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By Nicholas Beaudrot<p><strong>><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/">Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p> Thanks to a table from Chris Bowers, here's a map showing the shift in expected poll results from 2004 to the present. What Bowers did was take the margin in 2004, add 6 points (the difference between current nationwide polling averages and the 2004 results), and compare that to current polling. For example, in Missouri, Bush won by 7%, meaning today we would expect McCain to be ahead by 1%, but current polls have him up 3%, so we say the state has something of a red tilt compared to the nation as a whole.It's hard to see any pattern here. I think it's worth pointing out that the three states with the biggest pro-Obama gaps-Montana, North Dakota, and Alaska-are states where Obama campaigned but that Democrats traditionally ignore, while both Florida and Michigan, where he did no primary campaigning, are behind the nationwide trend. But beyond that it's hard to see any pattern.
