The polls are tightening, but it doesn't matter because, as I have mentioned before, Obama currently has 264 electoral votes in the bag (i.e., all the Kerry States plus New Mexico and Iowa). What that means, then, is that Obama has to win only one of the following states to win the presidency -- Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado, Missouri, or Virginia -- and he is at least tied with McCain in all of those states.
Although I don't think Obama will win in either Ohio or North Carolina, he has a good shot at winning either Florida or Missouri and a great shot at winning either Colorado or Virginia. That's why I think this election is over.
Plus, Obama also has a shot at winning Nevada's five electoral votes, which wouldn't be enough to put him over the top all by itself, but would be enough to force a tie. And I think a 269-269 electoral vote tie favors Obama because the House of Representatives that is elected this year gets to break that tie (I'm pretty sure that's how it works).
One more thing -- if McCain does by some miracle squeak out an Electoral College win, he'll probably lose the popular vote by a much larger margin that Bush did in 2000, given all the "Red" States that remain in play right now. And even though a lot of the Red States will still go to McCain this year, the margin of victory for the Republican in those states will be much narrower than they were in previous elections.
For example, in 2000, Bush won Texas 59% to 38%. But this year, McCain only leads Obama by 12 percentage points in Texas. That translates into a lot of popular votes that will go into the Democrat column that weren't there in either 2000 or 2004.
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