Today's electoral college map

So, today Ohio swings back to a marginal McCain lead, and despite New Hampshire's fondness of all things mavericky it looks like McBombit's solid cardboard maverick facade is starting to wobble a little, as BO holds a marginal lead. But, most interesting today is seeing Virginia in BO's column for the third straight day....nice.

A few critical swing states seem to look much firmer for Obama, they are; Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico. In the same token, it seems McBombit has convinced the majority of the good people of Missouri that he's the right madman for the job. However, regardless of polling a month out, one thing's guaranteed they will all be fought to the bitter end, and it's not too late to make a difference. So if you're anywhere near any of the states you need to get yourself down to the local BO campaign office, and get door knocking.

As for the other traditional 'swing states'; Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, Virginia, PA and Florida. Currently BO is holding that slight advantage in Virginia, and a stronger one in PA, but he's still remaining competitive in Nevada, Ohio, Florida and Indiana they will all be tough fights, and there is plenty of time for us all to make a difference.

Finally, there are a few other states that could yet turn into tight fights, a couple of them are not good to see; Washington and Oregon. These should be BO's but he's not quite been able to consistently pull ten points clear, which is what you want to see before feeling safe, so there's still work to be done.

The other state, and perhaps more of a surprise to many, not me of course! is West Virginia. Yeah, that West Virginia, the state that Hillary won by a forty point margin or something. The state that's just jam packed full (97%) of all those 'hard working white folk' that aren't supposed to like the guy with the funny name. Anyway, that state has recently been polling only at around +4 points for McBombit, remarkable and as such can only be considered marginal for McCain.

There are many reasons why this state is worth fighting for, WV feels a bad economy worse than just about any state, and when Obama talks about 'the forgotten' the people of WV are precisely the kind of American he means. It's traditionally Democratic, Bush only took it for the first time from Gore in 2000.

The coal industry, whether it's the oxymoron that is 'clean' coal or just plain old dirty coal, has got problems there. WV is being both sustained and destroyed by it. There are fights to take up for coal worker's rights; better wages, working and living conditions. Wages have shrunk while the coal corp's profits increase, and a stronger union can only help those that work in it.

Also, just about anybody who doesn't work in the industry has been outraged by its disregard for the laws of the state. In collusion with it's Washington DC Republican lackeys, legislation has even been adopted retrospectively to cover corporations that had previously broken the law. There's plenty to get our teeth into in West Virginia. Even if the state is to be lost this time around, fighting for it will force McBombit into spending money where he doesn’t want to, and it will lay a solid foundation for a follow-up win in 2012.

If you want to get a bit of an insight into WV and the people there, check out this entry about the Democratic fight for Appalachia. I wrote it sometime ago, and even if I say so myself it's well worth a read, and it features a must watch documentary.

Meet the three people who could decide the next President...

Now don’t get me wrong I’m trusting in the great American public to provide the world and Barack Obama a landslide win come November 4th, but and it’s an ever-so-tiny but, something scary happened yesterday as I was making my daily visit to CQ's groovy scenario builder, I split the swing states like this:-

Obama; VA, NH, PA, IA, CO, IA, NM, MN, WI

McBombit; FL, MI, OH, NV, MO

I’m never confident about my predictions at the best of times, and I'm definitely iffy about giving McBombit Michigan, as it could easily go to BO, but in the same token Virginia and Colorado would shock no one if they ended up as red states. Of course they're all going to be tight scraps, and a LOT can change between now and Nov 4th, but for the sake of this scenario lets say I got it right.

Well, for the first time I saw that a split decision was a genuine possibility, my scenario came out 269/269. Yes, it was enough to send shivers down my spine, but thanks to a recent article on electoral-vote.com and their dogged pursuit of all things political, I may be able to allay your fears some.

The article, which due to the fact I was too shortsighted to see a split occurring, I initially ignored, perhaps prophetically pointed out that in the event of a split college the House of Representatives take a vote to decide on the winner. But, and it's a big but, with the caveat that each state cast a single vote regardless of population density. Meaning that a state as unpopulated as dear old Alaska receives the same voting power as say California, which is just jam packed full of fantastic Americans, and it is with this caveat that the shenanigans begin.

There are 435 members (representatives) sitting in the House of Representatives and they are proportionally divided between the states, a densely populated state like California receives 53 representatives, and a less populated state such as Virginia receives 11. However, under this ruling with each state receiving one vote, California will bring all its representatives (Republican and Democrat) together and take a vote to decide which candidate will receive California's vote. In California’s case there are a majority of Democrats holding seats so it is most likely that California will cast its vote for Barack Obama. Whereas Texas has 32 representatives, and the majority are Republican, so Texas will probably cast its vote for John McCain and so on.

When the states with a single representative come to place their vote, the representative will either be a Republican or a Democrat, and as such you would’ve thought they'd cast their vote accordingly, but ironically this is where it can get complicated. It is exactly this scenario that the electoral-vote.com article focuses on.

There are seven sparsely populated rural states that receive a single House seat, they are; Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Three of those states are likely to vote Republican in the general election, but elect Democrats to Congress, they are; North Dakota, South Dakota and of course, Alaska!

Alaska has been looking to throw out the old guard of Alaskan politics. The people of the state have become fed up with the endless corruption associated with their congressional delegation and want a change. Until McCain's inspired choice of running mate, Alaska had even looked like a race the Democrats might've won. Still, although Alaskans are now likely to vote for one of their own on the presidential ticket, they don't have that problem when it comes to the congressional races.

Electoral-vote.com have closely followed the hotly contested Republican primary between Lt. Governor Sean Parnell and veteran Don Young. Don Young has served 18 consecutive terms as Congressman for Alaska, and has been partnering Ted Stevens for 35 years, they are the old guard, both are under investigation, Stevens already having been indicted.

The Democratic Party candidate for Congress is Ethan Berkowitz, who had been running badly in polls against Parnell. The funny thing is that Parnell would’ve almost certainly beaten Berkowitz, but the Republicans, being Republicans, elected Don Young in the primary and Berkowitz is running 15-20 pts ahead of Don young in the same polls. So, it looks like a shoe-in, confused? I was.

Basically, it seems these people are Republicans at heart, they believe they are conservatives, but they are honest conservatives first, or at least the majority are, and as such are not prepared to trade their honesty and dignity for the sake of getting a crook elected. So left to chose between re-electing the criminal Don Young, or breaking ranks and voting Democrat, most prefer the Democrat.

Here’s what Electoral-vote.com had to say...

...As expected, the renomination of Rep. Don Young (R-AK) for Congress may pretty much end the GOP's hopes to hold the seat against Democrat Ethan Berkowitz. This seat is an especially important one because the presidential race is so close that a 269-269 tie is certainly a possibility. In the case of a tie, the new House elects the President with each state getting one vote.

That would mean Berkowitz gets as much say as all of California. Like Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (D-SD), he would be in a situation of being a Democrat in a state that went wildly for McCain. Pomeroy has been around for a while and can probably withstand the pressure applied to him to vote as his state did, but Herseth-Sandlin and Berkowitz as relatively newbies will get introduced to power politics real fast. A situation in which Berkowitz, Herseth-Sandlin, and Pomeroy got together for lunch in a smoke-free room to pick the President would be kind of unprecedented.

Electoral-vote.com went on to show what they looked like, and as they could be the three people who end up deciding the fate of the country (and the world) sometime after November 4th, I thought it prudent to show you too, here they are...


Ethan Berkowitz(D-AK) is on the left of Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin(D-ND), and Earl Pomeroy(D-SD) is on Stephanie's right.

Today's Electoral Vote Map

At the bottom of this page you can view the latest electoral vote map, courtesy of electoral-vote.com, it's long been known that BO needs to secure all the John Kerry states, and depending on which ones, steal two or three from the Bush column. Well, interestingly today's map shows him doing precisely that, safely holding all the Kerry states and gaining Iowa (by double digits now), New Mexico, and Colorado. If this is the map on Nov 4th BO gets his mits on that big iron key for the White House door.

Despite all the talk of North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio this is probably the map most likely to take BO to the White House, and as you can see it's gonna be tight. All of you on the east coast better prepare yourselves for a long election night , you’ll be sat huddled drinking your Horlicks as you wait for the officials of some remote county in southern New Mexico to recount their 185 votes, it's gonna be a night for the ages, not one for the feint hearted.