Updated Electoral College Forecast

As promised in my last post on the September Model I'm be posting a rolling Electoral College forecast (in the panel to the right), based on past election results and October national and state-level trial-heat polls. As with the September model, these state-level forecasts were developed with Jay DeSart. Clicking on map to the right will take you to Jay's web page, where more details are available. As new polls come in the forecast will change, so please check in on a regular basis.

The results for today are:

Electoral vote: Obama 281, McCain Romney 257
National popular vote: Obama 51.5%, Romney 48.5%

Both the Electoral College and popular vote projections are down a bit from those generated by the September Model, reflecting a trend found in most other poll-based models.  The biggest state changes are Colorado, Florida, and Virginia moving from Obama to Romney.  These are currently the most likely pick-ups for Obama, with all three showing Romney with less than a 56% chance of winning them.  Romney is going to have a harder time picking up any states currently in the Obama column, with Ohio the most likely but currently showing Obama with a 68% chance of winning.