It’s 17 days from the Election. You’re John McCain. What do you do?
You’re John McCain. You’re low on funds (relatively, compared to a juggernaught against you). You have 17 days. You’re behind. Where do you put your limited resources and time in the next three weeks?
First, McCain can count on the following states to fall into his camp: Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Alabama, Nebraska, Kansas, Alaska, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana, Louisiana, Georgia and North Dakota. In addition to these, with minimal effort McCain can probably count on Arkansas and Indiana. In Arkansas the economy has taken a toll, reducing McCain’s margin but it’s highly unlikely even with the Clintons’ help that the state will go blue. And while Indiana flirted with toss-up status, this caused a huge panic within Republican party and they have now flooded the state with resources. If Indiana goes blue it’s likely other red states would as well, so they are going to stop that possibility. So assuming the GOP maintains that resource level it will be an uphill slog for Obama to win the state, even with the bleed over from the Chicago and other media markets.
This is a total of 21 states and 169 electoral votes that McCain can reasonably count on. He needs 101 more electoral votes to get to 270. Note that all of the states in the above list voted for Bush in 2004 (are “red”).
Next, he’d consider which are states where he has no chance and no operations currently because they are almost certain to go for Obama. These states are: Vermont, Washington DC, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut, California, Delaware, Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota.
McCain is contesting Pennsylvania currently, but the polls show Obama’s lead in double digits. So why is McCain wasting valuable time and money? Because the GOP and the McCain campaign have given up on every single one of the states that Kerry won in 2004 except for Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. We’ll look at the total math in a second (and why McCain is still in these two states), but if you’re inside the McCain campaign and being realistic, you have to put both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in Obama’s column. (The current odds of Obama winning all Kerry states is 93%, and both states went for Kerry).
So, this means that the McCain campaign has to consider 21 states and 259 electoral votes blue. This means that Obama has in place all of Kerry’s states and he has flipped one 2004 red one, Iowa with 7 electoral votes, to blue. This places the Democrat 11 electoral votes from election.
If you’re McCain, where does that leave the math? McCain has 169 electoral vote in his base, Obama has 259 electoral votes. And nine states with 110 electoral votes that are theoretically “in play”. McCain will have to win 101 of these 110 electoral votes to win (92%). Gulp. Now would be a good time for a whiskey, neat.
If McCain looks at 2004, Bush won with 286 electoral votes, 16 more than needed to win. In 2000, Bush won with 278 electoral votes, just 8 votes over a win. Starting with the 2004 map, and subtracting Iowa (now a core Obama state and voted blue in 2000) then the “red base” is 279 electoral votes. This is the argument that many in the Republican party are now using – “protect the base!” The theory goes that the current political and economic environment is such that McCain should stop wasting resources in Pennsylvania and put everything on the rest of the red states to narrowly win the election.
This is threading the needle, and it’s pretty much what McCain will have to acknowledge in the next week. If he’s to win, it’s going to be a very, very narrow victory. The nine “at play” states with 110 electoral votes are;
Virginia, 13 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 94% probability for Obama
Florida, 27 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 84% probability for Obama
Ohio, 20 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 76% probability for Obama
Missouri, 11 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 64% probability for Obama
North Carolina, 15 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 59% probability for Obama
New Mexico, 4 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2004, currently estimated at 91% probability for Obama
Colorado, 9 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 90% probability for Obama
Nevada, 5 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 77% probability for Obama
West Virginia, 5 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 50%-50%
If McCain is to win, he must not lose more than nine electoral votes from this list. He can afford to lose any of the bottom four states alone. He can lose New Mexico and either Nevada or West Virginia. If he can somehow flip New Hampshire he can offset a loss in New Mexico (what happened between Bush and Gore in 2000.) But these are sideshows now. They are battlegrounds because they are flipping demographically and in a close election Obama would have needed one or more of these small states to seal a win. But that’s not where the race is today.
The real story is that John McCain cannot lose ANY of the five states of Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri or North Carolina. And that’s his needle to thread, he must win them all. All are in the eastern or central time zones. On election night, if McCain loses any of these states then the election is over and all that will matter the rest of the night is how big Obama’s electoral win is. Indiana is a target of the Obama campaign because it would also be in this list if it was closer – and that’s what the Obama campaign is trying to make happen in the next 10 days (again, an uphill chore).
McCain is on a quixotic hunt in Pennsylvania because it’s his last hope that he can change this math. Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes and if he could pick up that one, he could afford to lose in Ohio or in any two of Virginia, North Carolina or Missouri. But the Republican party and outside observers has decided that, outside of a major game changing event, Pennsylvania is out of reach of McCain.
So it’s Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina. McCain must win them all. And Obama must stop him from winning them all.
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