
512 Paths to the White House - jashkenas
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html
======
mbostock
A couple hidden features: 1. You can option-click on any of the buttons to see
the transition in super slo-mo. (This was mainly for debugging, but it's fun
to see how the transitions work in more detail.) 2. You can double-click on
any part of the tree, and it will zoom in by one level.

Also, we did a variation that used state-level probabilities to weight the
tree. This gave a sense not just of the logical possibilities, but of the
likelihood of each, which I liked. However, the FiveThirtyEight state-level
probabilities are not fully independent, so you can't multiply them together
to compute conditional probabilities. Perhaps next election!

~~~
001sky
_However, the FiveThirtyEight state-level probabilities are not fully
independent_

This is interesting, are they linked in some manner to national polls, or is
their something more nuanced?

~~~
usaar333
538 derives their probabilities by running simulated elections.
<http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/methodology/>

Somewhat intuitively, the simulations themselves have concepts of "national
movements", where a candidate can (with some probability) gain 1%, 2%, etc.
across all states.

The state probabilities are then derived from how many simulations/total
candidate A won. However, partly because these simulations actually had
national movement effects, you'll find that odds of winning both Florida and
Ohio (as in # simulations/total candidate A wins both states) are not the
state odds multiplied (they odds actually should be higher).

That said, with the raw simulation data, the graphic could show probabilities
for every combination.

~~~
Osmium
Couldn't you get the results for all the different simulations and add up how
often each combination arises and get probabilities that way?

~~~
usaar333
Yes

------
cedrichurst
Thanks Jeremy, Shan and Mike. I'm continually blown away by the data
journalism you're doing over at nytimes on the election. It's truly an
inspiration.

~~~
jashkenas
I've got nothing whatsoever to do with this one -- it's a Shan + Mike joint.

But thanks for the kudos. We should have some fun stuff for y'all on Tuesday
night...

~~~
waterlesscloud
It's a really nice project. There are some routes that are surprising and yet
seem possible in reality. Those explain some of the choices the candidates
have been making, particularly with "safe" states they can't really afford to
ignore completely.

------
nextstep
Damn, I wish I lived in one of the states that gets to choose our president.

~~~
nostromo
It may actually happen in our lifetime.

The small states would never allow such a change to the constitution. (A
presidential voter in Wyoming has almost 4 times the vote of a Californian.)
But the big states may have found a work around:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)

In short, the states that agree to the compact agree to proportion all of
their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. (For example, if
Romney wins the national popular vote, CA would give Romney all of CA's
electoral votes.) The compact will only kick in once the states that have
ratified it have 270 electoral votes (enough to win). It's already about
halfway there at 132.

How crazy would it be to see campaigning in California and New York?

~~~
waterlesscloud
So instead of your vote being lost in the mass of California or New York
votes, it would just be lost in the much larger mass of national votes.

You'd still be in a winner-take-all situation with your vote, but on a
national level rather than a state level.

I don't think this change would have the effect people imagine. At all.

~~~
calinet6
It would not appear to, but in effect, it would make the entire election
simply based on popular vote.

Therefore your vote is not lost, it simply becomes equal.

This is far better than your vote actually being lost in the mass of
California votes, since you, living in California, would still have some
impact on the national outcome. And candidates, looking for popular votes
instead of electoral votes, would have much higher incentive to campaign to
all people, not just those in states where votes carry "more weight."

In all ways, this is more equal and more fair. Every election is a winner-
take-all situation—it might as well be a winner-take-all situation where your
vote actually has an impact independent of your state.

~~~
waterlesscloud
What specific concrete difference do you see happening in that case? What does
it mean to "campaign to all people"?

~~~
yummyfajitas
One effect - economic conservatism may make a comeback.

NY, CA and several other liberal states tend to have people who call
themselves "conservatives" (folks like me). We tend to be libertarian leaning
economic conservatives who don't identify with religious culture war stuff
(war on christmas, the gays are gonna get you).

We get ignored since our vote doesn't matter. This leads to national
candidates who are basically Democrats with a little bit of Jesus thrown in
(e.g. Bush, Romney), albeit answering to different special interest groups.

~~~
jbooth
That'd be nice, but for the record, spending a lot of money on the military
and cutting taxes (Bush, Romney) is not 'basically democrats with a little bit
of jesus thrown in'.

I think your beef is more with the national security conservatives than the
religious ones, religion is orthogonal to economic conservatism and often
employed in its favor (megachurches hating on 'socialism', etc)

~~~
yummyfajitas
_spending a lot of money on the military and cutting taxes (Bush, Romney) is
not 'basically democrats with a little bit of jesus thrown in'_

I'm referring to spending lots of money on subsidized medicine (Busy, Romney),
assorted redistribution schemes (Bush, Romney), increasing the regulatory
state (Bush), more executive power (Bush), opposing freedom of political
speech (Romney), opposing free speech on the internet (Bush, Romney) and
pushing/subsidizing real estate speculation (Bush, Romney).

~~~
jbooth
Well, FWIW, Obama's cut federal domestic discretionary spending relative to
the economy, inflation and other measures and has promised to continue to do
so in his next term.

Of course, military and entitlements need to be addressed as well but reducing
healthcare costs is obviously a priority of his as is reducing military
spending.

Maybe you should just vote democrat.

------
cincinnatus12
The argument that the EC is there to the avoid a deadlock situation is quite
inaccurate. In fact, given there are only 538 EC votes to distribute, the
likelihood of a tie (269-269) is much, much higher than the likelihood of a
tie in the popular vote (where in 2008 both candidates received > 50 million
votes). Nate Silver's 538 blog estimates the current chances of a EC
"deadlock" at 0.2% -- small, yes, but not so small as to ignore the
possibility entirely.

The "solution" under this scenario? If the election doesn't produce a
candidate with 270 or more electoral college votes, the race gets decided by
the House of Representatives. Can you imagine the reaction if Obama won the
popular vote, but only received 269 EC votes and then the (Republican) House
awarded the election to Romney?

There is precedent for this, of course. The 1824 election saw Andrew Jackson
getting a plurality in both the popular vote and the Electoral College, but
not a majority in either. Ultimately, a Congress hostile to Jackson would
award to the Presidency to his arch-rival, John Quincy Adams.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1824)

In terms of worrying about deadlock, a simple popular vote total is far
superior than any permutation of the Electoral College.

------
tomasien
I think this is a great way to explain to someone who's not intimately
familiar with electoral politics why people think Obama is going to win
despite razor thing polls. Predictions mean nothing of course but:

If Obama wins Florida, Romney has exactly 1 path to victory: winning every
other swing state. If Obama wins Ohio, Romney has only 11 ways to win. If
Obama loses Florida, Virginia, NC, and Ohio he could still potentially win if
he wins the rest of the swing states, all of which he's slightly ahead in in
recent polling.

Election day will be interesting, but that's what makes it hard to pundits to
predict a Romney victory.

~~~
leif
Obama's going to win. The only reason you hear pundits talking about it is
because they get paid to talk about it. The media controls the messaging these
days, not the candidates or the people, and it's in the media's interest to
maintain as close a race as possible until the bitter end.

That's why even the most partisan pundits, even when everything's in their
candidate's favor, keep claiming that "this is such a close race".

TBH the only way Romney is going to be contentious is through voter
suppression, and that's been so heavily exposed in critical areas that it's
not going to have any effect as long as the justice system holds its ground.

 _removes tinfoil hat_

(BUT EVERYONE PLEASE VOTE IF YOU ARE ABLE, IT'S CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT NO MATTER
WHERE YOU LIVE)

~~~
arrrg
Well, I don’t know. Calling it a tossup is very wrong, but Romney’s odds don’t
seem that bad to me.

Nate Silver, for example, gives Romney a twenty percent chance. That’s not
bad. I would gladly pay $1,000 for a twenty percent chance to win a million.

~~~
btmorex
Nate Silver gives Romney a ~20% chance of winning because there's a chance
that the polls are systematically wrong. Each polling firm comes up with their
own likely voter model and participation model. If they're are correct in the
aggregate, there's essentially a 0% chance of Romney winning, but they might
not be correct (and there were times in the past where they were
systematically wrong).

Basically, don't confuse uncertainty about whether the polls are accurate with
uncertainty about the election if they are accurate because if they're
accurate then Obama will win.

~~~
arrrg
Well, obviously. But twenty percent are twenty percent. It doesn’t really
matter where they come from. The net result is that Romney (according to Nate
Silver) has a pretty good chance of winning.

------
cletus
Well I guess it's that time in the cycle again: for people to complain about
the electoral college (disclaimer: I'm not American).

Over the years in different elections in different countries I've heard this
complaint [1]

> The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that
> lean opposite their view.

Translation:

> It's unfair that I don't get my way even though I'm in the minority.

Also, this isn't just an election for president. There are Senate (in 2 out of
3 elections) and Congressional races, probably local races too.

But let me address the common "solution" for this "problem": the popular volte
(for president). That is a _terrible_ idea.

The electoral college doesn't only exist for the reasons of state rights
(although that's a pretty big part of it). It exists to avoid a deadlock. The
delegate almost without exception vote as their state did. The possibility of
no decision coming out of the electoral college is practically zero.

For those of you who were paying attention in 2000, just look at what a mess
Florida became. Now watch me get downvoted into oblivion (but that doesn't
make me any less right) but the optional nature of the US voting system has
resulted in:

\- the left buying votes (cigarettes to homeless people, that sort of thing);
and

\- the right trying to disenfranchise groups that tend to vote left with such
measures as removing the right of felons to vote (and even people who aren't
felons).

HOWEVER, by the rules that were in place at the time of the election Florida
was always a Bush win (seriously, please don't downvote siimply because you
disagree). Even extensive analysis (by the likes of the New York Times, etc)
after the fact supports this.

My point was that Florida turned into a circus of trying to change the rules
after the fact (eg what constitutes a vote, the whole dimpled and pregnant
chad business). You just can't do that.

Imagine that circus on a national level with an incredibly close popular vote.

On a personal note, as someone who resides in New York, one of the most
expensive media markets in a state that is safely blue, I appreciate the
minimal amount of election ads.

Anyway, the electoral college is not the problem here. There are however two
glaring problems (IMHO):

1\. Voting is optional;

2\. Elections are first-past-the-post ("FPTP").

The argument for (1) is that mandatory voting leads to uninformed people
voting. I assure you that uninformed people are already voting.

Voter turnout nationally is something like 50% (IIRC). Of those 40% always
vote Democrat, 40% always vote Republican and the 20% in the middle decide the
election. So 10% of the population is deciding the election even key states.

The problem with optional voting is it creates the wrong incentives. Measures
like voter ID, removing felons right to votes are a consequence of this. If
voting were mandatory (as it is in Australia) then a lot of these problems go
away. Also, in many parts of the US it is hard to vote with long lines. It
should be moved to a Saturday but this difficulty is, in many places, a
natural consequence of voting being optional. Election officials are partisans
too so you shouldn't be surprised if a right-leaning official under-resources
an area with a lot of poor people.

As for (2) the problem is that this reinforces a two-party system. A vote for
a minor party is often a vote for the other side (eg voting for the Greens is
a vote that would probably otherwise go to a Democrat so is effectively a vote
for the Republicans).

Australia has a preferential voting system. Given a field of 5 candidates you
number then 1 to 5. When votes are counted you allocate all the "1"s. The
candiate with the least number of "1"s is eliminated and their votes are
distributed to the "2"s. This continues until something has more than 50% of
the vote.

This means you could vote [1] Green [2] Democrat [3] Republican and protest
the Democrat candidate without losing your vote.

One last point, as much as people focus on key states deciding the election,
the reality is that the states are on a spectrum based on the popular vote. If
a Republican wins the popular vote by 8% or more they'll probably carry
California, otherwise they won't. A Democrat will have to win by 5-8% to carry
Texas. When the popular vote is close, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and
Wisconsin are in play. Were it not close they wouldn't be.

Over time states change their "bias". For example, Florida is becoming more
Democratic with retirees from blue states in the Northeast. California used to
be a safe red state but is now safely blue. These changes aren't sudden and
the variations possible are actually quite small.

Whatever the case, the popular vote at the national level would be a disaster.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4736105>

~~~
hristov
You are entitled to your dubious opinions but please do not try to change
history. All newspapers agreed that Gore won Florida. What they said was that
the Gore vs Bush decision would not have made a difference. That is because in
his legal case Gore chose the wrong Florida counties where to request a
recount. But if all votes were counted, Gore won.

And no the electoral college does not exist to avoid deadlock. Do you know
what the chances of deadlock are in a popular vote of about 100 million
people?

Oh and can you show me any documented case where someone gives homeless people
cigarettes to make them vote for someone? How would that even work? You know
you usually have to register before hand.

~~~
dctoedt
> _You are entitled to your dubious opinions but please do not try to change
> history. All newspapers agreed that Gore won Florida. What they said was
> that the Gore vs Bush decision would not have made a difference. That is
> because in his legal case Gore chose the wrong Florida counties where to
> request a recount. But if all votes were counted, Gore won._

Um, not quite; you've misstated the conclusion of the news organizations'
study of the uncounted ballots. In a much-expanded recount, according to the
_Times_ wrap-up piece in November 2001 [1], Gore _might_ have won in a few
possible scenarios, but only by a teeny, tiny margin at best (smaller than the
margin Bush ended up with). Even that possibility depended on the different
counties' election officials recounting the disputed ballots in the same way
that the news organizations' independent auditors did.

The _Times_ had endorsed Gore --- as it has every other Democratic
presidential candidate starting in 1960 [2]. Yet the lead grafs of the _Times_
piece were commendably explicit: " _A comprehensive review of the uncounted
Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W.
Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the
statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had
ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice
President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award
an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore._ "

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html>

[2]
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/28/opinion/presid...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/28/opinion/presidential-
endorsement-timeline.html)

~~~
hristov
From your own link:

"But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those
covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have
won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected
ballots. "

So I am right.

~~~
dctoedt
> _So I am right._

Absolutely --- if by "Gore won" you mean that Gore might have pulled ahead, by
around 115 votes, and been declared the winner, if all of the following had
occurred:

(i) Gore had asked the courts for a full statewide recount, instead of the
more-limited recount that he did ask for; * and

(ii) the courts had found sufficient cause to order such an expansive (and
expensive) recount, instead of limiting the recount to specific areas where
good reason had been affirmatively demonstrated; AND

(iii) in such a statewide recount, the various voting officials in Florida's
67 counties had (x) tagged the same specific 175,010 ballots as problematic as
did the news organizations' independent observers, and then (y) reached the
same conclusions about those ballots as did the independent observers. *

* _As explained in the_ Times _article_

We can never know whether (ii) and, especially, (iii) would have occurred.

------
ck2
The five ways to tie are the most freaky and stressful.

The only problem with this nifty tree is that it must be followed in order to
determine the outcome.

Oh wait, I didn't realize the boxes at the top were selectable. I guess that
allows out-of-order traversal.

Only thing I'd like to see added to this is using url hash to bookmark the
result set so I can share it.

~~~
RyJones
If you use the buttons at the top, you can in effect zoom the chart to see how
it plays out.

------
protomyth
If you want more campaigning in your area, then start a petition and vote for
a change to your state's constitution to allocate electoral votes by house
district. This is a change that could happen if your state wants it.

I believe on real problem is the state's voice is not heard in DC and a lot of
crap is done that is not in the State's best interest. I wish they would
repeal the Seventeenth Amendment so people would concentrate a lot more on the
State's politics. Or perhaps, replace the senators with the sitting governor.
Then the Senate would think about the state's budget and regulation burden
before passing things.

------
ianstormtaylor
Does anyone know if I should be as scared as I am that there are 5 paths to
tie? Is that the norm in a presidential election? because it sounds crazy.

~~~
mlinsey
Dunno why that would be scary. Ties (or really, any allocation of electoral
votes where no candidate gets to 270) are resolved in the House of
Representatives, and this was common practice in the early 19th century. If it
were to happen now, there would be a lot of complaining, but overall it would
be less of a constitutional crisis than the 2000 election. If anything, it
might be a spark for true electoral reform.

~~~
ianstormtaylor
Ah yeah, I stupidly misinterpreted the bottom row of the graph and thought
there were 5 ties out of the 20 or so possibilities (forgetting the branches
that didn't need to be resolved by New Hampshire), but now I realize that was
only for decisions ultimately decided by New Hampshire.

That Wikipedia article talking about the 1800 tie is pretty awesome.

------
ecmendenhall
If you're sufficiently convinced by this, the 538 model, or your favorite
electoral vote map, and you are willing to bet your beliefs (and you are in a
jurisdiction that has not regulated prediction markets out of existence),
Intrade contracts on an Obama victory were trading around $6.70 today.

~~~
usaar333
This should be legal for any American: <http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/>

Sadly, if you don't already have money there, your transfer is unlikely to go
through until after the election.

------
trueluk
I'm not sure why Nebraska's second congressional district isn't included.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Obama's chance (14%) of winning one vote from
Nebraska is higher than Romney's chance (11%) of winning Nevada. As a matter
of fact, the last FiveThirtyEight visualization I saw linked here
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4657826>) didn't include the one
electoral vote Obama won in 2008 from Nebraska either.

~~~
agildehaus
Maybe they're not counting that electoral vote here. Can anyone tell? This
diagram needs an electoral vote count.

------
mistercow
Fascinatingly, 84% of these scenarios are Obama wins, which is surprisingly
closeto fivethirtyeight's current projection of 85%.

------
robomartin
The electoral college is incredibly unfair to voters who live in states that
lean opposite their view.

I fully understand that the popular vote option has its issues (focusing on
large population areas, etc.). However, a lot of this can be mitigated through
legislation and regulation of the process.

Here's a random set of ideas:

\- Candidates are only allowed to visit each state capital once. That's it.

\- Candidates are not allowed to trash the other candidates. They are only
allowed to discuss their views.

\- Candidates are awarded an amount of money to run their campaigns. No
external contributions from any source whatsoever. None.

\- Candidates must participate in detailed interviews for a period of several
weeks. Some of these interviews are aired in national networks and the rest
made available online.

\- Candidates are obligated to participate in detailed debates

\- Television networks are prohibited from endorsing or communicating bias

\- The publication of poll data is illegal

\- A candidate must post a huge bond. If he or she is found telling lies they
end-up in prison and have huge financial consequences.

\- Campaign promises are recorded and signed in a document that is publicly
available. A politician that does not deliver on promises made is exposed to
financial and criminal liability. Don't make promises you can't keep.

\- Public endorsement of any candidate is illegal. They have to float and
survive on their platform and track record.

\- The incumbent is not allowed to campaign in any way at all. His or her
opponents cannot trash him/her. The incumbent can only rely on having done a
good job and kept promises. People will vote and want to keep someone who is
doing a good job. The only thing they are allowed to do is announce their
running for office and participate in scheduled debates or interviews.

\- Politicians are limited to serving in public office for a certain period of
time, perhaps ten years. After that they must return to private life --no
connection whatsoever to government and politics-- for five years before they
can run for office again. This is to infuse balance and perspective and not
have a race of politicians, by politicians and for politicians.

There are probably a number of other interesting ideas out there. What we have
it horribly broken in many ways. It'd be nice to see real dialog and actions
to change it.

~~~
khawkins
Is this a joke? What you're proposing is almost fundamentally contradictory to
the principles the nation was founded upon. Banning bias? No "trashing" other
candidates? No polling? No public endorsements? Incumbent can't run? You
propose some of the most egregious restrictions on freedom of speech I've ever
heard of.

Only can use government money to campaign (and not their own)? Can only visit
state capitals once? Candidates obligated to participate in debates? Are you
suggesting candidates have to become slaves to the process in order run for
office?

On top of that, you expect government officials, the same ones put into office
by this process to be the ones deciding whether someone is "biased" or not and
who "didn't deliver" a campaign promise. Your proposals, if enacted, would
probably generate a horribly corrupt government, where every politically
motivated person would take every chance to destroy opponents through legal
processes until an establishment party has so permeated the government they're
basically a dictatorship.

As much as I'd like to believe this post was made in jest, I feel like you're
taking cues from Hugo Chavez.

~~~
robomartin
No, it wasn't made in jest. Obviously arriving at a systems that could work
well would require intelligent discussion of all kinds of proposals point by
point. I am more than prepared to accept that some aspects of what I rattled-
off in five minutes of typing could be bad ideas. It's not like I spend every
waking hour of my life thinking about this. It's almost exactly the opposite.

My point is that what we see today is an abomination. Perhaps the system put
into place when this country was founded made sense at that time and for a
number of years after that. I really think it makes no sense at all today.

The Obama and Romney spent TWO BILLION DOLLARS in their campaigns and who
knows how much PAC's spent. This is obscene. Particularly at a time when so
many people in our country are suffering.

Today you can't run for office unless you can raise a billion dollars. Period.
That's what it takes. That means that there are a lot of truly intelligent
people with great ideas that are financially banned from the process. Want to
talk about the 1%. About wealth inequality? Let's talk about the 0.01%, the
handful of people that can raise a billion dollars and, effectively, try to
buy the presidency.

Sick.

Candidates ought to be restricted to presenting their platform and ideas. They
should not be allowed to trash the other candidates with impunity and, yes,
lie right and left. What we end-up with today is something I see in my house
every day with my little ones: "Daddy, he broke the flower!"; "No, I didn't,
she pushed me"; "Nooooo, he said a bad word". Oh, please, stop it!

I'll self-appoint as an intelligent voter. I think you might be one too. The
problem is that not everyone is. And the system we have in place allows
candidates with money to use drive-by media techniques to cause outrage and
indignation on the average voter with the aim being to gain a vote and take it
away from the competition. This is criminal.

There are other issues here. If you are not "cool", speak well and present
well you have zero chances of getting elected. Before someone goes off
thinking that I am attacking Obama, stop it! This is a general statement that
is party and candidate agnostic. Steven Hawking --or someone like him-- could
never become president. Never. That is wrong. Is being president about looking
good and speaking well? Not at all. It shouldn't be, anyway. It should be,
among other things, about their ideas, track record, experience and ability to
make tough decisions.

I want to get down to an election system that removes all the five-year-old
crap from the process and focuses on ideas and accountability. If you can't
guarantee that you will come through with a promise, then don't promise it.
State it as you idea and explain the challenges you might face making it
happen.

Hugo Chavez? Please, stop it. We should be able to discuss an issue like the
failings of the electoral college system without resorting to insults, right?

~~~
lotu
> I'll self-appoint as an intelligent voter. I think you might be one too. The
> problem is that not everyone is.

That sounds like a dictatorship.

> Steven Hawking --or someone like him-- could never become president.

FDR and polio.

Anyways, the fundamental problem with your proposal is that every candidate is
still going to be inclined to act as close as possible to how they currently
act while still staying with in the rule established. They will want to do
this because that is how they get votes. The problem is the electorate not the
candidates or the system, the people get the candidate they collectively want,
and in many ways deserve.

~~~
Evbn
FDR went to extreme lengths to hide his polio, including having the support of
every newspaper in the nation. He would have no chance today, in the era of
"release the medical records!"

------
ninetax
This is amazing! It's everything a visualization should be: simple, to the
point, interactive.

~~~
lbarrow
It's also pretty deceptive, as it gives each path equal visual weight when
they aren't all equally likely

------
nhebb
This is interesting, but it leaves out Pennsylvania. Penn is a long shot for
Romney, but the Romney campaign's internal polling must indicate that it's in
play, otherwise they wouldn't be spending time in the final weekend
campaigning there.

------
seldo
A really great way to show why Ohio is so important:

1\. Give the democrats Wisconsin (I don't know why people are treating it as a
swing state)

2\. Give the democrats Ohio

3\. Give the democrats any other state (except New Hampshire)

Basically, as long as Obama takes Ohio, Obama wins.

~~~
james-skemp
Re Wisconsin, as someone who has lived in the state all his life, and been
confident that we'd elect a Democrat as president since the mid-90s (and
definitely in the last 12+ years I've been voting), I believe the state is
swinging.

Walker's recall showed how red the state is, once the people outside Madison
and Milwaukee actually vote. (Disclaimer: I live in Madison, and commented to
others that I didn't realize Wisconsin had turned red.)

Obama is back in Madison shortly, but he really needs to head up to the north
of the state. Unless he thinks he can carry it by getting the vote out in
obviously blue areas.

On the other hand, I don't think he can sway people in two days, so getting
people excited where he knows a vote will be a vote for him might be the best
bet.

------
marcamillion
I LOVE this. I have always wondered what such a visualization might look like.
Now, when the results come in, I can be my very own 'electoral college pundit'
and be right :)

------
tisme
This is all window dressing. Elections do not decide who wins. Funding does.
And as long as corporations can outspend private citizens companies decide
elections.

If you wanted to reform elections in the USA then you would have to start to
curb the direct influence of corporations on the elections, compared to that
the electoral college is a minor detail.

~~~
InclinedPlane
You're just translating the problem one level, you're not actually addressing
the root problem. The problem isn't that money is allowed to be spent in
elections, or even that corporations can outspend individuals or truly grass
roots organizations (unions are a big part of the top political donors, for
example). Ultimately, buying a TV spot or radio advertisement does not
constitute "buying" a vote.

The problem is that the whole system is too shallow. And that starts at the
electorate and extends to political pundits and the media. If you magically
sucked money out of the system tomorrow then we'd be absolutely no better off.
Neither individuals nor the media would suddenly decide that it's important to
discuss the real issues and be open and honest. No, it would still be the same
old popularity/celebrity contest and the same old "gotcha" game.

~~~
spoiledtechie
Actually, They are right.

I really think you should take the time to watch this video, understand it,
let it sink in and totally mold your brain around it.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc>

------
theltrj
is there a library out there that mimics this visualization? very powerful
stuff

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Evbn
Hmm. I wanted to go reqd that page tonight to see you what is left that
matters, but it has been replaced by the link be results map. Lame.

