T-minus One week

Goodness gracious. Just one week left. All indications are that Barack Obama is gonna walk away with this thing. McCain's campaign is in this kinda sad, post-climactic flailing state. Tiny issues, big grudges, no legitimate message.

This little story out today felt like a nice picture of the campaign. In the cold rain, one man is still ready to stand up and rally his supporters, the other is thinking, 'what's the point?' Or maybe he's thinking William Henry Harrison.

Anyway, it's just about wrapped up. And all the news in the world doesn't matter unless things get tighter in Pennsylvania, Virginia or Colorado. Obama wins with VA and CO in his column, unless McCain pulls off a miracle in PA. (hint: don't cancel your rallies!)

T-minus Two weeks

Obama looks good. Complacency is probably the biggest threat to a Democratic victory. Key blocs in the Obama coalition- minorities and young'ns- have failed to show up to vote in big numbers before. But that's probably no more or less dangerous than the equal and opposite reaction- lots of republican voters, discouraged by an inevitable loss, might not go to the polls either.

The movement that has surprised me most is Virginia's hardening into a strong Obama state. Obviously there's no guarantee that this holds up, but it definitely looks very good. Virginia in and of itself could settle this election; all the firmest Kerry states, plus Virginia, is enough to move Obama past 270. In the last day or two McCain has started to zero in on Pennsylvania as a pickup opportunity, but so far the polls aren't receptive. If PA and VA both report for Obama early on Election Night, that's game-set-match.

T-minus Three weeks

So we're three weeks away. The story of the past few weeks is, Obama absolutely running away with this thing. The drama is simply not quite there anymore, there's this palpable sense that we're counting down to a coronation. Anything can happen, of course, but the huge majority of those any things lead to Obama victory.

The media narrative is all about what JSMIII has to do to get back in this thing, all about his campaign's awkward struggles, and the fact that one candidate is calmly and consistently talking issues while the other is frantically lobbing around little character bombs.

But let's just look at the plain facts of the electoral map.

T-minus Four weeks

Wow, only four weeks left? Crazy.

Don't have much time to write about the map, but Obama's basically pulling away. America's paying attention and they see one candidate who's pretty calm and talking about the issues, and one guy who's increasingly reduced to crazy character attacks. A week or so ago I was arguing that the national polls were deceptive, but now the state polls have all dramatically caught up with Obama's lead. Safe to say that this thing is pretty close to done.

T-minus Five weeks

So, Obama's kicking ass. When you hold your ground with 'the expert' in a foreign policy debate, display steadiness and calm in the face of crisis, and generally see the entire country intensely focused on issues where you have a trust gap, kicking ass is what'll happen.

We'll see next week if this pace keeps up.

T-minus Six weeks

This was a rough week for McCain. the Financial Crisis and the fade of the convention bounce have left him down in a lot of polls, and led to a dramatic reversal of fortune in 538's map.

Lately I've gotten a little more wary of 538's calculation of national polls. Earlier, when state-by-state data was less frequent, it made sense to buffer the state numbers with the national numbers, but right now I think it's creating a deceptive map. Obama looks like an overwhelming favorite on this map, but state by state, he's in a tight race. Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire are the four Kerry states where he has to commit the most to defense. The Obama victory plan comes down to holding the Kerry states, plus Iowa, New Mexico, and at least one of this group (Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Florida). McCain's best bet is all about minimizing those Bush losses and flipping one of the vulnerable Rust Belt states, particularly Michigan or Pennsylvania.

Obama is overall about a +3 across the polling board. We'll see if that's an illusory bump, with the economic news playing to his advantage lately, or if the race has actually stabilized in his favor.

T-minus Seven weeks

This is the first week that the 538 map shows McCain clearly winning. We’re not gonna cherry-pick polls or say that Obama’s better off than McCain right now. Obviously we wish we were on the +270 side right now, but our mood is still pretty calm and confident.

After all, there’s still a lot of time and a lot of events before the election is settled. And it looks to us that McCain is squandering his post-convention peak by immediately going to a strategy of outrageously blatant, ‘up is down’ lying.

This was the week of Lipstick on a Pig, the Bridge to Nowhere, sex-ed for kids, and so on and so on and so on.

In a development that bodes well for Obama, the media actually seems to be turning against McCain and is honestly, actually making some efforts to call JM on his strategy of crazy, relentless bullshit.

This Obama ad is the exact ad I’ve wanted to see all week. Hit em’ with the truth, man. Hit em with the truth and they’ll think it’s hell.

T-minus Eight weeks

Well apparently the Republicans had a pretty successful convention, because currently McCain is enjoying a strong poll bounce, taking about a 3-point lead in several polls (a ten point swing from Obama's peak). I'm surprised at the strength of the bounce, because I only counted three successful moments in that convention- Rudy's feisty attacks, Sarah Palin competently reading a teleprompter in front of a screamingly supportive crowd, and McCain's nice guy routine. But I guess America really really liked it.

Anyway, 538's model is kinda slow to adjust to swings in the polls- and that slowness/stability is what they go for, anyway- so this week's snapshot is not too different from last week's.

The general pattern of the past few weeks- the red and blue states are getting darker, and the swing states are getting extra swingy. Next week, once we're completely past the convention phase and we can look at this race clearly, I'll offer some more specific analysis about each candidate's victory map.

T-minus Nine weeks

Wow, what a crazy fucking week! The Democratic National Convention looks like a pretty major success, with more knockout, devastatingly good speeches than I can ever remember at a convention before. Michelle, Hillary, Bill, John Kerry, Teddy, Joe and Barack all delivered big moments and great commentary. The Obama speech was really stellar- a very specific and serious explanation of where he wants to take the country, plus a pretty surgical dissection of McCain's various critiques and campaign tactics. Beautiful work. And the stadium gambit feels like it paid off- instead of coming off as grandiose, it really looked like a massive gathering of regular people. Extraordinary diversity- young, old, every color, in pretty much every shot of the crowd.

The GOP Convention meanwhile is off to a rocky start. McCain picked Sarah Palin for VP, a decision that looked great for precisely One day. Since then, stories have rolled out daily about how utterly unserious and unvetted this pick really was. McCain seems to have undercut his experience argument, in addition to coming off as rash and cavalier in contrast to Obama's sober and studied VP choice.

And of course, Hurricane Gustav is issue number one. Many of our contributors grew up pretty close to Katrina and Gustav's path, so this is not something we'll take lightly. On the political front, it pretty much shut down a day of the RNC, and that's all we'll say.


The numbers are in flux, of course, and we'll really understand the state of the race in a week or two. But right now, it looks like the Dems made the most of their Convention, and we're yet to see if the Republicans can organize an equally clean, effective message.

T-minus Ten weeks

and now it really begins. We've got the Democratic National Convention opening tonight, following a summer where things got tighter and uglier. Voters are starting to pay attention. This is now a tossup election, and it feels like it'll stay that way through November. This picture is our last pre-convention snapshot.

T-minus Eleven weeks

Things are not looking great for Obama. This is generally the closest map we've seen since we started checking up each week. This has not been a very kind month for the campaign, but once Convention/Debate season starts- and it's really right around the corner- then we'll have a clearer picture of, is this a slump or a serious downturn.

T-minus Twelve weeks

It's been a pretty stable week, overall. McCain's attack ads have gotten some press, but this is mid-August (the most languid part of the whole year) and the Olympics are on. Clear movement in one direction or another will probably start around convention time.

T-minus Thirteen weeks

The numbers, as of this Monday (Obama's 47th birthday!)

T-minus Fourteen weeks

T-minus Fifteen weeks

T-minus Sixteen weeks

This was a good week for McCain, the national polls are starting to tighten. I blame that scandalous New Yorker cover.

T-minus Seventeen weeks

Ok, for real this time:

T-minus Eighteen weeks

fivethirtyeight's changed their methodology since last week, so Obama looks a little less dominant; on the other hand, since he's still winning strong even with a more conservative, realistic estimate, that's pretty good news.

T-minus Nineteen weeks

T-minus Twenty weeks

we'll try to post this each monday or tuesday. from fivethirtyeight.com, an endlessly interesting, valuable website for those of us following this election.



for the record, the only state in which obama is projected as having a Zero percent chance of winning is Utah. I've long contended that Utah is the worst state in the union, and this is just more fuel to my fire.