Prediction

Before it officially becomes election day, here is my prediction for tomorrow:



As you can see, I have Obama taking all the Kerry/Gore states plus Virginia, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada.

I came to this conclusion by taking the final five days worth of polling and averaging them together. Simple, but effective.

For most of the "battleground states," there was a clear leader. Several states, however, were very close, within 2 points. Those were North Carolina, Florida, Missouri, and Indiana. Obama lead in Florida by only 1.5 points, and McCain lead in Indiana by only 1.4 points. I allocated those two states to the nominal leaders. The other two were within half a point, but with McCain ever so slightly ahead in Missouri and vice versa in North Carolina. I went ahead and gave Obama both states figuring that in a "wave" election like this, things will likely break for Obama in very very close states.

I should note that even if McCain wins in every state where the average margin is less than three points, Obama still wins with 291 electoral votes.