This is sort of silly but I couldn’t resist doing a couple hours of programming today. . . . I took Nate Silver’s latest simulations and computed the forecast of the national election (popular vote and electoral vote), conditional on various scenarios as of 7pm Eastern time.

The states whose polls close earliest are Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kentucky (and also Vermont, which I’ll ignore because of its atypicality).

I worked out a few scenarios, such as the five early states going as expected, McCain doing 5 points better than expected in those states, Obama doing 5 points better in those states, McCain winning Virginia, etc. Also some pretty pictures. For next election I want an interactive widget so people can really play at home, but these offline calculations are a start.

See here for details, or here for the longer article.