UPDATE: New ABC/WaPo national poll out:
The new survey shows Obama leading McCain by 53 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, little changed from a Post-ABC News poll released Oct. 13
[...]
In all, the first round of the Post-ABC News tracking poll asked voters to evaluate the two candidates across 11 issues and attributes. Obama leads on all 11, with margins as high as 32 points on the question of who is the more optimistic of the two presidential hopefuls. He has double-digit leads on seven of the 11.
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I'm no electoral wiz, but I just came back from RealClearPolitics.com, where you can make your own electoral map. FUN!!!
I've also been reading where the McCain camp is "tamping down" a report from CNN's John King, that they were giving up on Colorado.
Palin just held three rallies there, so it seems perhaps King WAS premature in his assessment. He also called NM and IA as conceded by McCain, and that's probably true, as Obama is ahead there by 7.5% and 11.4% respectively.
From the Politico article:
The campaign believes that there are different formulas to get to 270, not all of which include Colorado. But without it, as King writes, McCain must not only hold onto a number of precarious red states such as Virginia, Nevada and Florida, but also bring a major blue state such as Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes over. McCain aides have also held out hope that they could lose Pennsylvania but still win with the combination of Minnesota and Wisconsin, 20 total electoral votes, but public polls in both states show McCain down by double-digits.
That's a little more than "holding out hope" at this point. But let's give McCain CO.
Let's also give him OH, FL, NC, and NV. Here's what that looks like:
Obama still wins. Because of Virginia (which is at 52.4%-O 43.5%-M) So McCain will put all his chips on PA.
I've heard that Pennsylvania has no early voting (is this true?), and this may be part of the reason why McCain thinks it is his best-chance BIG state (21EV's). I'm wondering also, what effect the Phillies being in the World Series will do to Obama's chances in that state. I'd like to think it helps. Series is over by October 30th. Current polling is at an average 53.8-O 38.6%-M