I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad tidings, but saying that McCain ‘simply needs to win the yellow battleground states plus CO, MN, or WI’ is far from simple. Keep in mind that this map is from Rove’s website. The truth of the matter is that, based on several polls, some of the yellow states here already blue and getting bluer. Furthermore, picking up a MN, for example, has been nearly impossible for a Republican candidate to do in recent history (MN was the only state that voted for Mondale in 1984). Anything can happen, of course. The events of three weeks ago seem like ancient history already and there are still nearly four weeks to go. But, there is nothing simple about McCain’s prospects…republican strategists readily admit this.

[moonbuggy]

To concerned American voter. Stay home an don't vote because you are easily swayed by one sided, conspiracy theories created by personal friends of McCain. Anyone can edit together a bunch of disconnected facts into a seemingly believable story. In fact it would be easier to do this with mccain since he gets caught in lies all the time. A little secret for you. People who put up links to supposedly prove things about other people, prove nothing. Links are not direct proofs if they link to far reaching, exaggerated gossip written by biased supporters.

I'll give you ONE example of how useless their claims are. And there are other rebuttals for the other points you listed as well. You list Fannie Mae. Mccains campaign manger has long been a lobbiest for Fannie Mae. He has also been one of the biggest, big oil executives in the world. McCain is a big oil puppet that's been bought and sold with donations from oil companies. Yes, all true. He is got $2 million in donations from oil companies through friends that work in the companies. All documented too. If you can't see that McCain is lying through his teeth to get your vote, then you are truly blind.