270 to win

Now that each party's nominee has been selected (though not yet made official by their respective conventions), it's time to turn our attention to the general election.

I think everyone knows by now how the general election works: each state has a set number of electoral college delegates that are committed to each candidate based on who wins each state and the candidate who garners the majority (i.e. over 270 electoral college delegates) wins. So it now comes down to a state-by-state battle between John McCain and Barack Obama over the next 5 months to determine who will be the 44th POTUS.

To help sort out how the state-by-state contest is going, I'd like to point out this website (270towin.com). You can generate your own swing state predictions, analyze historical results, and keep track of the latest polling data. My first crack at an electoral college map for 2008 is below (it assumes Obama's able to nab NC and MT away from the McCain and also carries CO, PA, WI, MI, MN, OR, and WA which have all been listed by some as swing states).

Have fun!