Painting the Electoral College map blue
Tue Oct 7, 4:10 PM ET – Yahoo
Twenty-eight days to go and the most recent polls show Sen. Barack Obama continues to widen his lead against Sen. John McCain.
The Electoral College map that used to be a wash of red (with a few exceptions like the West Coast and the Northeast) is starting to look like the Smurfs are progressively marching across the country. (In other words, the map is turning a Democratic blue.)
The latest NBC/WSJ poll has Obama up six points with registered voters, 49%-43%. Just two weeks ago, that lead was within the margin of error at 2 points.
A CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll has Obama even higher, with an 8-point lead (53%-45%). That’s double the 4-point lead Obama held in their poll taken last month.
And, in today’s Gallup Daily Tracking poll, registered voters prefer Obama 51% to McCain’s 42%. Gallup points out the importance of this:
The nine-percentage point lead in Oct. 4-6 tracking matches Obama’s highest to date for the campaign, and the highest for either candidate.
Our own Yahoo! News Political Dashboard highlights the difference — what used to be GOP safe havens, like Florida and North Carolina, are now trending toward Obama territory.
How does a map that looked so red in November 2004 look so blue October 2008?
The electoral college map based on current polling (above).
One, er, two words: the economy.
Consider a Washington Post-ABC News poll of likely Ohio voters. Obama leads McCain 51% to 45%. For those who say the economy is the biggest issue, Obama wins 61%-34%.
All of this paints a do-or-die backdrop for Sen. McCain in tonight’s second presidential debate.
Filed under: Politics , blue states, election, electoral map, mccain, obama, president, red states
The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do state-by-state, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes– 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Well, if we’re talking “reform”….let’s junk the entire “do nothing” structure of federal govenrment and “diffused power” in favor of a parliamentary from of government as they have in Europe.
One legislative body, not two; no filibusters; no Presidential vetos. If your party gets the votes for a majority, the *nothing* stops them for doing what they want. And if the people didn’t want that, the party wouldn’t have gotten the majority.
There’s too many “checks and balances” and not enough *action*!