Will Virginia Undecideds Break Obama's Way?

By: TheGreenMiles
Published On: 9/22/2008 2:12:45 PM

Over at the indispensable FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver has a fascinating breakdown of how undecideds are likely to break, using a statistical analysis of the primaries. Basically, states with high numbers of African-Americans, well-educated populations, or those that border Illinois or are located in the South are more likely to break Obama's way; states that are Appalachian, less-educated, or heavily Catholic are more likely to break for McCain.

Most notable for us is his conclusion:

[A] state like Virginia, where Obama overperformed his polls during the primaries and where some polling has had a relatively generous (and probably false) number of African-American votes going to John McCain, might be just a smidgen stronger for Obama than it appears.
Makes the new SurveyUSA poll look all the better for Obama.

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