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Campaign Crawlers

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Oregon (7): This is a bit of surprise too. Kerry led here throughout the summer, but he has slipped as of late, with the last two polls showing slight Bush leads. TOSS-UP.

Pennsylvania (21): Bush led in a poll here in mid-September, but the last four show Kerry opening up a small lead. LEANS KERRY.

Tennessee (11): This one should barely be in here, except that Kerry led in one poll back in August. The last four show Bush with a lead ranging from 7 to 16 points. LEANS HEAVILY BUSH.

West Virginia (5): Bush led by wide margins here in late August. It slipped some in September, but has recovered with the last two polls showing Bush leading by 6. LEANS BUSH.

Wisconsin (10): This is also a bit of surprise. Kerry hasn't led here since early September. Aside from one tie, Bush has led in all of the recent polls, with the latest showing a 14-point lead. LEANS BUSH.

If all of the states vote the way they are currently leaning, then Bush will have 255 electoral votes and Kerry 217, with 66 in the TOSS-UP category. Bush is clearly in the driver's seat, and of those states in the TOSS-UP category would only need to pick up Colorado and Oregon to climb over the top. It seems that he doesn't even need Florida.

However, that is no reason for complacency. Kerry would only need Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota and Florida, and he would hit the magic number of 270 exactly. Furthermore, there are far more LEAN BUSH states than there are LEAN KERRY states, meaning that there is more room for Kerry to cut into Bush's electoral vote totals.

And there's still five long weeks.

(Editor's note: This article is slightly changed from this morning as the author made a small error in the mathematical calculation of the electoral vote totals. David Hogberg and we apologize for the error -- which in good faith was done to Sen. Kerry's advantage.)

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