Fuzzy Math

Electoral math. I fucking love it.

Yes, it’s true. It is trendy here in America of the early 21st Century to question the need for the Electoral College and to call for a direct election of the President of the United States via the popular vote. This is nonsense—and our Founding Fathers knew it.

The Electoral College is the only reason why any national politician cares about states like New Hampshire, Montana, or Hawaii. To win the presidency you must reach 270 electoral votes. It matters not whether you secure a popular vote victory. All that matters is the Electoral College—and to win there, you need to run a national campaign. No one region carries enough votes to get you to the magic number. You need votes from them all.

The downside to this, of course, is that votes cast in non-contested states (like the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) have less impact than votes cast in contested states (like Virginia and Colorado.) But it also protects against some neo-confederate southern pederast from racking up huge vote totals in the in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and across the Deep South and then strolling into the White House. So suck it up. This is the best system we’ve got, and it ain’t going anywhere.

Anyway. Where was I?

Oh yeah. So, the reality of this system is that both Barack Obama and John McCain figure they have a certain amount of electoral votes already in hand, and that this race will be decided by a handful of so-called “swing” states. The breakdown, as of this writing, looks pretty much like this:

Solid Obama States: California (55 electoral votes), Illinois (21), New York (31), Massachusetts (12), Rhode Island (4), Delaware (3), Washington DC (3), Vermont (3), Connecticut (7), Maryland (10) and the homestead, Hawaii (4).

Strongly Leaning to Obama: Oregon (7), Washington (11), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), and Maine (4)

Solid McCain States: Idaho (4), Utah (5), Arizona (10), Wyoming (3), South Dakota (3), Nebraska (5), Alaska (3), Kansas (6), Oklahoma (7), Texas (34), Louisiana (9), Arkansas (6), Alabama (9), Mississippi (6), Tennessee (11), Kentucky (8), South Carolina (9), and my personal favorite, West Virginia (5).

Strongly Leaning to McCain: Montana (3), North Dakota (3), Indiana (11), Georgia (15), and North Carolina (15).

Whew. That sure is a lot of states. Feel free to check my math (a fun tool can be found here) but at the moment Barack Obama is sitting on 200 electoral votes. John McCain, on the other hand, is sitting on 189. If any of the above states swing the other way, the candidate who loses there will be in serious trouble. However, neither of these totals will get it done, and this brings us to…

The “Swing” States: Colorado (9), Florida (27), Iowa (7), Michigan (17), Missouri (11), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21) Virginia (13), and Wisconsin (10).

Now, a word on these swing states: They are “swing” only because the pundit class has decided that they could go either way come November 4th. For some of them this is certainly true. For others it is absolutely not. So while it may look like there are still 149 electoral votes up for grabs, the actual number is much less than that.

The Phony Swing States: Michigan and Wisconsin are blue states. The final vote totals may be close, but a close win is still a win. If McCain can steal either of these it means he is winning by a landslide elsewhere. Florida and Ohio, meanwhile, are absolutely, positively and without doubt red states. Ohio was red in 2000, was red in 2004, and it will be red again come November. As for Florida, you can say what you want about 2000, but it wasn’t that close in 2004 and will not be again in 2008. (For the record, I blame the elderly in Florida and the homophobes in Ohio who were more scared of gay marriage than they were George W. Bush. And also for the record, these are the exact people that Washington and Adams and Jefferson and Madison did not want directly electing the President of these United States. Thank you, Electoral College, thank you.)

Updated Totals: John McCain leads Barack Obama 236-227 with 75 votes still to be decided. McCain is 34 votes from victory; Barack Obama 43. From here almost anything can happen.

How Barack Obama wins: Obama needs Iowa, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire in any scenario. Iowa is the safest bet—it went for Gore in 2000 and is a border state to Illinois. Pennsylvania is still Pennsylvania, and that is not a good thing for any left-leaning candidate with dark skin and an exotic name. But for the Democrats to win this election they need to win the home state of Rick Santorum. New Hampshire is not a blue state—far from it in fact—and at one time the Granite State held great affection for John McCain. Still, John Kerry did win there in 2004. If Obama cannot duplicate that feat in 2008, he will not win this election.

Assuming he is able to win those three states, he will be sitting on 259 electoral votes and still need help. Where does it come from? Two scenarios stand out:

Colorado and New Mexico: Of the two, this is the outcome that most pundits seem to think has the best chance of coming to pass. Colorado is a state that has been increasingly referred to as purple. It has a popular Democratic Governor in Kathleen Sebelius, a major metropolitan city in Denver, and no love for the government of George W. Bush. Bill Clinton won there in 1992, but he was the last Democrat to do so and was unable to repeat in 1996. Clinton was hurt that year by Ross Perot—who captured 6.6% of the vote—and it remains unclear what impact Libertarian Bob Barr and Egomaniac Ralph Nader will have this time around. But if Obama can pull it off he picks up another nine votes.

As for New Mexico, Clinton won there twice and Gore made it three in a row in 2000, but John Kerry lost by a razor-thin margin four years later. What worries me here is that Arizona lies just to the west, and John McCain will be able to pick some votes up based on that alone. If Obama does somehow manage to win the Land of Enchantment (you do have to love that nickname) then the five electoral votes he picks up will put him over the top. Your total in this scenario: Barack Obama 273—John McCain 265.

Virginia: Obama needs both Colorado and New Mexico to win in the above scenario, and if he loses either then he needs to find another state to make up the difference. The Commonwealth of Virginia, once one of the reddest states in the union (and before that home to the Capitol of the Confederacy) has slowly been turning purple. That is to say at least as far as Arlington and Annandale and Alexandria are concerned. Plus, Virginia has a huge black population. If they turn out big for Obama (and you have to imagine they will) he may just have a shot at taking down these 13 electoral votes. That will give him 272 (assuming he loses both Colorado and New Mexico) and make him the president-elect. Unfortunately, this scenario is still far-fetched at this point. The southern part of Virginia is still the south. A McCain loss here would stun many analysts and shatter most projections. But it is possible.

Missouri: Here we have a state that is often pointed to as having swing potential, but very few actually seem to think it could break Obama’s way. I say poppycock. In Mizzou we have a state that voted for Bill Clinton twice. We also have a state where Al Gore was clearly hurt by Ralph Nader in 2000…and that was on the same night that good ol’ John Ashcroft lost a senatorial race to a dead guy. (Yep. It happened.) Missouri is a border state to Illinois and much like McCain in New Mexico, that will help him. Regardless of what the polls say now, you have to think he at least has a fighting chance to make it close. There are eleven electoral votes at stake in the Show Me State and they may just show Barack Obama the presidency. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

How John McCain wins: This is where things get scary.

The GOP is coming off two consecutive wins, the second of which featured a larger margin of victory than the first. If McCain holds onto everything Bush won in 2004, he wins. If he loses Iowa and Colorado, but wins New Mexico, he wins. If he loses Virginia, but wins Iowa, he wins. If he loses Missouri but wins New Hampshire, he wins. In fact, if he wins New Hampshire, in almost any likely scenario, he wins.

God help us all.