McCain's Chances of Winning

This pretty well sums up McCain's chances -- unless the polls are just absurdly wrong.

Electoral-vote:The latest national polls put Obama ahead by 7.8 points nationally. The Washington Post notes that in the most recent 159 national polls, Obama has led them all. He also leads in all the states John Kerry won in 2004, giving him a base of 252 electoral votes. He also has led all year in Iowa and New Mexico, bringing his total to 264. Thus he needs to find five or six electoral votes in states Bush won in 2004. Today's polls suggest Florida, Ohio, and Virginia as good hunting grounds, as he leads in all of them. In addition, he has led for weeks in Colorado and is effectively tied in North Carolina and Indiana. He even has a shot at North Dakota and Montana. McCain has to win all of them. If we assume that all eight of these states are 50-50, then McCain has to flip a coin and get heads eight times in a row. The chances of this are 1 in 256. But it is worse than that since a number of these states, especially Colorado, look a lot worse for McCain than 50-50.

At least he can laugh about it.

Most Believe Obama Will Win

200,000 turn out in Germany

AFP: A majority of Americans believe that Democratic candidate Barack Obama will win the presidential election against Republican hopeful John McCain in November, a Fox News poll showed Thursday.
While 51 percent say Obama, who is vying to become the first African American president, will win the election, only 27 percent are betting on a McCain victory.
Voters registered as Democrats are more confident about their candidate's chances than their Republican peers: 71 percent of Democrats see Obama winning on November 4 while 51 percent of Republicans believe McCain will win.
One in four Republicans think that Obama, a senator from Illinois, will succeed US President George W. Bush.
A month ago, 47 percent of Americans believed that Obama, 46, would win the election compared to 32 percent for McCain, a 71-year-old Arizona senator.
Even though many Americans are predicting an Obama victory, the race remains tight.

Forecasting Models: An Obama Win

Obama won't win daintily. He'll win by double digits, according to political scientists, economists and historians.

Market Watch: Unfortunately for John McCain's chances, the economy is very weak, and almost everything else is going against him as well, which means Barack Obama will almost certainly be elected president.
That's the view of the overwhelming majority of social scientists who make it their business to peer into the future.
With four months to go until Election Day, the outcome is set in stone, barring some sort of miracle, they say.
The poor state of the economy, the casualties in Iraq, the unpopularity of George W. Bush, the current polling, and Obama's own political skills all point to the election of the Illinois Democrat in November, according to several political scientists, historians and economists who've had a pretty good track record in predicting past elections.
According to their models, it won't be close. Most of them are projecting a 52% to 48% victory for Obama, and that's with assumptions about the economy that are very kind to McCain

Note, there are some wildcards, such as how much will racism play a part in the election. Read the rest of the story, cause it's pretty good.