Dolphin’s Dock

Obama: 349 Electoral votes
Senate Dems: 57 seats
House Dems: 250
AZ Prop 102: Yes
FL Amendment 2: Yes No*
CA Prop 8: No

I actually think Obama stands a good chance at breaking the 350 mark, but it’ll be really tight in a few places if he does (my prediction map). I don’t think this will be a long election night though because even if several swing states end up with numbers “close enough for litigation” (as they say), Obama should pretty easily snatch up the magic 270. The Dems however will not be getting the magic 60 they would like in the Senate. They’ll approach it, and get closer than most people probably expected at the start of this campaign, but they won’t break it. The House, I’ll admit, I’m just throwing a number out there. Really haven’t a clue about it.

The biggest questions for me remain the gay marriage ballot measures. I’d be thrilled, but surprised, if Florida failed to pass theirs (See Update below). When California’s Prop 8 was announced, I’d have said it didn’t stand a chance. I still think it will fail, but I’m less sure. The big thing is that Obama will bring out the minority vote. Though it makes no sense to me (why would a discriminated against group vote in favor of discriminating against another group), the black and (particularly) latino communities have a record of being more anti-gay than the population at large. Polling data shows the No votes have it (and indeed I think it will be defeated), but I’m concerned that there will be more Yes votes than there would be if this was any other election. Prop 8 is the BIGGIE of the three measures too because (1) it’s the only one that stands to invalidate EXISTING marriages, and (2) if gay marriage can’t survive in California, it could be a very long time before it can survive anywhere else in the country. Arizona is a little trickier. It’s been really tight in the polls (but with the Yes’s leading), but I suspect some of the weighting might have been off in those polls. You’ll recall that in 2006, a similar measure was defeated by Arizona voters. Arizona is John McCain’s home state, yet it’s polling stronger for Obama than one would expect. There are alot of folks who would take great glee in seeing Obama win McCain’s home state, and while I don’t expect that to happen, I do expect AZ Obama supporters to turn out in droves to try and make it happen. Then we’re left with a similar conundrum as California where we’re not sure if extra Obama voters help or hurt the measure. The difference here is that those turning out thinking they have a chance (and they do, though it’s not great) of giving Arizona to Obama as a bit of a slap in the face to McCain will tend to be your more hardcore liberals, and the ones more likely to oppose the amendment.

Time will tell, and we’ll all know soon enough.

* Update: For some reason I was thinking Florida’s Amendment 2 was a simple majority vote. Kip notes in the comments that the measure needs 60% to pass, therefore I revised my prediction. Like Kip, I think it will break 50% but not 60. I’m guessing right around 55.