First the New York Times informs us that only once in the history of polling has a candidate been this far behind, this late in the race, and won the election. (That was Reagan over Carter.) Then Nate Silver does the math and concludes that McCain needs to make up a deficit on the order of eight points in any set of states that would give him a winning electoral vote combination -- this despite being down closer to six points in the popular vote. Obama is in a commanding position.
[I]f you look at our current estimates in the individual states, you'll see that we have Obama ahead by at least 8 points in all of the Kerry states, plus the Gore add-ons of Iowa and New Mexico, plus Colorado, plus Virginia. Collectively, those states are worth 286 electoral votes -- well more than Obama needs to win.Nate is also adjusting his prediction model after discovering that state polling is hewing closer to national polling than he originally thought. This means the margins in the states are smaller than he thought. The effect is of a minor electoral map freeze, with states where Obama is winning now projecting to be more solidly in his camp than before. As he puts it:
This change is slightly favorable to Barack Obama on balance, as it means that the electoral college advantage that I described a moment ago is a bit more potent than I'd thought.
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