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Pennsylvania Rule Change by GOP May Doom Obama

State may switch from winner-take-all in Electoral College

(Newser) - Pennsylvania Republicans are proposing a radical change in how the state divvies up its electoral votes that could have a huge impact on the 2012 election. The plan, which is being championed by Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi and already has the governor’s support, would switch Pennsylvania from a... More »

GOP Election-Law Rewrites Pose Threat to Dems

Minorities, young people targeted in new rules, say voting-rights groups

(Newser) - Pennsylvania’s Republicans aren’t the only ones instituting voting laws likely to hurt Democrats. Some 12 states have begun requiring voters to carry picture ID; Florida and Ohio have reduced early-voting time; and Florida has cracked down on ex-felons voting, the Washington Post reports. Republicans say they want... More »

Sneak Attack on Electoral College Gains Ground

(Newser) - Opponents of the Electoral College are making progress on an end run around the institution with the goal of setting up a system that would decide the presidential election solely on the popular vote, Tara Ross writes for the Weekly Standard. “Formally eliminating the Electoral College through a constitutional... More »

Texas Wants to Secede? That Sounds Great!

Democrats would love to have state's 34 electoral votes back

(Newser) - Rick Perry’s talk of seceding from the union might seem crazy, but calling the Texas governor's bluff would be a great deal for Democrats, writes Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com. Consider:
  • Democrats would suddenly have a filibuster-proof majority in the 98-seat Senate.
  • Republicans would lose eight more House members
... More »

Pelosi Sacks Fla. Rep's Plea to Delay Votes for Gator Game

Ocala pol wanted to suspend biz for football

(Newser) - A Florida congressman asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to postpone certifying the election of Barack Obama and other business so the Florida and Oklahoma delegations can attend the Gators and Sooners BCS championship game tomorrow, AP reports. "Madam Speaker, kindly consider," Republican Cliff Stearns pleaded in a handwritten... More »

Electoral College Needs Rehab

State-level apportioning is the only viable way towards electing the president by popular vote

(Newser) - The 538 electors chosen to represent the will of the people cast their ballots for president today, officially ending the contest between Barack Obama and John McCain, writes Randall Lane for the New York Times. The otherwise-predictable ritual included a twist: a Nebraska elector voting for the candidate who won... More »

Nebraska Splits Electoral Votes, in First; Obama Gets 1

Dem will get slice of state's 5

(Newser) - Barack Obama has won a single Nebraska electoral vote in post-election counting, the first time the state has split the vote since a 1991 law allowed the practice, the AP reports. No Democrat has gotten a vote in the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. More »

Silver: Only 5 States Matter Now

(Newser) - The campaigns would have you believe that lots of states are still in play, but only five really matter at this point, writes Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com. They are Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and Ohio. Silver emphasizes that "by far the most likely scenario" is that Barack Obama... More »

McCain Running in Place: Polls

Obama has a 96.7% chance of victory, 538 predicts

(Newser) - John McCain isn’t gaining any ground in the polls, according to FiveThirtyEight, which pegs Obama’s odds of victory at 96.7% to McCain’s 3.3%. As of yesterday, polls predict a final electoral score of 351-187, numbers unchanged from the day before. National tracking polls showed minuscule... More »

John McCain, Here's How You Can Still Win This Election

Forget about Pa.; focus on Virginia, Florida, FiveThirtyEight says

(Newser) - John McCain, the polls aren’t looking good and your running mate is being accused of going “rogue,” but Nate Silver has some advice on how you can still eke out a victory. “No razzle-dazzle here,” Silver writes for FiveThirtyEight, “McCain simply has to pick... More »

A Baseball Nerd Turns to Election Stats

Nate Silver was right on the Rays; he's now calling the presidency

(Newser) - Give the sheer number of political polls being produced, and the history of many of them proving wrong, it takes a seriously smart statistician (and something of a nerd) to predict the presidential race with any authority. Nate Silver, the man who "revolutionized the interpretation of baseball stats,"... More »

Obama Eyes Omaha to Split Neb. Votes

Campaign wants to pick up just one of Nebraska's electoral votes

(Newser) - Forty-eight of 50 states award electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, but Nebraska, divvies up electoral votes by congressional district—and the Obama campaign sees an opening, reports the Washington Post. By concentrating just on the Omaha area, the Democrats are trying to pick up a single electoral vote in... More »

Rove: Obama Wins if Vote Were Today

Republican strategist calls some close states for the Democrat

(Newser) - Karl Rove isn't seeing red when he looks at his crystal electoral map, reports Politico, and is seeing enough blue to propel Barack Obama into the White House if the vote were held today. The GOP strategist has moved Minnesota and New Hampshire into the Democratic column, but cautions that... More »

Dire Economy Boosts Obama in Swing States

GOP has hard time making case to worried voters for 4 more years

(Newser) - As voters turn green over the shaky economy, the electoral map is turning blue, according to a New York Times tally. Barack Obama is hitting hard in nine states that George Bush took in 2004 and weren’t expected to be tossups this close to November—forcing John McCain to... More »

Oh, No: They Could Tie

The 1% chance of Obama and McCain fighting to a draw has web humming

(Newser) - It’s not inconceivable that the 2008 election could end in an electoral tie. OK, granted, the odds are roughly 99-1, but that 1% chance is enough to send politics geeks flocking to sites such as FiveThirtyEight.com, which conduct complex electoral simulations based on the latest polling, the Wall ... More »

Alaska Turning Purple as Election Nears

Obama leads in poll; Democrat hasn't taken state since 1964

(Newser) - The cold, snowy tundras of Alaska may transform into a battleground this November as Barack Obama and John McCain vie for the Land of the Midnight Sun's three electoral votes. Alaska hasn't gone blue since 1964, when LBJ won in a landslide, but an Anchorage-based poll currently has Obama leading... More »

Perennial Swing State Ohio Looks Blue

Rejuvenated local Dems bode well for Obama campaign

(Newser) - Ohio is the ultimate swing state: Since 1960 no president has been elected without winning its electoral votes, and in 2004, by the narrowest of margins, it delivered George W. Bush a second term. But this time around, Democrats are confident of their chances, the Economist reports. The state party... More »

How Obama Could Get Gored

As in 2000, Dem could win popular vote, lose Electoral College to Republican

(Newser) - Observers are speculating about a split decision in November, with John McCain winning the presidency while Barack Obama takes the popular vote—and Harry Siegel, in Politico, says the chances might not be that slim. Obama looks likely to build massive margins in coastal states (already safely Democratic) while making... More »

Obama's Electoral Math: Win Without Ohio, Fla.

Dem aims to keep Kerry states, add Virginia, Georgia, in Mountain West

(Newser) - Barack Obama is hardly giving up on Florida and Ohio, but campaign manager David Plouffe thinks the Democrat can win without them. “You have a lot of ways to get to 270,” Plouffe says. “Our goal is not to be reliant on one state on Nov. 4.... More »

Could McCain Win Big?

GOP strategists say cards stacked for big electoral victory

(Newser) - Despite the odds stacked against Republicans, GOP analysts are cautiously saying that John McCain will not only win, but he might do so by a comfortable margin, Politico reports. When Obama’s specific and geographical weaknesses are played against McCain’s strengths, the result adds up to a win of... More »

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