According to Nate Silver over at the excellent fivethirtyeight.com, Barack Obama currently has an 80.5% chance of defeating John McCain (19.5%) in this election. He has been gaining momentum for the last week, reaching about 75% yesterday, and skyrocketing another 5% into today.
Barack Obama currently enjoys the biggest lead he has had all year, according to fivethirtyeight.
You can read the glorious news for yourself, but here are some points worth mentioning:
-Nate's simulations average a 325.5 to 212.5 E.V. victory for Obama.
-Obama wins the popular vote with 50.8% to McCain 47.5% (+3.3%).
-He gives Obama a 59% advantage in Florida.
-He gives Obama a 84% advantage in Virginia.
-He gives Obama a 60% advantage in Ohio.
-He gives Obama a 55% advantage in Indiana.
-He gives Obama a 67% advantage in Nevada.
Giving Obama all of the states where Nate says he has a 51% chance of winning, we have Obama 349, McCain 189.
As Nate mentions, a lead like this this close to the election is certainly not good news for McCain. In fact, he says that these numbers may even be lowballing it:
Trimming away a 4-5 point lead isn't that difficult over the summer months -- in fact, McCain accomplished exactly that in July and August -- but it's a steeper hill to climb after Labor Day. And if anything, our projection may be lowballing Obama slightly, as the aforementioned national tracking data (which incorporates one day of post-debate interviewing) has Obama's lead in the range of 5-8 points; the model will need Obama to hold those numbers for another day or two before it catches up to them.
We've already been through the post-primary party unification, the conventions, the vice presidential selections, and one of the debates. And with the only major events remaining being the VP debate and the last two presidential debates, I don't really see a clear path to victory for McCain.
OK now before everyone freaks out, he also mentions this is by no means cause for complacency.
Democrats have no reason to be complacent. Although the situation looks dramatically better for them than it did two weeks ago, so too have the stakes of the election increased. The next president will face perhaps the most challenging set of circumstances of any since Franklin Roosevelt, and could potentially have nearly as much impact on the future direction of the country. Obama could very easily lose, and even if he wins, odds are that there will be at least one more swing back toward McCain in the intervening 37 days. Nevertheless, as Isaac Chotiner suggests, I believe that the national punditry is understanding the difficulty of the position that McCain finds himself in.
Other things worth mentioning:
-Nate gives Obama a 40% chance of winning North Carolina.
-The top 5 most important ("tipping point") states are:
- Pennsylvania
- Ohio
- Florida
- Michigan
- Virginia
..all of which are trending Obama.
So let's celebrate!... by continuing to work for our candidate, Barack Obama!