England for Obama

Yes, you too can be Peter Snow! Or rather: John King. Or Chuck Todd.

TPM’s handy closing times map shows you which states will be called when. Some key times/states (ie when their polls close and they’ll start calling them - UK time) are:

11pm - Indiana, Kentucky

12am - Florida (some), Georgia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia

12.30am - North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia

1am - lots, including Pennsylvania, Montana, Missouri and North Dakota

2am - lots, including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Minnesota

3am - several, including Nevada and Iowa

4am - California, Oregon and Washington

5am - Alaska

According to polling guru Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com, the five states to watch are Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Nevada. “Essentially all relevant electoral scenarios involve some combination of these five states,” he writes here.

Chuck Todd gives his state-by-state guide here - while MSNBC also has a very useful piece on what to look for as the results start coming in. For example:

“7pm… Pay particular attention to Indiana and Virginia… You can posit to the party-goers that they are in for a Democratic “wave” if NBC News projects that Sen. Barack Obama has won Indiana and Virginia… But if the night begins with a McCain win in Virginia, then it’s shaping up as a longer night than most Democrats expect (read: If you’re a Dem, now’s the time you may want to switch from beer to coffee)…

At 7:30 p.m., North Carolina and Ohio polls close. At the simplest level it’s hard to devise a plausible scenario in which McCain loses Ohio and still manages to win the presidency. Based on recent polling, the current electoral math just doesn’t add up for McCain without a win in Ohio. Similarly, an Obama victory in North Carolina would seem to seal McCain’s fate…

8pm: A McCain win in Pennsylvania would defy expectations. It would also signal polling there at the start of this week was either wrong or outdated. And if polling was wrong there, where else was it wrong?

9pm… Also closing at 9 is Colorado. If the presidential race is still up in the air, the outcome could hinge on Colorado…”

And so on. You get the idea. Highly useful, and I may well just print out a copy to crib on the bus as I head into town for the election night party…

He cuts taxes! He dances! He makes jokes - again!

From Obama’s speech on Saturday at the University of Nevada:

The pundits on Meet The Press talk about the battleground states, and the current electoral map. The money shot, as they say, is 4:12-4:37.

(Note the new drinking game phrase of this election: that John McCain’s story is like a Shakespearean tragedy).

From the Politicalwire blog:

“An early look at today’s Diageo/Hotline tracking poll shows Sen. Barack Obama now holds a double-digit lead in key battleground states.

Among registered voters surveyed in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Nevada, Obama tops McCain 50 to 40%. Just a week ago, Obama led 45% to 42%.

Nationwide, Obama leads 47% to 41%.”