My Prediction: 400+ Electoral Votes for Obama

Barack Obama will win 400+ electoral votes.  You heard it hear first.

I suspect that the polling this year is predicting a much closer race than it will turn out to be.  I expect that the models that the polling companies are using are based on voting patterns and turnout in past elections, and I think this election is different.  I think that this time the youth vote really will turn out, and African American turnout will be higher than even the high levels that are predicted.

The latest revelation — that Palin spent $150,000 of RNC campaign money on a shopping spree at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue– is the final nail in the coffin.   It undermines her whole “Joe Sixpack” and “Joe the Plumber” image.  She has spent more on outfits in a month than Joe the Plumber’s salary for over three years.  The interviews she gave to Charles Gibson and Katie Couric raised serious questions about whether she was prepared to be President, but at least she retained some appeal amongst a certain kind of working class conservative voter.  But the shopping spree scandal will damage even that appeal.  It certainly won’t play well in Appalachia.

(Incidentally, I don’t think they planned to donate those clothes to charity until after the scandal broke.)

Electoral Vote Map

So the net effect is that every swing state will swing Obama’s way.  To begin, Obama will win every state Kerry won in 2004.  That gives him 252 electoral votes.  Give him Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, and Nevada, and he is at 338.  This much seems absolutely certain.  Next, toss in North Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, and Georgia, and he is 395.  These are the states that the pundits aren’t yet predicting he will win, but I am.  Now, to get to 400 we need either Kentucky or Tennessee, or some combination of North Dakota, Alaska, and Montana.

One more misstep by the McCain campaign and he could find himself left with only Utah.

Know hope!

P.S. Thanks to http://www.elizabethperry.com/woolgathering/ for the map.