I don't have much time to post - my TeachForAmerica final interview is in 13 hours - but things are really looking up for Sen. Obama a week before the election day. Almost too good. Like, crazy-good. Go to pollster.com and check out that map.
Obama has every single Kerry state (including PA and NH) as solid Blue states. He is also solid in Virginia (up 8 points) and Iowa (up 12 points), two states George Bush carried in '04. That puts him at 272 electoral votes already - enough to win the election.
Four states - Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado - are also leaning Blue. With NM and CO, the two most solidly for Obama, he has 286 EVs; with OH and NV as well, he has 311.
Looking at the swing states, with 85 EVs up for grabs, Obama is currently ahead in Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, and North Dakota, which would put him at at 367 EVs to McCain's 171. If Obama sweeps the other swing states, all of which are within the margin of error, he has 396 - the biggest landslide in many years.
And if Obama picks up the current Lean McCain states, plus the one Nebraska EV which is allocated just to the district containing Omaha, he would win 416-122.
*** A FEW NOTES ***
(a) I am not saying this is going to happen. But that is Obama's window of possibility right now. By contrast, even if McCain swept the swing states and the Lean Obama states, he would still lose the election with 261 votes. This means that McCain needs to run the table on every swing state and state leaning Obama, AND pick up another state like NH or PA.
(b) As per the title of this post, things may also be too good to be true. Keep in mind that national polling numbers, while up and down, have been declining a bit for Obama in the past few days. The national polling numbers are usually about 3 days behind what's actually happening, as most of them take a few days to be gathered and released.
State polls take longer. They're usually almost a week behind what people are actually thinking (maybe a bit less now that things are heating up). Meaning the "trends" are usually over a week behind, because they incorporate not only few-day-old info but also polls from before that. So there could be a decline from state to state that we're not really seeing yet.
Still. OMG. One week left. One election that's ours to lose.
