Princeton Election Consortium

At Slate, Will Saletan points out that based on Bush’s travels, his campaign may consider Florida more of a must-win state than Ohio. Looking at today’s decided-only numbers, this has merit. If Bush takes Ohio his win probability is 72%, but if he loses then this drops to 40% – not even a twofold difference. However, Florida is different. If Bush wins Florida, his win probability is 88%; if he loses, it’s only 20%. To show why this is, Saletan describes electoral scenarios involving smaller states (WI, IA, NV, NM) that Bush could cobble together to make up for the loss of Ohio.