The Drunken Irishman Updates His Election Predictions

The Drunken Irishman writes The Path to 270 for the Democratic Underground and has issued his March edition, tracking the prospects of President Obama in the polls conducted in the Swing States. As I noted the last time about the Drunken Irishman, he awards states according to the polls and only assigns a tie when there really is a tie. In 2008, he predicted every state that went for Obama,with the exception of Indiana.

A month ago he had Obama beating Romney 299 to 224 electoral votes with 15 tied. Missouri is still tied this time around.

The difference this month is that both men had been tied in Missouri, Florida and New Hampshire. Now Obama leads in Florida and New Hampshire and is tied in Missouri. Obama has improved in Michigan and in North Carolina but slightly declined in Ohio.

Obama is now polling roughly where he was at the end of of the 2008 elections. As of this writing, Obama wins very state he won in 2008 without Indiana and Missouri. The final poll shows Obama at 347 electoral votes to Romney's 181 and 10 are undecided.

The interesting part of his analysis this month is his analysis of how difficult Romney's task is at getting to 270. Romney's problem is not George W. Bush's securing Ohio and Florida. Romney can not afford to lose Missouri, Virginia or North Carolina or a group of Colorado/ Nevada/New Mexico. That is really rough. Obama can lose Ohio, Florida and a couple of others and still get to 270.

Of course, the Drunken Irishman doesn't factor in voter suppression efforts, the whole Citizens United flood of Superpac money and other little tricks that can be played. But if the election were straight, Obama won win with nearly the same amount as last time.