I’ve shared many opinions this election season, but I’m not going to link any of them from this post because the only opinion that matters today is your own.
If you are registered to vote, please visit your local polls! Even if you don’t support a major-party candidate, a third-party vote has positive implications for broader choices in future elections.
If you are not registered to vote, please take this opportunity to investigate how to register in your area.
And, if – like me – you rolled out of bed at an ungodly hour to try to be the first at your poll only to find that dozens of people had the same idea as you, then please proceed to my Electoral Vote prediction.
My relatively optimistic, but decidedly realistic prediction is Obama 348, McCain 190.
In a surprise, Obama wins Georgia and Arizona due to a great GOTV effort, but does not win both Ohio and Florida (I’m saying he’ll lose Florida, but it’s a coin flip). Also, in a surprise turn, he wins one of the districts in Nebraska In descending amount of electoral votes, Obama will win CA, PA, NY, IL, OH, MI, NJ, GA, VA, MA, WA, MD, WI, MN, AZ, CO, OR, IA, CT, NV, NM, RI, HI, NH, ME, VT, DE, DE, and one in NE.
Some networks will make a preliminary call betwen 9pm and 10pm when the combination of MI, MN, and NM becomes accurately predictable, or when NY returns are in. Due to massive GOTV in already blue states, Obama wins the popular vote by a staggering 9%, 54 to 46.
(Is all of that probable? Not exactly. But, much more fun to guess this way than to vote the party line from 538, even if you’re pretty sure they’ll be right.)