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Sending Out an S.O.S.

A couple of times each week, I get e-mails from concerned citizens — almost always Democrats — who ask why I don’t devote more time to issues like vote fraud, and are convinced that the Republicans are going to “steal” the election from Barack Obama.

This is a pretty natural fear to have after 2000. However, if there is actually a recount, or some other kind of rules dispute around the election, it is more likely to be resolved in the Democrats’ favor. That is because, of the 15 most important states according to our Tipping Point metric, the Secretary of State is a Democrat in 11 of them, and the governor is a Democrat in 12 of them. The tally follows below the jump.

State         SOS        Governor 
Ohio Democrat Democrat

Michigan Republican Democrat
Virginia Democrat Democrat
Iowa Democrat Democrat
New Mexico Democrat Democrat
New Hampshire Democrat Democrat
Florida Republican Republican
Pennsylvania Democrat Democrat
Nevada Democrat Republican
Indiana Republican Republican
Montana Republican Democrat
Oregon Democrat Democrat
New Jersey Democrat Democrat
Wisconsin Democrat Democrat

Nate Silver founded and was the editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.

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