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.

Black Voting and Youth (18-24) Voting

I have produced two maps showing black voting and youth (18-24) voting in the 2004 elections. These are two groups that Barack Obama will win in November, but he needs their turnout to be sky-high, especially in the critical battleground states of Florida, Virginia, Colorado and Ohio.



African American voting rates are low, but not all that low in comparison to whites. But, from this map, we see that there is room for drastic improvement in black turnout in Florida, Virginia and Colorado. Ohio is already at the top end of African American turnout, but because the margin is likely to be razor-thin, getting blacks to the poll on Election Day will be critical to an Obama victory.



The second map illustrates the voting rates of the 18-24 age group. The Midwest leads the way in voting among this age group, while Western and Southwestern states have particularly abysmal turnout rates. The South is marginally better. I was quite surprised to see voting rates of the youngsters at 50% in Mississippi. Senator Obama is pinning his election hopes on winning this group by massive margins. He will. But, will enough of them vote to make a difference, particularly, in Florida, Virginia, Colorado and Ohio? As with black voters, there is plenty of room for improvement and simply increasing the youth vote by 20% in a few battleground states might make the difference.

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.