Electoral Vote Predictions; Ogden v. His University of Indianapolis' American National Government Students

Tonight I gave my class the assignment of picking the states the presidential candidates would win in the Electoral College. To encourage them I told them I would give them bonus points on their next exam based on the number of states they get right. An additional 5 points will be awarded if they can beat my prediction,

I'm looking over their predictions. They are much, much better than what I expected. I really want to scale down the bonus points. Here is the McCain-Obama electoral vote breakdown for my students:

198-340, 177-361, 260-278, 280-258, 182-356, 185-353, 170-368, 158-380, 185-353, and 162-376

So only one student thinks McCain will win.

My guess? 163-375

I'll just list the states I think McCain will win: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska (all of it), North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

States I struggled with the most in making my decision: Georgia (which my gut tells me may go for Obama), Florida (which I think McCain may actually win taking it out of the bellweather category) and North Dakota (I just couldn't bring myself to give that state to Obama despite the polls showing him leading).

An excellent website for making predictions can be found at: http://theelectoralvote.com/