Gettting to 270

In order to win the election, a candidate must get to 270 electoral votes, or one more than half of the 538 total votes out there. On the eve of the election, I wanted to look at the electoral map and examine how both candidates can win, and what states will be important to look at tomorrow night.

First, we can give each candidate the states where they are far ahead, and where their opponent has not campaigned or attempted to win. For Senator Obama, those states are: Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Washington, Oregon, California, and Hawaii. This gives him a total of 224, leaving him only 46 EC votes away from the presidency. Senator McCain has a much smaller number of states which are certainly going to vote for him. They are: South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah,and Idaho. This gives him only 118 EC votes leaving him a whopping 152 more to go.

Clearly, the path for Senator Obama is the easier one. In fact, if we give him the states which are currently leaning his way, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, then he already has achieved his goal, and will have 278 EC votes and be our President-Elect.

For Senator McCain, the way is much more convoluted and unlikely. He must first hold onto the three states which are only leaning his way, Arkansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia, which will give him an additional 14 EC votes. Then he must take all of the toss-up states, which have a combined 128 EC votes. These states all voted for Bush in 2004, but many of them did so by narrow margins. They are: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Arizona, and Montana. If Mr. McCain can hang onto all of these states, which is anyone's guess, as the polls in them are all right around even, then he has a chance. This would bring his total to 260, meaning he would only need to snatch one or two states from Mr. Obama to win. There are three plausible (though unlikely scenarios where he could do this)

1) He could flip Pennsylvania, where Mr. Obama had trouble in the primaries. If he does manage to win Pennsylvania, he could afford to lose Virginia, which appears likely.
2) He could take two out of the three small western states leaning for Obama, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
3) He could miraculously pull out Minnesota, winning the presidency by one EC vote.

He could also manage to pull out a tie, by winning one of those small western states and New Hampshire, or by winning Colorado, but it is very likely that this would simply delay his eventual defeat.

It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario where he comes out ahead, but one never knows, so certainly everyone should be watching Tuesday night. Personally, I will be looking at how close some of the important eastern swing states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Georgia go. If two of those five go for Senator Obama, then McCain will be writing his concession speech, and if three do he will be getting ready to deliver it. If, on the other hand, McCain miraculously wins New Hampshire, we might be in for a long night.

What to watch it on....

FoxNews: If you want conservative talking heads.
MSNBC: FoxNews for liberals. All the thoughtless screaming one expects from FoxNews, just aimed at conservative instead of at liberals.
CNN: If you like lots of cool gadgets and results broken down into a thousand pieces. Reasonably balanced, fairly mindless.
PBS: Quiet and thoughtful commentary from reasonable people; hopefully David Brooks, who is one of my favorite people, will be on.
Comedy Central: John Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be on from 10 to 11, for a fun comedic change-of-pace.

I will be live-blogging on the Economist's Democracy in America blog, (probably arguing with commenter forbese, a strong McCain backer) likely watching PBS and CNN, with John Stewart making me laugh at 10.

Whoever wins, I promise you that they will lead America better during the next four years than we have been led the last 8, and I hope that everyone gives the winner a chance to prove themselves before casting judgment upon them. Happy voting and TV watching everyone!