Election 2008: Eighth Forecast

My ninth forecast (04/30/08) is here.

The Presidency - Method 1

Intrade posts State-by-State odds odds on the outcome of the presidential election in November. I assign all of a State's electoral votes to the party whose nominee that is expected to win that State. Where the odds are 50-50, I split the State's electoral votes between the two parties.

As of today, the odds point to this result:

Democrat -- 298 electoral votes (EVs)

Republican -- 240 EVs

The Presidency - Method 2

I have devised a "secret formula" for estimating the share of electoral votes cast for the winner of the presidential election. (The formula's historical accuracy is described in my second forecast.) The formula currently yields these estimates of the outcome of this year's presidential election:

Democrat -- 261 to 307 EVs

Republican -- 231 to 277 EVs

The GOP fares less well by method 2 than it did in my seventh forecast. But methods 1 and 2 have re-converged, which gives me more confidence in the estimates yielded by both.

U.S. Senate

Democrats will net three Senate seats: picking up one each in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia; losing one in Louisiana. The balance in the Senate will change from 51 Democrats (including Lieberman and Sanders, both nominally independent) and 49 Republicans to 54 Democrats and 46 Republicans. The prospect of a GOP win in Louisiana is new since my seventh forecast.