State of the Race: holding our leads

by kos

Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 05:45:03 PM PDT

The Pollster.com averages from 9/15 to today. I've added a new column, "Over 50", to indicate those states in which a candidate is polling over 50 percent. Under 50, and you can worry about what undecided voters might do. Over 50 and things look far better for that candidate.

State EVs Poll Over 50? 10/11 10/7 Total EVs

Safe Obama states 190
MI 17 O+18.4 Y O+13.6 O+10.3 207
PA 21 O+15.8 Y O+14.1 O+12.9 228
IA 7 O+13.5 Y O+14.2 -- 235
WI 10 O+12.1 Y O+9.0 O+6.9 245
NH 4 O+11.1 Y O+11.1 O+11.6 249
MN 10 O+9.7 Y O+7.7 O+10.9 259
CO 9 O+8.9 Y O+3.7 O+2.0 268
VA 13 O+7.9 Y O+7.7 O+5.3 281
WV 5 O+6.7 N O+6.7 M+6.3 286
FL 27 O+6.4 Y O+5.4 O+5.2 313
NM 5 O+5.9 N O+5.9 O+5.9 318
OH 20 O+4.1 N O+4.6 O+4.4 338
NV 5 O+2.8 N O+2.6 O+2.6 343
MO 11 O+3.3 N O+2.4 O+2.8 354
ND 3 O+2.0 N -- -- 357
NC 15 O+1.7 N O+1.5 O+2.7 372

IN 11 M+3.7 N M+3.7 M+2.3 166
MT 3 M+5.1 Y M+4.9 -- 155
GA 15 M+5.7 Y M+5.0 M+6.8 152
Safe McCain states 137

Total: Obama 372, McCain 166

North Dakota pushes out of "safe McCain" territory to a slight Obama lead on the strength of a single good poll. We'll have a poll in ND soon to see if this optimism can be confirmed. I'm not going to buy it absent more evidence, but boy do I want to believe. Obama continues to solidify his position. Like last week, Virginia delivers the winning margin in this cart, and it's a solid 7.9-point Obama advantage. In fact, Obama is now polling over 50 in states representing 308 electoral votes.

Obama improved his numbers in 11 states, including moving Colorado back into solid territory, while McCain improved in four states, but only two of those are in Obama's column. But he did see a slight improvement in Iowa -- proof that his evil plot to campaign in Iowa when it's way out of reach was a success! Of course, I'm not sure what going from a 14.2-point deficit to a 13.5 point really does for his victory chances, but then again, I'm not privy to his Rovian math.

But how about Pennsylvania? It's looking like an epic blowout. And the beauty of racking up the big margins in the big "battleground" states like Michigan and Pennsylvania is that it'll provide a serious boost to Obama's popular vote margin. I want that score run up to double-digits, but if we get it to eight percent, it would be the widest victory margin since Papa Bush in 1988.

Running up the score is important, so leave everything on the road.