If you like fivethirtyeight, you might like this: www.votenight.com
You can see the weightage of each state, and the likely outcome of the election based on which states are won/lost by your preferred party.
Very minor flaws in the calculations (e.g. NE and MN use congressional district based EV allocations, not accounted for in this map), but otherwise a great site to see the impact of the swing states on the election.
I finally see why OH is so crucial.
I like NYT’s Make Your Own Scenarios.
Simpler, clearer, IMHO.
Oh, I see votenight’s useful for non Pres races too.
Nevermind.
Nitpick: It’s Maine (ME) that allocates electoral votes by district, not Minnesota (MN).
I have been playing around with the 270 To Win app, which is nice especially since they updated it to add more recent polling. Anyway, using my patented Jockometric system (mainly looking at Nate Silver’s stuff and my own intuition), here’s what I’ve been thinking:
I’ve been thinking for a couple of months now that Romney’s only hope is to win the trifecta of Florida, Virginia and Ohio. I think that’s still correct, although even that alone won’t quite be enough.
My reasoning: Michigan and Pennsylvania are almost certainly going to Obama. I personally don’t think Wisconsin is going to switch to Romney, either, so I’ve got that blue (not to say I think there’s no chance at all, but I think it’s a real long shot). Nevada looks like it will be Obama’s. North Carolina is going to go Romney. I’ll even give Florida and Virginia to Romney, even though Virginia is razor-thin right now. So, I’m looking at Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado, with Obama standing at 253 electoral votes (needs 17 to win) and Romney with 248 (needs 22 to win).
If Obama takes Ohio (18 EVs), he wins. In other words, my earlier thought about Romney needing the FL/VA/OH trifecta holds true … even with FL and VA, he still needs OH (and any one of the other three states!) to get over the top. If Romney can take Ohio, Obama still wins by sweeping NH, IA and CO.
So, yeah, it really does come down to Ohio, at least for Romney. I think the odds are decent that Obama could actually run the NH/IA/CO table … it’s possible. But if the President can hold Ohio, I don’t really see a way for Romney to win.
All Jockometrics are unofficial. Results may vary (yeah, Wisconsin or Nevada might surprise me, but then so might Virginia). Please, no wagering (unless you want to lay some money down on Intrade. If you win, give me a cut).
You’re right; my bad.