The Timing of McCain’s Must-Win States

Following up on my assembling a cheat sheet for election night results-viewing, I note that Five-Thirty-Eight has run a final (or near-final) set of simulations on the expected outcome of the election, to identify which states are “must win” for McCain:

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.

Since I’m traveling this week, and am trying to maximize my odds of catching the “good parts” on TV, I’ve been keeping tabs on which states’ polls close at which hours.  Grouping the above-named states by poll-closing hour:

• 7:00 EST / 4:00 PST / 0000 UTC – Georgia, Indiana*
• 7:30 EST / 4:30 PST / 0030 UTC – North Carolina, Ohio
• 8:00 EST / 5:00 PST / 0100 UTC – Florida*, Missouri
• 10:00 EST / 7:00 PST / 0300 UTC – Montana

(Florida and Indiana are split across Eastern and Central times.  Closing times for the Central portions of the states are shown; Eastern portion of the states close an hour earlier.)