The McCain-Palin Landslide

**FUZO** · 11-02-2008, 09:42 PM

The McCain-Palin Landslide
THE MCCAIN-PALIN LANDSLIDE

Your first thought is that I am drunk on Kool-Aid when you see this title. I am going to show you why I am so sure about this prediction. Your next question is why should anyone pay any attention to me about such a ridiculous prediction. The answer is that in 45 years in politics, I have never been wrong about an election call even when I was called crazy. That includes get elected to office to prove I was right about winning an election. See my biography for details. I have to be very sure to risk a 45 year reputation so remember that you read it here first.

The next question is how could I possibly be so sure when the polls are predicting the exact opposite? Because I know the polls are wrong since they are not properly taking into account the P.U.M.A. Factor. I have explained previously that the mere fact that the polls violently disagree with each other is proof of something seriously amiss with the polling models. See my article on The P.U.M.A. Factor. On November 1st, I posted an article entitled How Big is the P.U.M.A. Factor?

That article pointed out that, at the time I wrote it, it required only a total of 493,636 PUMA voters in North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado to produce a tie in the electoral votes. Add a mere 35,935 more in Nevada and McCain-Palin wins. At the time, I was almost ready to bet the ranch that there were 529,571 PUMA voters in those six states, but I waited another 24 hours to make sure. Now the trend is so clear that it is obvious to me that a McCain-Palin landslide is in the works. It is amazing how few people in politics never apply some fairly simple mathematics to see what is going to happen in the next election.

Let us begin by repeating the table showing how few PUMA voters are required for McCain-Palin to win from my previous article. That table listed all battleground states where McCain-Palin was less than 13 points behind in the Real Clear Politics averages in those states.

STATE
VOTES
RCP AVERAGE
7/07 POPULATION
EST. TURNOUT
PUMA’S NEEDED
O-B VOTES
M-P VOTES

NC
15
1.3
9,061,032
3,905,343
25,385
338
200

FL
27
4.2
18,251,243
7,866,362
165,194
311
227

OH
20
5.6
11,466,917
4,942,289
138,384
291
247

VA
13
6.0
7,712,091
3,323,944
99,718
278
260

CO
9
6.2
4,861,515
2,095,333
64,955
269
269

NV
5
6.5
2,565,382
1,105,690
35,935
264
274

NM
5
7.3
1,969,915
849,042
30,990
259
279

PA
21
8.5
12,432,792
5,358,585
227,740
238
300

NH 4 11.1 1,315,828 567,127 31,476 234 304
WI
10
11.0
5,601,640
2,414,330
132,788
224
314

IA
7
11.6
2,988,046
1,287,860
74,696
217
321

What a difference 24 hours make. Now let's look at that same table on November 2nd and see what has changed.

STATE
VOTES
RCP AVERAGE
7/07 POPULATION
EST. TURNOUT
PUMA’S NEEDED
DROP IN RCP AVG
DROP IN PUMA'S

NC
15
0.3
9,061,032
3,905,343
5,858
-1.0
-19,527

FL
27
4.2
18,251,243
7,866,362
165,194
0
0

OH
20
4.2
11,466,917
4,942,289
103,788
-1.4
-34,595

VA
13
3.8
7,712,091
3,323,944
63,155
-2.2
-36.563

CO
9
5.5
4,861,515
2,095,333
57,622
-0.7
-7,333

NV
5
5.8
2,565,382
1,105,690
32,065
-0.7
-3,870

NM
5
7.3
1,969,915
849,042
30,990
0
0

PA
21
7.0
12,432,792
5,358,585
187,550
-1.5
-40,190

NH 4 10.7 1,315,828 567,127 30,341 -0.4 -1,135
WI
10
11.0
5,601,640
2,414,330
132,788
0
0

MN
10
11.5
5,197,621
2,240,175
128,810
?
?

What leaps out at you is that Iowa has dropped off the table because the RCP average is fighting the trend and has gone from 11.6 to 15 points and is out of reach. On the other hand, Minnesota has gone from above 13 points down to 11.5 and now needs to be added to the table. Seven of the other states have dropped significantly in the RCP averages and three are unchanged. Now instead of McCain-Palin needing 493,636 PUMA votes to tie and 35,935 more to win, they only need 395,617 to tie and 32,065 more to win. I have changed the last two columns to reflect the changes in the RCP averages and the number of PUMA voters no longer required. I know a trend when I see one.

Even more important is how few PUMA voters in these eleven states are required for a McCain-Palin landslide. If you add up the PUMA's needed column in the second table, you will see that only an extra 510,479 more PUMA's are needed to sweep the table. That is a mere 938,161 PUMA's needed spread across eleven states to produce a McCain-Palin landslide. Do you really want to tell me that there are not that many Hillary supporters who cannot vote for Obama-Biden in these eleven states out of 18,000,000 of them? Now who is drinking the Kool-Aid?

Do I really think that that McCain-Palin will carry all of these states? No, because I am worried that there are not enough PUMA's in the western states, particularly New Mexico and possibly Colorado. What I will bet my 45 year reputation on is that McCain-Palin will win by at least 42 electoral votes. I will recalculate everything tomorrow and will undoubtedly up my estimate to around a 100 vote margin.