2008 Election: State Rankings - Intro

As we are under two months away from the Nov 4th election and a few days away from the first debate, I thought I would take a try at some statistical predictions.

Question: What state is most likely to be this years Florida (2000) or Ohio (2004)? Which one will be the "tipping point" state that decides a very close election. Several sites such as 538 have similar analyses but seem overly convoluted attempting to adjust for all confounders that are difficult to measure. I will provide a crude analysis that could be less biased than the other on the web. (I prefer the 538 one, but it is nice to having something to compare it too)

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Methods:
The rankings are based off of two measures:

1. States Difference from National Average based on composites from Pollster (a popular ranking which combines all data from several pollsters - gallup, rasmussen, cnn, etc). I excluded a state more than 10 points away from national average, assuming they would not be a tipping state. We are also assuming that the election will be closely contested in terms of popular vote, or there will not be a tipping point state.

=(10-X)/10
X=State's difference from national average
*therefore a state that is exactly equal to natural average = 1*
-given .50 weight

2. # of Electoral Votes - (538 total in nation, 270 needed to be elected president)

=(State X's # of Electoral Votes)/(Largest State of Interest Electoral Votes)
*therefore Largest state in question ratio = 1*
-given .50 weight (In 2004 - New Mexico and Iowa were actually closer contested than Ohio, but did not have enough EV to "tip" the election)
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Assumptions/Drawbacks:
-State data is following same trend as National data (not lagging behind)
-Confounders such as ground game, similarities to other swing states (demographics), and nation/state lag time are not involved in model
-Arbitrary weighting of state average (.5) , electoral average (.5)