McCain Electoral Vote Miracle

I’ve said it here before that I don’t trust the polling numbers in this election and again I must site the upsets in the primaries. State by state the polls said one thing and the actual election results were the opposite time and time again. That being said, I do however trust Real Clear Politics (RCP) with their polling average numbers. They take all of the recent polls from all sources and average them all together state by state.

As of 10/31/2008 the electoral map with no toss up states shows Barack Obama leading John McCain 353 to 185. That works out to 48% more electoral votes that John McCain needs to make up by November 4th to win the Presidency. If this were a poker game, I would encourage Senator McCain to fold his hand but I don’t see him doing that. So what does John McCain need to win to get to the magic number of 270 electoral votes? I’ll tell ya…

Using the RCP electoral map with no ties we have 353 votes for Obama and 185 for McCain. Below is a list of states that McCain would need to take just by one fraction of a percent over Barack Obama to win. Mind you, all of these states have Obama winning by 2.6% or more as of today. Below is the state and the percentage that Obama is polled at to win. John McCain has to pull this royal flush out or it is the end of the game. He needs to hold the lead he has in all other states according to the polling numbers…

State, Electoral Votes, Current Lead
OH 20 5.8% Obama
FL 27 3.5% Obama
NC 15 2.6% Obama
NH 4 12.3% Obama
NV 5 7.0% Obama
CO 9 6.5% Obama
NM 5 7.3% Obama

Source: Real Clear Politics

One of the real concerns for John McCain is carrying states he barely has a hold of. Along with the above states swinging in favor of John McCain from Barack Obama he needs to hold the following states as well:

MO 11 0.4% McCain
IN 11 1.7% McCain
MT 3 2.0% McCain

Just my random thoughts on the numbers but all that the Obama campaign needs to do is take any single one of these states listed above and he becomes the next President. Statistically, Barack Obama can do that very easily by taking NH that is already showing a 12.3% favorability. John McCain needs a miracle in my honest opinion.

Papamoka