The Month (or more) In Review

8/3: Today I thought we'd look back at where we've been. Sometimes when we look at day to day minutia, larger trends emerge unnoticed. Below is a list of every change I have made on my map since its inception on June 21st. So far, there have been 12 changes toward Sen. Obama overall and only 9 for Sen. McCain, but something interesting happens when you look more closely.

In the first 3 weeks, Sen. Obama had a clear advantage, 8 of the movements were in his direction, while only 1 favored Sen. McCain. Since July 16th however, Sen. McCain leads 8-4. Of the 21 changes so far, only 6 have involved states that either were or became toss-ups, 13 either were or became barely on one side or another. There has not been a significant switch in my overall electoral counts, but that has been an expansion of electoral votes that are likely in play. When counting all of the states that are within 6% there were only 126 electoral votes in June 21st, but 143 now. In fact, at its lowest point on July 23rd, that number was only 112. More importantly, the 31 extra electoral votes all came from Sen. Obama's side. This is significant in that while Sen. McCain has not significantly gained in my overall projections, he now has more options than he had a couple of weeks ago that get his electoral count to 270.
On July 23rd, Sen. Obama led by 6 points or more in states totaling 269 electoral votes and only 4 (New Hampshire) where his lead was between 2 & 6. Today, he only has 238. The states that have been added to his "barely" column are Michigan, Colorado and New Mexico. A victory in any one of these states as well as the toss-ups for Sen. McCain and he will win the election.