It comes to this: will 2/3 of the white, undecided voters in the states in the Politico link below break for Obama? If they don’t, then he is the one who will suddenly find himself facing the uphill climb.
Tues night’s entertainment will either (a) be a nailbiter until the wee hours or (a) be over before prime time begins.
Based on the numbers below, anyone care to take a bet which one? I am still putting odds on a nailbiter.
Most notably, Obama is below the vaunted 50% mark, which is deadly for him.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the math here: over 50%, Obama is safe. At 50%, it’s a toss-up. At 49%, Obama is in trouble. At 48%, Obama is gone.
Look at the number of states in which Obama has a 47% lead.
Yes, it’s only one poll, but I don’t think many of you on this board believe that Politico is a right-wing side looking to skew towards McCain.
There is only one thing I disagree with on Politco’s map: if McCain manages to win all of the states below, I don’t think McCain will eke out a “small win”. If McCain wins the states below that Politico says are “too close too call”, then he would lead Obama 253 EVs o 243 EVs.
The remaining states would therefore be MT, ND, AZ, NM, AR, SD, WV, IN and GA.
Now, how likely is it that McCain will lose MT, ND, AZ, AR, SD and WV?
If you answer “likely”, then you’ve obviously never visited these states;-)
This leaves Obama with 3 states: if Obama wins GA IN and NM, then we have a tie, it goes to the House for a tie-breaker, and Obama wins. If he loses any of those 3 states, McCain wins.
This is the math, guys. It’s not pretty, and no one wants to admit it, but Obama’s prospects are fading before our eyes.
We are less than 48 hours from the election.
If this tend reverses suddenly tomorrow, then I’m way off base. If it doesn’t reverse, then….well, the Obama camp may go down in history as having tried to pull off the political equivalent of a Potemkin village.
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“Final polls tight in key states, with Obama enjoying small advantage”
“The final round of Mason-Dixon polls has Obama enjoying small leads in the red states that would deliver him the presidency, but he’s below 50 percent in each and there are enough white undecided voters to leave some too close to call.
As Brad Coker, who runs the Mason-Dixon poll, notes, the vast majority of the undecided voters in these states are whites.
If these undecided voters all break for McCain, it may be enough for him to eke out a small win. But there is another possibility: that some of these undecided voters who can’t bring themselves to support a black candidate but are also unhappy with the GOP just stay home.”
