Electoral College Progression

This is an interesting graph I found on electoral-vote.com illustrating which of the presidential candidates won the favor of the electoral college during specific critical times of the campaign. As you can see, according to this account, there are only two instances in which Obama fell below McCain--the first was during the Democratic primaries before he won the party nomination and the second came surprisingly during the Wall Street meltdown just before the first debate. While his favor rose substantially after the debate, he actually experienced an increase before that night, suggesting that perhaps McCain's actions in suspending his campaign were really as detrimental as we all supposed them to be (considering that between the Wall Street meltdown and the debate, the only substantial political happening was McCain's request to postpone the event and head to Washington, rejected by Obama).

The chart also shows the reaction to some of the ads we talked about tonight, specifically the Paris Hilton ad, as well as the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, during which time Obama seemed to be declining as McCain began to rise (assumedly as a result of Sarah Palin).

The October results are particularly interesting and seem to exaggerate the divide between the two candidates, but are supposedly based on factual estimates. Analyzing this chart alone would appear to relieve this presidential election of any "surprise" outcome.