Silver vs. Rove

Not that we don’t have enough “they vs. we” going on through this election, but I wanted to set up one more; the Battle of the Maps.  The darling of the Left is the most obvious contender.  He’s new, young, fresh and, perhaps, most accurate.  It is surprisingly difficult to find other polling outfits that actually predict the whole map.  Most of them put the states into buckets leaving the hard picks as “toss ups.”  So, I went with the guy that folks on the left hate; Karl Rove.

The result is shown above.

The two guys are remarkably close.  Of 51 contests, they diverge on only 5.  Those five states are listed up top; Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire and Colorado.

The next set are states that they agree on but could be wrong on.  Most surprisingly are the states of Florida and North Carolina.  I wouldn’t have guessed that Silver put them both in the red side.  The other three, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are pretty close to a sure thing in my mind; I don’t think Romney takes any of the three.  The closest state in play there is Wisconsin and the other two have been listed, so I keep those three listed separate as well.

The remaining states are pretty close to locks.  If forced to choose an upset from each side I’d go with Minnesota or Nevada in the Blue and Arizona from the Red.

Interesting contest to be sure.

2 responses to “Silver vs. Rove

  1. I was going to put Florida red, but when I read of seven hour waits to vote (as Roger Simon tweeted, I don’t think I’d wait seven hours even if there were a free Ipad at the end), I figured that rage against Rick Scott would drive up the minority vote and Obama would win. Also, their early voting was about equal to 2008, even though they had far fewer days.

    In NC I had it red but changed it to blue at the last minute after looking at the early voting numbers there (you all beat 2008 in total early voting). NC is the one I’m least confident about. It seems to me Rove believes voter turn out will be down from the high 2004 and 2008 levels, but I don’t see evidence of that. But we’ll know tonight!

    • Florida and North Carolina

      They are close. And more importantly, if Obama wins wither one of ’em, the game is over.

      When I fill out m y Final Four brackets I always force myself to pick an upset. Mine would be Minnesota or Wisconsin going Red and Arizona going Blue.

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