Dr. Sunshine Hillygus, associate professor of government at Harvard University, said she would “still put her money on Obama,” in a speech given in Sturm Hall Wednesday afternoon.

According to Hillygus, current conditions in the political forecast are leading political scientists to predict an Obama win.

These conditions include a low approval rating of the incumbent administration, low satisfaction with how things are going in the country and low consumer confidence.

The recent economic crisis will play a major role in the election, Hillygus said.

Voters tunhappy with the state of the economy will vote against the party of the current administration, she said.

The number of people affiliated with the Republican Party has dropped from 40 million in 2004 to 33 million now, said Hillygus.

There are many newly converted Independents and Democrats the Republicans will need to win over, she said.

However, Hillygus also said that John McCain may be closer to leading the presidential race than current polls suggest.

The Gallup Poll showed a 5-8 point lead for Obama on Wednesday.

“Those poll numbers might not be the whole story,” she said, citing the fact that McCain is doing much better among moderate Republicans than Obama is doing among moderate Democrats.

Also, historically more Republicans have turned out to vote than Democrats, she said.

Though Obama has 65 percent of the youth vote, this may not be advantageous as it seems.

Despite aggressive efforts by mobilization campaigns to improve youth voter turnout, political scientists only saw an 8.5 percent increase in youth voter turnout at the primaries.

If this increase is about the same on Election Day, it will still not come close to the voter turnout of older age brackets, Hillygus said.

“It doesn’t get them anywhere near the hype,” she said.

This is likely because most of the young voter mobilization is on college campuses, said Hillygus.

Young voters not in college are untouched by the mobilization efforts, and are less likely to vote.

Hillygus’ speech was titled Persuadable Voters and the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Wednesday’s talk was one of six politically oriented lectures on campus for the Gender, Politics and Power class.

Taught by Assistant Sociology Professor Jennifer Reich, the class also has service learning component.

It will end with an election night event at the Cable Center.