The Changing Electoral Map

Quick note... take a look at the Dave Leip page which is on the sidebar (something you should be doing everyday anyway). For those who have not checked in a while... the changes are eye popping.

I knew that Obama was up in polls...and I was aware of the States he was gaining in (i'm a bit of an egg head when it comes to this stuff). But when you see it on the map, it puts it in a different perspective. To put it plainly, things are caving in on McCain. Obama has consolidated support in so-called "Blue States", and now he is going into Red and Purple States....

And if you slide over to Pollster.com... you will see Obama's trend lines shooting straight up. How many times have we seen this? We have seen this time and time again.... a few weeks before an election, Obama's trend lines take off like a rocket. We saw the same thing in the Primaries. Although this time, Obama had a little help... but who cares... I just want to see a nice win on November 4th. The bigger the margin... the lesser the chance that Republican operatives will attempt to steal the election. If it's 270, 280 and it's down to one or two States... I can guarantee you, there will be some sort of legal challenge with trumped up allegations... it never fails. But if Obama's win is convincing enough, then there will be nothing that Karl Rove & Co. can do.

I have a feeling that the polls will tighten as we get closer to the election (but I hope i'm completely wrong on that and Obama widens his lead). But I just think that McCain will intensify the negative attacks between now and November, in an attempt to salvage his Campaign. Hopefully Obama can hold on...and maintain a nice lead going into election day.

Dave Leip's Election Map

One of my favorite resources for following a General Election is the Dave Leip page. It offers a wide range of tools to track the election. But the General Election map in particular is a favorite of mine, because it allows you to see the whole picture and click on each State to drill into the numbers and to see the polling trends. The map was pretty effective for the 2004 General (s)election.

The site updates often and the trend charts/graphs are easily accessible.

It's one of my political junkie/semi-nerd paradises.

One of My Favorite Resources

One of my favorite resources for tracking elections (or perhaps I should say coronations since we are talking about the U.S.... there are few real democratic contests in this country)...but I digress... it's Dave Leip's election tracking/election map site. See here.

You may want to save that to your favorites list. It may come in handy as we get closer to the Primary coronation in a few weeks and the main coronation ceremony in November 2008.

Dave Leip is my #1 tracking site...providing the most updated info all in one site...and in an easy to follow format. The site collects all of the data from the relevant polling services...and provides info over a long period so that you can better determine trends, leans, strength of support, toss-ups, etc. The site also tracks Senate and Gubernatorial races. RealClear politics offers something similar....but I prefer the more streamlined format from the Dave Leip site. Although I do use some of the other tracking sites as well. There are 2 or 3 others that also provide good info.

Be forewarned though- one thing at Dave Leip that might throw you off is that the traditional color assignment for Rep & Dem is inverted. I don't know if they did that for kicks to mess with their readers or what... but after a while you won't notice it.