Two Weeks Out - Where do Obama and McCain Stand?

There are only 2 weeks left in this long race and the last few laps will be the fastest yet.

Looking at states that the consensus of polls gives one candidate at least a 5% lead gives us the following map:


This represents an electoral vote count of Obama 286, McCain 155 with 97 electoral votes undecided in 8 states, which would be an Obama win. Since I posted the Obama Supporters Reality Check last week, which showed the possibility of a McCain 274-264 victory, Virginia has been polling a steady lead for Obama between 5-10%. Also, today, McCain's campaign has been admitting that they need to have a strategy to get to 270 electoral votes that does not include Iowa, New Mexico or Colorado. Now I have put Iowa and New Mexico in Obama's column for some time, but McCain really needed Colorado to have a chance. He also really needs Virginia and despite recent polls, McCain's campaign believes they will find some way to win it.

But the math is still tricky for McCain. If he wins all the undecided states on this map and turns around Virginia, that still would leave him with only 265 electoral votes, still 5 votes short. So, guess what the McCain campaign has in their targets? My home state of Pennsylvania. Yup, you got it. The state that hasn't voted Republican in 20 years that dramatically increased its Democratic registration this year and has polls showing Obama up by 8-15% is their Last Stand. As you can see from my Soccer Dad Lawn Sign Polls, I'm not seeing anything that would indicate a change in local attitudes. Perhaps if McCain got every registered voter in the middle of the state to vote and there were torrential downpours all day in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, he might have a chance. Might. If this is their current 270 strategy, that is very thin.

Here is another way to look at Obama's current electoral vote lead. This is from the great site electoral-vote.com. Here is a graph showing electoral vote totals based only on states where a candidate leads by at least 5%, a gap that is generally considered very difficult to overcome at this stage of the campaign.


The solid red line is 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win. Here is what it looked like in 2004 between Bush and Kerry.


Any questions.