Electoral Vote Math: Obama 193, Romney 0

[Playinghardball]

As Rolandz notes, Nate Silver has had some steadily encouraging numbers for Obama: his current forecast for Nov. 6, up even from yesterday, is a 73.1% chance of winning, and a healthy 305.5 estimated Electoral Vote total. I decided to drill down a bit to the state level, and discovered a really interesting fact: using the probabilities given for winning each state (or district, in Maine and Nebraska), Obama has 193 ways to get to 270 electoral votes by winning states for which his chances are at least 50%. The number of such routes to 270 for Romney? Zero.

To see why, follow me over the squiggley speed bump.

Along with the overall chances of winning the election, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight Blog also computes probabilities for winning each state/district (a combination of polling info, trends, underlying facts relevant to the given state, etc.) One fairly simple thing you can do to get a sense of the race is to assume that, starting with states that each candidate is guarranteed to win, work your way down the probabilities adding electoral votes as you go. So for example, Obama currently is given a 100% chance of winning nine states (go Vermont!) and Maine, district 1, followed by 11 states between 90 and 100%, ending at Pennsylvania with 91%. Assuming Obama will win all of these, we proceed through the next four states, all between 70 and 80%, ending with Ohio at 71% for a total of 275 electoral votes.

Notice that to get to 270, using only Obama's highest probability states, we never had to use a state with lower than 70%. On the other hand, doing the same process for Romney, using only his highest probability states, he has to use states for which he has a less than 50% chance of winning-- in some cases, much less. Put another way, the easiest path to 270 for Romney-- in terms of current probabilities-- runs through three states between 30 and 40%, ending with Ohio, at only a 29% chance of winning. That's gotta hurt.

But wait! There's more...

While Romney has no path to victory using states where his chance of winning is greater than 50%, Obama has not just one but many such paths. I've summarized all of them in the chart below.



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/01/1126847/-Electoral-Vote-Math-Obama-193-Romney-0

[BumRushDaShow]

1. Glad someone drilled down to look at the data a different way because

I'm not a statistics person... it makes my head hurt.

Based on the 2008 election, Obama got state electoral votes by some pretty slim margins - enough so that this triggered the initial rethug election fraud attempts by trying to eliminate "winner takes all" electoral voting for states... And they even boastfully insisted on doing it this way by piloting it on themselves for almost all of their primaries.

Well we know how that turned out and Rachael Maddow even made it her own special project to track them while the wheels came off their bus - with every single rethug primary experiencing some sort of "glitch" and flip-flopped declarations of who actually "won" the primary (which eventually dragged on into the state conventions for choosing delegates, where the Ron Paul crowd managed to game their system in several states).

So when the "proportional" effort failed, all that was left was to reduce turn-out by enacting illegal Voter ID laws and spouting racist nonsense, and I expect what might be to come is outright tampering with machines & tallies in certain areas of the country to try to do a 2000 repeat.

This basically means that there must be enough turnout to negate the cheats.

[Motown_Johnny]

2. I love this kinda stuff. I will love it more a week after the debates are over

but I still love it.

Thanks for posting.

[n2doc]

3. I worry about Fl, OH, PA and WI

I hope it doesn't come down to a few points lead in any of them. Too much history and evidence of active voter suppression and tampering.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Even with the Voter ID mess in PA

the fact that only recently did Dems have 1.2 million MORE registered voters than rethugs, offers some consolation that even before we got to that gap, the state hasn't voted for a rethug President since 1988. I.e., despite the teathuggery that has suddenly appeared here, the rethugs here are more moderate than in typical red states.

This is the state that gave the world Dick Thornburg and Tom Ridge and some who may have suddenly started to talk teabagger-speak, don't reflect a state history of them voting that way. It took Toomey 3 times to get in and he only did so because of the apathetic 2010 turnout. As an example, they threw Santorum out on his ass 6 years ago by the highest percentage of any Senate incumbent in history (18 % points) and right now, Casey (who was the winner of that election then) is leading king teabagger Smith by almost 20%!!!

http://www.politicspa.com/inquirer-poll-casey-53-smith-34/40388/

Add to this something I just found today from last Friday, where Corbett's favorability is in the pits (52% disapprove) due to the Sandusky thing, and I think the PA rethug electorate is thinking of other things beyond the national level. I.e., surprisingly (at least to me), that Penn State thing is a throbbing mess for people in Pennsyltucky and they are starting to blame the governor for his lack of action back when he was the AG.

An interesting analysis that I need to really read - http://articles.philly.com/2012-08-28/news/33426039_1_corbett-spokesman-kevin-harley-undecided-voters-pennsylvania-voters

[WinkyDink]

11. You had me until the slur "Pennsyltucky." I'm here all my 62 years; never heard that term pre-DU.

I'm 60 miles north of Philly and 80 miles west of NYC---hardly hillbilly territory, TYVM.

[phylny]

15. We used to live in Pennsylvania, in Exton, and my

husband called it Pennsyltuckty the time back then (the 80s). He was just playing with words.

[Dawgs]

8. The Koch brothers pulled their money from PA over a week ago.

The only one you should be worried about is Wisconsin.

Florida is a bonus state, and Ohio is pretty much a given for Obama.

[iemitsu]

4. the article works for me.

i'm no math wiz or statistician so i have to accept the work of others in these fields.
the conclusions offered in this piece make sense to me and reinforce my world view but i am not sure if or how pollsters are factoring in the spate of new voter suppression laws. that, and the fact that 28 states still are using diebolt voting machines makes predicting the outcome of elections difficult.
in a sane world with honest information there would be zero chance that informed citizens would support the republican agenda but we don't live in that world.

[Dawgs]

10. I disagree. The polls have been incredibly accurate when you look at the averages.

We heard the same kind of worries in 2008 and almost none of them came to be true.

Go to RCP and look at their final poll averages for each state to see how close they were to the final result.

[NightWatcher]

5. I've been having fun over at 270towin.com

there's all kinds of ways Obama can win and not too many for R$

http://www.270towin.com/

[juajen]

7. They'll just steal what they need, as usual, unless someone has the guts

to stop them. I hope Obama has this covered.

[Dawgs]

9. Sorry, but there is very little proof that many elections have been stolen.

Some, maybe, but not 'as usual'.

[WinkyDink]

12. ONLY the most crucial: 2000 and 2004.

[Zoeisright]

13. WRONG.

In 2000 the Supreme Court illegally gave the election to Bush. They knew it themselves; they said their piss-poor decision could never be used as precedent. And in 2004, Rove flipped the Ohio machines. People saw it happening with their own eyes.

And BTW, exit polls, which are used in EVERY OTHER COUNTRY in the WORLD to prove fraud, are NOT used in the U.S. to prove fraud. Exit polls did NOT match up with Bush in 2004 in Ohio.

[uponit7771]

14. Strawman noted, they dont have to steal "many" just a few. caging in Fl and ussc gave W prez

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Steady, keep up good work, ... It all could change, ... and Don't Forget DOWN-TICKET OFFICES. nt