Who wants to go to electoral college?

So I'm looking at state-by-state polls, and it looks like it's going to come down to about eleven states, with a total of 147 electoral votes among them. According to this electoral map on the Real Clear Politics web site, Obama is sporting a theoretical electoral vote lead of 238-174. This includes Pennsylvania in Obama's category, according to an averages of polls taken in August showing Obama with a 5-point lead. I consider Pennsylvania to be one of the eleven states in play. I think it will tighten up considerably for a few reasons:

• Obama hasn't reached 50% in any of those polls, indicating many Pennsylvanians are keeping their powder dry.
• All the polls concluded no later than August 26th, three days before McCain named Palin to be his running mate. The Palin pick--her speech at the convention in particular--has significantly energized the Republican base.

For now, let's put Pennsylvania in Obama's column, if for no other reason than for simplicity's sake. (You'll appreciate this more the longer you read.) Of the other ten, all classified toss-ups (defined as polls showing less than a 5-point difference) by Real Clear Politics, three look fairly solid for McCain--Florida, Indiana, North Carolina. Those three states would Bring McCain 53 electoral votes, bringing him up to 227. Two others--Michigan and New Mexico--look fairly solid for Obama. 22 electoral votes if he secures those states, bringing him up to 258. Keep an eye on Michigan. Kwame Kilpatrick, the Democratic mayor of Detroit, recently pleaded guilty to felony charges and resigned as mayor. Michigan Democrats may struggle to turn out voters in Detroit, so this may tighten up also, or even just be an election night surprise. Again, for simplicity's sake, we'll keep Michigan in Obama's column. So right now, we're calling it 258-227 for Obama.

First to 270 wins, so it would seem McCain would need to essentially draw an inside straight to win this. But he might do exactly that. The five remaining states (with corresponding number of electoral votes) are Nevada (5), Colorado (9), New Hampshire (4), Virginia (13) and Ohio (20). Of those five, only one--New Hampshire in 2004--voted Democratic in either of the last two presidential elections. New Hampshire and Colorado are both showing Obama with leads that are very slim and shrinking. Nevada and Ohio are showing slim leads for Mccain, one point or less. Virginia is showing not just a lead within statistical margin of error, but a dead heat.

If McCain wins all five of those states, he scores 278 electoral votes and takes the oath of office as president next January. If he wins all of them but Colorado, he and Obama tie with 269 electoral votes each. This assumes Maine casts all 4 of its electoral votes for Obama and Nebrasks casts all 5 for McCain. These two states are not winner-take-all, but instead assign electoral votes by congressional district, with two additional votes to whoever wins the statewide popular vote. If either McCain or Obama can "steal" a vote in the other's state, then it's a 270-268 win. I don't actually think this is likely.

So if it's 269-269, then what? It goes to an immediate vote in the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote. (The last time this happened, by the way, was 1825.) I make two assumptions in assessing how it will probably go:

• It will be a straight party line vote.
• The balance of the states' House delegations won't change.

If each of these assumptions hold up, who wins? Obama does, 27-21 with two states that could go either way. Arizona and Kansas each have equal numbers of Replicans and Democrats in the House. You can look at the delegations here, on Wikipedia. If this scenario plays out, several states would have gone one way in the electoral college and the other in the House of Representatives.

Confused yet? Hang on, it's just starting to get interesting. The two assumptions above are both exceptionally flimsy. Why? A few reasons:

• There are two very Republican states--North Dakota and South Dakota--who send only one representative to the House. And in both states, it's a Democrat. Would a Democrat from a state that went for McCain in the electoral college buck his/her party and vote for McCain, or would he/she buck his/her state and vote for Obama? Dunno, but my guess still tends toward party line vote, therefore Obama.
• The electoral votes are counted on January 6th, three days after the new Congress is sworn in. While the Democratic North Dakota and South Dakota at-large seats in the House look reasonably safe, there are also several states in which the House delegation only favors one party or the other by one seat. States like this that lean Republican are Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. States that lean Democratic by one seat are West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, New Jersey, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa. So thirteen of the states are one seat change away from a potentially different vote for President if it goest to the House.
• In addition to North and South Dakota, there are four other states with only one seat in the House of Representatives: Delaware (R), Montana (R), Wyoming (R) and Vermont (D). Wyoming's representative is retiring, and the seat is vulnerable. Montana and Vermont look safe for their respective parties. Delaware's representative has been in office for 16 years and previously served as Lt. Governor and Governor of Delaware; he was re-elected in 2006 by a comfortable margin, but one that was reduced from those of previous years. Delaware a state which will certainly go Democratic in the electoral college, is another potentially interesting vote if the Republican retains the seat.

In other words, anything could happen. "Great," you're thinking. "All of this so-called analysis and he's not even saying who he thinks is gonna win." Well, I'm hoping it's McCain, for reasons we'll discuss in another post. It's an uphill climb for him, though, just to get into position to draw the inside straight on election night. Palin has almost certainly improved his odds.

By the way, the Senate chooses the vice president in the event of an electoral college tie. If this were to happen, I'd expect Biden to win the vote in a Senate in which Democrats expect to gain roughly five seats. Among those voting in this election would be John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Liebermann . . . and Joe Biden. So it's entirely possible we could end up with a President McCain and a Vice President Biden.

Note: This post has been sponsored by amendments XII and XX to the United States Constitution.