My Prediction

In preparing my Election Predictions, I scientifically assembled a vast array of numbers, statistics, data, and street-level observations, carefully analyzing all of it, in an attempt to come up with the definitive, fail-safe prediction for the outcome of the 2008 elections.

And then I decided to cheat.

The thin reed of hope that McCain supporters cling to is the fact that this really is a ground-breaking election. We’re in uncharted territory here. There could be a Bradley effect that makes the current polls completely inaccurate. Or, there could be a huge turnout of youth and first-time voters that swamps the polls and leads to an Obama landslide. The undecideds could break decisively for McCain (it would probably mean that 120 percent of the undecideds would have to break that way, but whatever…). Heck, let’s throw caution to the wind and say the IBD/TIPP poll numbers are based in reality…

In short, there are enough unknowns to keep this thing interesting right up to the end, even with Obama maintaining a significant lead in these last couple of weeks.

So I’ve prepared two scenarios. One has Obama winning by a strong margin.

The other is that Obama knocks this thing out of the park.

Scenario A:
A very conservative reading of the polls. I give Obama only the states where he is five points or more ahead, according to Pollster.com. In other words, he wins no tossup states. Chances of that are slim, but for the sake of argument…
What do we come up with:

Obama: 311 electoral votes
McCain: 227 electoral votes
In this scenario, I’ll throw out a 51 – 49 percent win for Obama nationally.

Scenario B:
Obama wins every state where he is currently ahead. I also throw in Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina for Obama. All those states are extremely close, and in this scenario, Obama’s ground game carries the day.
And the big map says:

Obama: 375 electoral votes
McCain 163 electoral votes
In this scenario, Obama wins 54—44. A ten point margin, one less than Gallup is showing today.

Now, believe me, I’ve tried to envision a scenario by which McCain wins. Just because I’m a gloom and doom kind of guy. But as far as I can see, the only way that McCain wins is if the polls are massively wrong. All of ‘em.

That just doesn’t seem possible, but we shall see.

As for other races, Cillizza of the WP predicts a Dem pickup of 30 seats in the house, and that sounds about right. Dems won’t get to 60 in the Senate, but they don’t really need to. There are a couple of moderate R’s left in the Senate, and they know their job security depends on them working in bipartisan way—including Minnesota’s Norm “finger in the wind” Coleman, who will probably win on Tuesday.

I’m pulling for El Tinklenberg (of the Fightin’ Tinklenbergs!!!) but I’ll call it for Bachmann. Hey, we need comic relief in our politicians from time to time, so Michele will serve well in that capacity.

I’ll post other predictions from the comments sometime tonight.