No surprise to anyone here, but the MSM is beginning to make it official:
From CBS News:
Nancy Cordes @nancycordes
CBS moves Ohio to lean blue.
Nancy Cordes @nancycordes
OH remains a battleground state in @cbsnews analysis, tho it leans blue after today's polls. PA moves to likely blue, not a battleground.
And RealClearPolitics:
9/26 Ohio Toss Up »»» Leans Obama Obama 265 - Romney 191 Obama +4.0
At RCP that revises the electoral map total to a current (hypothetical)
265-191 drubbing in terms of statistically likely votes, with 82 still up for grabs.
And as you probably know, that 82 includes:
Colorado's 9 EV (Obama up 2.3 RCP avg),
Nevada's 6 EV (Obama up 4.2 RCP avg),
Iowa's 6 EV (Obama up 4.0 RCP avg),
Florida's 29 EV (Obama up 3.1 RCP avg),
Virginia's 13 (Obama up 4.5 RCP avg),
and even North Carolina's 15 EV (Obama up 1.0 RCP avg after trailing all year -- huge turnaround, we may yet keep NC blue!)
To be clear:
If Obama keeps Ohio and wins ANY ONE of these additional states -- ONE -- he wins the election. Of course, in all likelihood he will in fact win ALL of them (along with New Hampshire and its 4 EVs, where the RCP avg has him up 1.0... but that plus Ohio wouldn't put him over 270).
Folks: that massive ball of anger and stress and anxiety and "omg no no no NOOOO!" you hear building is the sound of a million right-wing heads beginning their slow, 42-day explosion.
This was not supposed to happen.
Obama was supposed to be a one-term proposition.
Obamacare!
Jobs!
Apology tour!
Unemployment!
Unless something odd changes, conservatives are going to be faced with looking at electoral college estimators for the next 5+ weeks that show President Obama within just 5 EVs minimum of victory.
And another small shift or two could easily push Virginia, Iowa, Nevada, or another of the above toss-ups into "Leans Blue" status, meaning they'd be looking at an electoral map that already gave Obama the win, provided he kept the states he was "currently holding."
Imagine how demoralizing that will be for them, after all that bitching, all those grand predictions of a tea party takeover, all that chest-thumping, all those blog posts, all those millions of dollars in donations...
Devastating.
Not just a close-call victory on Election Day --- but a slow-build melt-down several weeks in the making, all the while staring at EV calculators everywhere (not just in pollsters' back rooms) showing the obvious coming result:
A win for Obama.
Let's bury them. Rub their noses in it. Run up the score. Remind them how hopeless it is. Remind them how incompetent they've been. Dance in the end zone.
(and -- yeah -- Get Out our own F-ing Vote too!)