My 2008 Presidential Results Predictions: Vote Percentage and Electoral Results

What the hell. I read an article earlier that had predictions from around a dozen well-known political pundits and writers. They all agreed that Democrats would gain seats in Congress and control 57-59 seats in the Senate. All but one predicted an Obama victory, most with well over 300 electoral votes. This included mot of he Republicans. One GOP consultant predicted a 50/50 vote percentage tie, with McCain winning with 283 electoral votes. Sounds a little bit too much like Gore/Bush 2000 to me.

I said I would not try to predict this, but after careful consideration and consulting my polls, charts, and graphs of historical data and trends, I will give it a shot.

Not only am I going to predict the results of the 2008 Presidential election, I am going to predict results for minor party ( third party) candidates down to the 0.01%! None of that 50+50=100 crap here. We have around 37 different guys running and they deserve my respect and ridicule as well.

Obama (D) 51.46% 318 electoral
McCain (R) 47.31 220
Nader (C) 0.54
Barr (L) 0.42
Baldwin (C) 0.14
McKinney (G) 0.08
Paul (I) 0.03
Keyes (I) 0.01
All Others (I) 0.01

There you have it. I see a fairly close vote count but a decisive Obama victory. The minor party candidates will combine for slightly above 1% up to around 1.5% with Nader and Barr taking the majority of those. The other candidates lack the ballot access to break 100,000 votes. Chuck Baldwin will pick up some votes because of some eondorsements. McKinney will lose votes to both Nader and Obama. Paul and Keyes have passionate followers but only appear on 1 or 2 state ballots. In Paul's case he did not even want to be on any ballots and urged his supporters to choose another candidate who agreed with the 4 Point Campaign for Liberty Platform.

Here is how I figured the McCain and Obama vote % and Electoral College votes. I went by the Real Clear Politics national average. I figured the undecided/other block by subtracting the likely turnout for third party candidates. Of the remaining undecideds I gave most to McCain. I think he is likely to get a majority of undecided independents and late voters.

For the states, I gave them all the states that are considered "solid" as well as any leaners with a polling lead greater than a few points. I gave McCain a couple states that are leaning Obama because I have a feeling the white working class block is going to turn out there.

Even being very conservative and givng McCain most "tossup" states that should lean Republican, my predictions still give Obama a healthy victory.

It won't be a landslide. It won't be as close as 2000 either. And since there are no prominent third party options ( there is no Perot, people are tired of Nader, Nader is tired of the Green Party, and Bob Barr failed to fundraise or court Ron Paul supporters), someone will win more than 50%.