The following is a map of the relative performance of Barack Obama to John Kerry. If a state is colored blue, that means Obama is outperforming Kerry in his current polling avarages. If it's red, John McCain is outperforming George W. Bush.
Note that these results are based on the polling numbers only -- they do not include the regression -based component of our state-by-state ratings.
EDIT: One way to characterize the states where McCain is performing materially better than Bush:
1. John McCain's home state (Arizona).
2. John Kerry's home state (Massachusetts), and its immediate neighbors.
3. Hillary Clinton's home states (Arkansas and New York).
4. The states where Obama didn't campaign (Florida and Michigan).
5. Appalachia.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
A New Map
-- Nate Silver at 7:32 PM
Labels: cartography, meta
57 comments
The fact that Arkansas is the deepest red here shows, I think, the impact of Clinton still being in the race (as of the latest polls) on the overall national McC vs. BO picture. Presumably, the effect is likely reflected in all the states to some degree.
Ahhh yes. If it isn't our old friend Appalachia.
Ahhh, Ore-kin-sawww. Home of Wal*Mart and Tyson chicken slauterhouses/forced labor camps.
What a shocker that the State is redder than Tyson carvers' covered in chicken blood!!
We'll see how red their faces get when Barack Obama becomes President desipte those good old boys' votes for McLame.
That map SOOO made my day. People like Obama.
On a side note: I want more Nevada Polls! That's a state which should be good for Obama... to say that the state has a MAJOR libertarian streak may be a bit of an understatement, and Obama by and large overperforms in the interior west... Of course, I sorta wonder how much exposure McCain gets in the Vegas Media Market...
I've got a question for the regression model. As you note, Obama is doing relatively poorly in Michigan and Florida. But there are two plausible explanations for this:
a) People have not been convinced to vote for him by his campaigning
b) People are bitter at him for DNC-based reasons (i.e., "Why doesn't Obama want our votes to count?")
I'd like to see these disentangled. Can we perhaps find out how much of the differential is accounted for by the lack of campaigning time alone?
Even in NC, Edwards home state, Obama is outperforming Kerry.
I have to admit I made one of these maps myself a few days ago (using your state averages of course) and it made my heart warm.
Brian Schweitzer, prairie populist govenor of MT, can win over low income, working class blue collar voters like no body else.
Put him on the ticket and give him 4 months on the stump and MI, NV, CO, NM, PA, OH are guranteed, while NH, VA and MO are likely to go blue in november.
Obama/Schweitzer 08, and unbeatable dream ticket that represents a new Democratic party, one that can build a large enough coalition to bring about real change and lead us into a glorious, energy independent future!
Poblano,
The important question at the moment for projection of the November election appears to be how transient the "Clinton effect" is. With the exception of Arizona and Mass., which are home states of McCain and Kerry, the ability of Obama to outperform Kerry seems to be a function of Obama's vote in the primary. The question then becomes whether or not this is due to pro-Clinton voters who haven't come around yet, anti-Obama voters who didn't vote for Obama in the primary and won't vote for him in the general, or a lack of campaign appearances by Obama driving low support in both the primary and general.
Do you have the data on which these maps are based posted somewhere? I'd be happy to do a few simple plots of variables related to these different effects to see if one of them is having a bigger influence.
Never mind... the maps are simply the Obama-McCain 538 regression difference minus the Kerry-Bush actual result, right? I may make some plots if I find the time...
It's hard to say what's really going on in WV--we've only got one poll, now over 3 months old. I really, really wish we had more frequent polling in the state. Feb 27 is ancient history in Presidential race terms.
I'm really curious how things have moved. Obama dropped some bucks on TV advertising and also made two trips here before the Dem. primary. McCain made one brief visit as well.
The next poll will be very telling to see how many Clinton supporters move with her to support Obama.
I notice another one of the McCain leaning Appalachian states on your map, TN, hasn't been polled since April. Another state to watch for movement with a new poll.
There's a really funny article that compares the different reactions to Obama's victory around the globe: http://www.236.com/news/2008/06/05/obama_victory_makes_world_hate_6973.php
Obama's going to win, heck if a hurricane hits the gulf it'll be a landslide
Sifu Tweety of The Poor Man recently mentioned hearing from somebody in Massachusetts that she couldn't separate Barack Obama from Deval Patrick in her mind, so Patrick's various stumbles in his first year-plus as governor reflect badly on Obama. I suspect that some of that is contributing to Obama performing worse than Kerry in Massachusetts, aside from the obvious Kerry favorite-son effect.
(There's a little more going on here than "they all look alike to me"--Obama and Patrick are of the same generation, have similar professional backgrounds, are friends, and, as was briefly notorious, even share campaign rhetoric. But I still think it's terribly unfair to Obama, who after all is not the same person as Governor Patrick. It reminds me a little of the "secret Muslim" e-mail smears that basically substituted Obama into stories that were originally about Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who actually is Muslim and was sworn in on a copy of the Koran, though he's about as far from a radical Islamist as you can get.)
This map confirms it: McCain is toast.
This is so naive. One major Obama scandal and he'll be the new Dukakis. The same applies for McCain. If the polls look a bit better than today on Nov 4th you can post this again.
Cool map! And the states most worth noting are the "purple" states, where improvements over 2004 actually matter. (Doing much better than Kerry did in, e.g., North Dakota doesn't help Obama much. It turns a 27-point loss into, say, a ten-point loss.)
Looking at the swing states, MI, FL, NH, WV, and NV are concerning for Obama--he's underperforming Kerry in those states. FL is particularly troubling for Democrats: FL was just barely a swing state in '04. Kerry lost by five points there, and this analysis suggests it may be out of reach for the Dems in '08. McCain should look at this map and conclude he has no need to pick Charlie Crist as V.P.
By contrast, MN, IA, WI, MO, VA, NM, CO, OR, and (surprisingly) OH are heartening for Democrats: these are states that were close in the last election where Obama is now besting Kerry's score. It may be quite awhile before the Obama caravan goes anywhere near St. Paul again!
Wait...Whaaaaaaaa?
Essentially, your map this has Obama doing significantly better than Kerry, yet your electoral vote polls have him in an almost dead heat w/ Mcain. What gives?
Anon 20:38...
It's probably the 538 regression.
Right now it looks like a big Obama win, with him carrying VA, MO and OH, IA and almost all of the Kerry states
Wow. The similarity between that map and the primary race is striking.
Can you compare with 2000? It's close enough historically, apparently rather like the current shape of 2008, and it was a tie - outperforming Gore is the essence of victory. (Kerry came close, but with a very EV-efficient strategy compensating for a bad result).
I don't see this map as particularly good news. Look at how many of these states where Obama is polling better than Kerry are either longshots or no-shots for Obama.
Who cares if the Repub strongholds only go for McCain by 15 points instead of 25? Either way we're getting nothing in the Southeast, nothing in the Plains, and nothing in Big Sky country.