If true, this is huge news. Mark Halperin at TIME has the video up. According to John King, the McCain camp now believes they cannot win Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado. They are placing all their hopes of assembling a winning map on holding every other toss-up state and taking Pennsylvania away from Obama.
Map and poll data after the jump.
Even though they're publicly saying that they still think they can win Virginia, the McCain camp must know that they're behind there as well, so they must be hoping for a map like this:
That would give them 273 electoral votes. But it's a huge gamble - all Obama would have to do is take Nevada and he'd be at 270 electoral votes.
If he really is conceding Colorado, McCain now must win EVERY toss-up state. That means Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania. How do his odds look? Well....
Nevada:
Missouri:
Indiana:
Ohio:
North Carolina:
Florida:
And the blue state they think they can win?
Pennsylvania:
Just look at those charts to see how difficult McCain's winning path just became. He has to win all seven of those states and he only leads in one. And the in the Kerry state he wants to take away, he's down by almost 15 points.
Don't get complacent, this isn't over yet. We all need to work to ensure victory. Especially those of you in Pennsylvania - if this report is true, your state just became ground zero for the Republican campaign effort.