538 Map of the Week

538.com began a few months ago and it has taken the political world by storm. The site's author, Nate Silver, is a professional sports statistician who decided to apply his (lucrative, sought after) techniques to politics. See this story in the NYPost for more info.

I can't argue with numbers, but I find that he emphasizes certain things too much, the site is too confusing, and the clearly practical part - the tracking of state-by-state polls - seems to not reflect the feeling on the ground.

As of this week, June 6, he puts Obama barely winning in November. I can accept that because the polls were taken before Obama clinched the nomination and, hey, it's FIVE FULL MONTHS before the election occurs. Most people don't pay attention to the vote until after labor day, and while the primary was fun and all, it was also weird and confusing.

That said, I will try to post the map of the current electoral projection from week to week, so there's a running visual of the progression of the race. Standard deal, red=GOP, blue=Dem, stronger the color, the stronger the support.



P.S. He has not yet including anything from third-parties. Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, may have a strong showing in a number of Southern states that could complicate things. For example, NC and GA.