Study: Ohio and North Carolina are "must-wins" for McCain

There's been no shortage of statistical activity surrounding this presidential election. Often it's been mentioned along with the Bradley Effect and underperform-or-overperform arguments for both candidates, both of which add uncertainty to the situation.

But, after pressing all those calculator keys and supercomputing till the cows come home, Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight.com recently noticed something very simple emerge:

Also, there are some states that truly do appear to be "must-wins" for McCain. In each and every one of the 624 victory scenarios that the simulation found for him this afternoon, McCain won Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana and Montana. He also picked up Ohio in 621 out of the 624 simulations, and North Carolina in 622 out of 624. If McCain drops any of those states, it's pretty much over.

McCain essentially needs to win either Ohio or North Carolina, or his chances of winning, according to this analysis, drop to near zero percent. With this in mind, we'll be watching very closely as Ohio's and North Carolina's results pour in relatively early on Tuesday. If either state gets colored in Duke (or Tar Heel, I suppose) blue, and if we're to trust Nate Silver, we'll be able to start writing our headlines early that night.