The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : It's the States, Stupid

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Yesterday, there was some excitement among Republicans surrounding a Zogby poll showing Obama's lead shrinking to within the margin of error at 3 points (though today, the new Zogby poll shows Obama up by 6). But it's always important to stay focused on the electoral map, and when you do that, you get a better sense of the uphill battle that McCain has before him in the next two weeks. To start with, Obama has at least a high single-digit lead in all of the Kerry 2004 states, as well as in the Bush states of New Mexico and Iowa (he's up by double digits there). If that holds, it places Obama within five electoral votes of becoming President since an electoral vote tie of 269 would send the race to the House of Representatives. This means that all Obama would have to do is win one of the following nine states (keep in mind his huge money advantage): Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, or Florida. McCain can't win unless he picks off one of the Kerry states where he's currently way behind, or runs the table in the remaining nine states.

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Jon| 10.20.08 @ 12:12PM

Its' not quite as bad as that- if McCain can get the national race back to less than 3 points, then that narrows the red states Obama has a realistic chance of winning to only four: NV, CO, OH, and VA. But yes, given that Obama is almost certainly going to win IA and NM, and that McCain is almost certainly not going to pick up any blue states, Obama would still only need one of those four to win.