Some of you may be wondering why I am so confident of victory in the upcoming elections. For the congressional and senate races, the reason is the polls (see, especially, the latest from Carville and Greenberg’s Democracy Corps). In the presidential, it goes beyond polls to the Obama groundgame and the results of early voting in several key states.
But, sticking with the polls, Obama currently has an 8% or better lead in enough states to claim 277 Electoral College votes (269 are needed for Obama to prevail, 270 for McCain). Kos has a post up that explains this in a little more detail, but it comes down to this. The McCain campaign has all but conceded that Obama will win Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado. That’s enough to put Obama over the top unless McCain can win a Kerry state. McCain originally thought Michigan and New Hampshire were good pick-up opportunities. Then they set their sights on Wisconsin and Minnesota. But they now realize that their ambitions in the Upper Midwest are hopeless. So, even though the polls show Obama with a 52%-40% advantage in the Keystone State, McCain’s entire strategy now depends on winning Pennsylvania. Of course, he also has to avoid losing Florida or Ohio, where he currently trails, and avoid losing a mish-mash of states like Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, North Dakota, and Nevada that could, in some combination, overwhelm any gain he’d make in Pennsylvania.
Obama is so confident about holding the Kerry states, that he has canceled a scheduled appearance in Wisconsin and has no plans to campaign in any Kerry state, including Pennsylvania, in the next two weeks. Of course, the Bidens will probably spend some Blue-time, but you get the point.
Obama will be pressing to win in Nevada and Virginia and West Virginia and Ohio and Florida and Georgia. But he really doesn’t need to win any of these states. If he holds the Kerry states and wins states that McCain has already conceded, he’ll be the next president.
That doesn’t mean you should relax. Hell, I live in Pennsylvania and now that I know McCain has placed all his chips here, I feel more pressure than ever. But it does mean that, in most states, you should see what you can do to help the whole ticket. We could see a narrow victory or a large one. But I am confident we’ll see victory if we just execute the plan that has been put in place.
