9/30: 9 new polls in 7 states result in 3 changes on the map and 2 in the electoral count. First, in New Jersey, 2 new polls in New Jersey show Sen. Obama ahead by 9 & 10, respectively. In addition, some older polls that showed the race considerably closer wer eremoved from my projeciton and as a result, new Jersey is moved from leaning to safely Obama. In Indiana, a new Survey USA poll shows Sen. McCain ahead by 3. A similar situation occurred here, where a potential outlier was removed from the projection and as a result, Sen. McCain regains Indiana's 11 electoral votes. Finally, in Virginia, a new Insider Advantage poll shows Sen. Obama ahead by 6. This is now the 5th poll out of the last 6 where he has held a lead in te last 10 days. As a result, Virginia is moved barely to Obama's side.
The new math:
Sen. McCain finds himself in a bit of trouble here. With only 5 weeks left before election day, Sen. Obama has leads of more than 2 points in states 282 electoral votes. Sen. McCain may be tempted to try to win a single state that could swing the election in his favor. The likely candidate of the light blue states? Clearly, Michigan and Pennsylvania fit the bill. It will likely depend on where the economy stands in the next couple of weeks. If no bailout plan is passed, and the economy survives, he may try to use that to his advantage in Michigan. If Congress does pass a bill he will likely move on to Pennsylvania. I would not be surprised t find out in the next couple of weeks that Sen. McCain slows down his campaign in Virginia if poll numbers do not get better. Today's poll shows him down by 6. That's fine for today, but 3 weeks from now it is devastating.
The upside for Sen. McCain is that for now he leads in all te toss-up states except New Hampshire. Taking out toss-ups, the electoral count today would be 286-252. That means that he only needs to flip Pennsylvania to win the election outright and would need only Michigan to send the election to the floor of the House.
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