Sunday, November 2, 2008

FHQ vs. The Talking Heads

No, I have no idea what David Byrne's thoughts on the electoral college are. [Let's see how many folks get that reference.] However, let's compare and contrast what things look like on our map compared to some others "in the know". If you're here, you've likely seen our map before, but I'll reproduce it here just because (...I like maps).

[Click Map to Enlarge]

This isn't our final map, projection or prediction, but the electoral vote count above isn't likely to change between now and Tuesday. For the time being, though, let's assume this is how FHQ will project/predict things to be Tuesday night. How do some of those other predictions look by comparison?

George Will (on ABC's THis Week): 378 electoral votes for Obama (included North Dakota "for fun" and all the McCain toss up states, though he said Indiana or Missouri. Obama would need both to get to 378.)

Matthew Dowd (on ABC's This Week): 338 EVs (The same as our map. See, I told you FHQ was among the more conservative electoral college estimates.)

Mark Halperin (on ABC's This Week): 349 EVs (FHQ map + Indiana or Missouri. He didn't specify which.)

Donna Brazile (on ABC's This Week): 343 EVs (I'm still trying to figure out where she came up with this number. She didn't specify either. The best I can do is to add North Carolina to Obama's total on the FHQ map and subtract Nevada and New Mexico.) Or as W. Mayes pointed out: FHQ's map + Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina - Florida and Nevada.

George Stephanopoulos (on ABC's This Week): 353 EVs (FHQ's map + North Carolina.)

Yeah, can you tell I watched ABC's Sunday morning show? The following is a reproduction of a collection of predictions from the Washington Post (The contents of the parentheticals below are my best guess as to what states comprise the electoral coalitions in each prediction.) :

Chris Cillizza: 312 EVs (FHQ's map - Florida = 311 + a Nebraska congressional district?)
Here's an update of Cillizza's map over at The Fix. He's flipped Florida and Ohio and bumped Obama up to 319 EVs in the process. Florida is now blue and Ohio is red. And yes, he's got Nebraska's 2nd District going to Obama.

Erick Erickson: 311 EVs (FHQ's map - Florida)

Arianna Huffington: 318 EVs (FHQ's map - Ohio) Edit: As Jack pointed out in the comments, Huffington has Georgia as a wildcard win for Obama. You can see my interpretation here. That's a weird map.

Charles Mahtesian: 311 EVs (FHQ's map - Florida)

Ed Morrissey: 262 EVs (FHQ's map - all the Obama toss ups - Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire and DC) DC? Yeah, that's all I can come up with. McCain only has 273 in that prediction. DC is the only one I could think of that a GOP blogger would like to omit.

Markos Moulitsas: 390 EVs (FHQ's map + McCain toss ups + Georgia)

Nate Silver: 347 EVs (FHQ's map + North Carolina, Indiana and Montana or North Dakota - Ohio)

Fred Barnes: 252 EVs (FHQ's map - Obama toss ups - Virginia and Pennsylvania)

Eleanor Clift: 349 EVs (FHQ's map + North Carolina - New Hampshire) Why not add in Indiana or Missouri and be done with it? The link above has her calling for an Obama win in the Tar Heel state. That's why.

Morton Kondrache: 379 EVs (FHQ's map + McCain toss ups + Montana or North Dakota + Nebraska congressional district?)

Bill Maher?: 375 EVs (FHQ's map + McCain toss ups)

Chris Matthews: 338 EVs (FHQ's map)

Ed Rollins: 353 EVs (FHQ's map + North Carolina)

Juan Williams: 326 EVs (FHQ's map + North Carolina - Florida)

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UPDATE: Rob has added a link to Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball prediction in the comments.

Larry Sabato: 364 EVs (FHQ's map + Missouri and North Carolina)

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The average across all 19 20 predictions? 336 337.4 EVs. Change or not, 338 here at FHQ isn't half bad. If that ended up being right and if I were one to mock, I may be inclined to redub FHQ, ThreeThirtyEight.com. But I'm one who dances with the one who brung me, and FHQ has brought me this far.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (11/2/08)

The Electoral College Map (11/1/08)

Happy Halloween from FHQ

6 comments:

Jack said...

Nice to see Bill Maher optimistic again after I temporarily stopped watching his show because he kept saying that the Bradley Effect would cost Obama six points or so. One of the many things that me and Maher disagree on, but I'm glad he seems to have come around.

The only predictions that seem a bit hard for me to believe are Brazile's (I've found a few more combinations that work out to 343 but they're somewhat odd), Cillizza's (Obama probably won't win NE-2 without Florida), Clift's (Obama winning NH but not NC?) and the two that have McCain winning. Even Moulitsas's prediction seems possible - it isn't unreasonable that Obama could win GA without MT, ND or NE-2.

If you rename the site, could I get your site and Nate's at once by going to EightSeventySix.com?

Jack said...

And wait a second, Huffington says Obama wins Georgia. So she must have another way of reaching 311.

I know this blog is about the presidential race but I must mention that some of these guys have some pretty outlandish other predictions - Barkley getting only 2% is the most bizarre.

And why does Barnes get an extra tiebreak?

Anonymous said...

I don't know how to interpret the Wildcards. Does that mean, "I think this will happen?" or "I think this could happen?"

If it is the former, you can back out everything past the partisan line on the Spectrum. Everything up to Colorado gets Obama to 264. Then assume that Huffington is factoring in a massive African American turnout that would help most in Southern and Border states.

Now add in Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Georgia (15) and Missouri (11) and that gets Obama to 318. But that would look really strange without Florida, Nevada and Ohio.

If you assume that "It could happen" is the interpretation of wildcard, then that make things muc easier.

I've got to say, I had to look at the Spectrum for a while to come up with that one.

wwmiv said...

Donna Brazile:

FHQ map + Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina but minus Florida and Nevada... Makes more sense than Obama losing New Mexico.

Robert said...

Larry Sabato has it at 364 (FHQ map plus NC and MO)

http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=LJS2008103001

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rob.

I'll add that one to the list above.

And here's the link to Sabato's map.