{"id":89,"date":"2008-10-31T08:27:21","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T08:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/obama-wins-the-presidential-el.html"},"modified":"2008-10-31T08:27:21","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T08:27:21","slug":"obama-wins-the-presidential-el","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/obama-wins-the-presidential-el.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama wins the Presidential Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Bowers at Open Left does the math, and finds that Obama has already won<\/a>. His reasoning:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. In order to win the election, all Barack Obama needs are
    \nthe Kerry states, plus Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico<\/b>. That adds up to
    \n273 electoral votes.\n<\/li>\n
  2. Obama leads by at least 9.5% in every Kerry state and Iowa<\/b>, according to both Pollster.com<\/a> and Real Clear Politics<\/a>. Also, my own numbers<\/a> concur with those calculations.\n<\/li>\n
  3. This means that in order to win the election, all Obama
    \nhas to do is hold onto states where he leads by 9.5% or more, and win
    \nboth Colorado and New Mexico. These are both states where more than
    \nhalf of all voters will cast their ballots before Election Day (    source<\/a>).
    \nIn other words, the elections in Colorado and New Mexico are already
    \nalmost over<\/b>, not just beginning. <\/li>\n
  4. In Colorado, about 60% of the vote is already in<\/b>.
    \nAccording to the crosstabs of the three most recent polls in the state,
    \nObama leads early voters by 15% (    Rasmussen<\/a>), 18% (Marist<\/a>) and 17% (PPP<\/a>).
    \nEven in the best case scenario for McCain .. he
    \nstill needs to win the remaining voters by 18.4%<\/b> in order to eek out
    \nthe state. <\/li>\n
  5. A new poll from PPP in New Mexico<\/a>
    \nindicates that 56% of the vote is in, and Obama leads 64%-36% among
    \nthose voters. If that is accurate, McCain would have to win the
    \nremaining voters by 35.7%.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, unless one of the following occurs:
    \n<\/p>\n