How things should shape up tomorrow night.

Jason • 3rd Nov 2008 • Politics • election, election day, mccain, obama, Politics, polls

I took a look at the latest polls and projections on FiveThirtyEight.com and RealClearPolitics.com and mapped them out by when the polls close in each state to see how things should progress tomorrow night. All this assuming that states report fairly quickly and that the projections play out as expected.

By 8pm, the race should be almost even with the states closing before that time sending Obama 63 electoral votes to McCain’s 62 votes.

The polls closing in the eight o’clock hour should net Obama 117 electoral votes to bring him to 180, while McCain should pick up 90 to bring him to 152. So by 9pm, Obama should have a +28 lead over McCain, with 206 electoral votes outstanding.

The nine o’clock hour should bring Obama 69 electoral votes to bring him up to 249, while McCain should pick up 33 votes to bring him to 185. Not a very exciting hour just looking at the total electoral votes divied out, however the bigger news is there are only 104 electoral votes left at this point, which means McCain is really running out of options to win.

If Obama can get to 186 electoral votes through the states that close before 10pm ET, he’ll be our next President. The safe states after 10pm are: Iowa, California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii, which equal 84 electoral votes. So, given he has 63 electorals to play with at this point, Obama could lose Florida, Ohio and Virginia and still win.

Even looking at the safe states perespective, Obama has 130 “safe” (polling at least +10% difference over McCain) electoral votes before the 10pm states close, so Obama only needs to pick up 56 electorals from these states where he is currently polling ahead: Florida (27), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Ohio (20), New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (21), Colorado (9), Minnesota (10), New Mexico (5), and Wisconsin (10).

Including the states that are polling between +8% and +10% difference for Obama (Wisconsin, New Mexico, Minnesota, new Hampshire) will give him 29 additional electoral to bring his total to 159 – leaving 27 votes needed from Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

Looking at that group, the next best options are Colorado and Pennsylvania, which are polling between +5% to +7% Obama, so those two would give him 30 more electorals to put him over the top. Which means he can lose Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia and still win.

So with that, the best bet for an Obama win is a win in Pennsylvania and Colorado. However, with 243 electoral votes coming from states polling +7% or greater for Obama, there are a few other likely options that can put him over the 270 mark:

Ohio and Colorado
Colorado, Virginia and Nevada
Pennsylvania and Virginia
Florida

All those states are polling between +3% and +7% for Obama, with the exception of Florida. So keep an eye on those states tomorrow night. Virginia and Florida close at 7pm ET, Ohio at 7:30pm, Pennsylvania at 8pm, Colorado at 9pm and Nevada at 10pm ET. Those results will determine the election.

Update: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight has an hour-by-hour breakdown of what to watch for tomorrow on Newsweek, in much greater (and better quality) detail than what I did here. He’s the master. Definitely check the article and his site as tomorrow unfolds.

Here’s the spreadsheet: