After all the votes are counted in the 2008 Presidential Election, will the electoral map be tied?

Update - Pollster.com has it 238-224 today in favor of Obama with 7 toss-ups. Obama has a 1+ point lead in only 2 of those states (Michigan (17) and New Mexico (5)) and a less than 1 point lead in Colorado (9).

Update - on 9-18 pollster.com has it 243-219 in favor of Obama. But of the 8 toss-ups he only has a lead in Michigan (17 votes).

Update - okay, I'm not going to do this daily, but this is too interesting to pass up.

Pollster.com today (for the first time I might add) has McCain ahead 208-202. There are many more toss-up states, of course, but I did the math of states leaning each way. Toss-ups that lean Obama add up to 67 electoral votes. Add that to the 202 pollster.com has for Obama today and the vote count is 269-269.

It may not happen, but you gotta admit this is turning into a pretty good question.

538 a polling and simulation website has a 3.8% of a tie.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

as i'm sure you all know i'm right leaning in my political views. i'm not an obama fan by no means. what has me worried is most polls have the race close. i figure obama has at least 1 if not 2-3 points he ain't gettin from pole takers. he has alot of first time voters in his favor. mccain needs to open up a lead of at least a 4 point lead to make me feel more comfy. he's gotta do well in the debates, or hope obama stumbles. just a dumb guys theory :O)

I agree with you dieseldog...doesn't sound dumb to me. In addition to the possible polling bias (I think I covered this in another comment...polls bias toward the older population...the McCain population in other words), Obama being a lesser-known (as shocking as that is to the political junkies among us) of the nonincumbent party running against a well-known from the unpopular incumbent party means that a lot of the undecideds could well turn to Obama at the last minute. Think 1980 when Reagan was decidedly behind Carter right up until election day. Of course, I feel much happier about this than you do, dieseldog. Also, keep in mind that I thought no way could Gore or Kerry lose to Bush, so maybe I am not the one to judge the intelligence of your comment.

Okay, keeping that in mind DD and smidge, look at today's numbers.

Obama - 229, McCain 166

Yes, MC Cain dropped 36 points in 4 days, 58 in the last week.

NC and Fla moved into tossup. If we look at Obama's lead it's 2.3 in PA, 3.2 in MN, and 1.8 in CO. All other toss-ups in McCain's favor. So by DD’s 2-3 point thing to favor Obama, only PA and MN (31 votes) would possibly fall in for him. On the other hand, McCain only has a 3+ lead ( I know you said 4 but there are no toss-ups with 4) he has 3.0 lead in Ohio, 3.6 in WV, and 3.3 in NC and FL.

Still, add all the numbers up where one is favored over the other it’s a 269 tie.

Pundits like to say polls are about trends, though. If that’s true, my prediction is this question will be settled as No.

imho this election is gonna be decided during the debates. its so close an unseen event could happen that could change things. barring anything major happening the debates will be the deciding factor. good job at updating the question rbrog77.

Thanks dog...and call me rb.

i heard a interesting theory last night. lets say there is a tie. it goes to congress (no bobody is sure if its the current congress on the one just elected) lets say its the current congress. the house elects the prez, and the senate the veep. the house (contoled by dems) will choose obama. the senate is to close to call. a good chance it would be a 50-50 tie. so then the current veep (cheney) breaks the tie..ie palin wins. now we have president obama and vice president palin. wouldn't that be sumthin :O)

According to what I researched, it's the next congressional delegation, not this one.

more...

Under a tie, the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives. Each state delegation in the House of Representatives would caucus individually, with each state getting one vote.

Example - Arkansas has four members in the House of Representatives: Three are Democrats and one is Republican. They would caucus together and might cast their one vote for Obama (assuming he’s the nominee of course.) So the people of Arkansas could have voted for McCain, but in the House, they might likely vote for Obama.

Ironically, John McCain might not win his home state of Arizona in this scenario, because there are 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans in his state’s delegation. A tie yields no vote obviously.

However, about half the states (I don’t know which) have laws requiring their Electors to vote for the popular vote winner.

This is from the 12th amendment - If the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

As for the veep, the 12th amendment says the Senate shall choose the Vice-President;.

Am I reading this right? If it’s a tie and goes to the house and it’s a tie, then the VP as elected by the senate would be president?

That would mean in a 50-50 vote in the senate Cheney would break the tie, right? So it's possible according to this that our next president could be Palin?

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo......................

@rb..i went by the news i was watching. another HD'er said samething you did. its the next congress that does the choosing. if the house is controlled by the dems i would think they would pick obama. i guess anything is possible. the house could change so much that a tie could be possible. only like a 36 or 37 seat difference now. it swung 54 seats doing the "gingrich revolution", and i think 31 seats in 2006. so if the house goes republican and they pick mccain, and the senate stays dem..they'll pick biden. lots of interesting things could happen if the electoral map is tied.

Ddog - I think it's pretty safe (probably) to say the house will be dems. I also think it's safe to say more states will be red than blue. The sticking point is the part about the laws mandating how the electors must vote.

Since my research says nearly half have those mandates, it would be interesting o see which states. It would also be interesting to see if the mandate is for the states popular vote or the overall popular vote.

My guess is it would be the state.

As of Oct 1, Pollster.com has it 229-174 in favor of Obama with 135 toss-ups. As mentioned above, Obama leads in CO, PA, and Minnesota. If he won just those states out of the toss ups it would mean a 269-269 tie.

But there's something interesting this week. He also leads in VA. Only by 2/10 of a point, but that's a first on pollster.

I also want to bring up the Bradley effect this week. In case you don't know, Bradley was a very popular mayor of LA who ran for governor. Polls showed him up substantially goining into election day, but he lost...narrowly.

The Bradley effect (approximately 5%) attributes this to his race and the fact that certain white people could not bring themselves to vote for a black candidate.

If this effect is applied to the leans and toss-ups on pollster, Obama only has 202.

Regardless of who you support, let's hope there is no Bradley effect this year.

An interesting map this morning at pollster.com. For the first time, they have someone over the 270 needed to win - Obama. Current tally is 296-163 with only 79 toss-ups.

But the interesting thing - okay, another interesting thing - is how the toss-ups read.

Nevada - 48-47.7 Obama
Ohio - 48.6-45.9 Obama
New Hampshire - 48.1-45 Obama
Virginia - 49.2-47 Obama
North Carolina - 47.2-46.8 Obama

McCain only leads in toss-ups Missouri and Indiana (49.1-46.3 and 47.2-45.4 respectively).

If you apply the Bradley effect to the “lean” states, however, (see comment 15 above) take CO out (9), Minnesota ((10), Pennsylvania (21) and Florida (27). That would bring his 296 down to 229.

Again, regardless of who you lean towards, let’s hope there is no Bradley effect.

Not much has changed since last week except the total. Pollster.com now has it 320-155. They moved Ohio from toss-up to Lean Obama (49.6 - 45.3) as well as New Hampshire (49.7 - 44.4) and moved North Dakota and Missouri into toss-up (47.4 - 43.8 and 48.1 - 47.5 respectively towards McCain).

As for the Bradley effect, only Ohio in the lean Obama catagory is under the 5% mark,leaving him with 300 total.

According to pollster, her are the 25 states (including DC) Obama would win if election was held today.

Maine, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, DC, PA, OH, Mich, Wis, Ill, Iowa, Minn, CO, NM, CA, OR, Wash, FL, and HI.

The only toss-ups are NV, ND, NC, VA, WV, Missouri and Indiana with VA, NC and NV in the Obama column.

Even I don't believe this will happen anymore, although I'll still risk the original $400 I bet that it will. In my opinion, Obama will win 286-252, not due to the Bradley effect, but due to the Obama effect.

The Obama effect comes from the primary votes. It was almost errie how correct Obama's numbers were heading into the primary versus what he came out with. In other words, if he was leading in the polls over Hillary 48-47 with 5% undecided, Hillary would probably win 52-48. So if he doesn't have over 50% of a states poll numbers going in, my assumption is he will not win that state.

According to pollster.com today, Obama has 306 strong or lean electoral votes. All of these states have over 50% - except ohio with 20%. That's where i get my 286.

I wish we could bet on an exact number rather than a range.

;->

@rborg - You could do a 'ones' digit question for the electoral college vote.