Obama Beating McCain in a Landslide

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August 8, 2:50 AM

by Igor Derysh, Congress Examiner

 

 

Courtesy of Wikipedia

While everybody loves a close race, especially the news networks who have committed so many resources to covering this election, if the election were held today, Obama would win hands down.

The latest three polls (Gallup, TIME, CBS News) have Obama leading in the popular vote anywhere from 3% to 6%. When one takes into account the state by state polls and their electoral vote (EV) value, the electoral map paints a very different picture of this election.

According to Real Clear Politics, Obama currently leads McCain 238 EV to 163 EV while 11 states and their combined 137 EV are too close to call for either candidate. The toss up states include the usual swing states of Florida, Ohio, Michigan and eight others with lesser EV impact.

If the election was held today, however, and there were no "toss-up" states, Obama would win in an electoral landslide, 322 EV to 216 EV. According to current polling trends, McCain would win only Florida, North Carolina and Missouri. Obama, on the other hand, would win Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Indiana, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire.

It is still early in the campaign, and these numbers might change. But even if we take Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire from Obama and give them to McCain, Obama would still win 279 EV to 259 EV.

Sure this election is far from being decided, but let's call it down the middle, folks. If the election were held today, Obama's 6% lead (CBS News poll), 5% lead (TIME poll) or 3% lead (Gallup poll) would result in an electoral landslide win for Barack Obama.

Note: Mark Nickolas puts all this in a great historical perspective on Huffington Post going back to 1928. Outside of Bush-Kerry and Bush-Gore, the closest election in recent years was Bill Clinton against George H. W. Bush in 1992. In that election, Clinton had a mere 5.6% popular vote advantage over Bush but walked away with 202 more electoral votes.

Note: If you're a complete politics nerd like me, you'll love this. Aside from their own electoral maps, Real Clear Politics gives you the ability to create your own. Shift states from Obama to McCain or vice versa to see who will win according to your calculations. Or simply give McCain the win in California, New York and Massachusetts and pretend.

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