Opinion: National electoral map: Obama solidifies lead; time slipping for McCain-Palin
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Freshman Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama picks up Virginia’s 13 electoral votes but sees Colorado slip back into tossup status, according to the latest national electoral map based on on state polls compiled by Karl Rove & Co.
This is the second week that Obama has held a hypothetical majority of the electoral college votes. He now has 277 compared to 163 for the Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, with the 98 remaining votes still in the tossup column.
These totals do not include any state polling done after Tuesday night’s presidential town-hall debate in Nashville.
But Rove notes that even so, time is running out for the GOP ticket as Obama is developing two- or three-point leads in states like Ohio, Florida and Nevada, all of which voted Republican in 2004.
‘McCain will need to change the trend quickly,’ Rove says, ‘to begin closing Obama’s lead over the next 31/2 weeks.’
A chart showing the polls’ weekly movements since July 1 and this research’s methodology are published on the jump; click the Read more line below. Rove also publishes a regular collection of his analysis and writings available via e-mail by signing up here.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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For example, if the most recent poll in Montana was taken on July 1, the average includes all polls conducted between July 1 and July 15. States within a three-point lead for McCain or Obama are classified as tossups; states outside the three-point lead are allocated to the respective candidate.
There is no polling data available for the District of Columbia, but its three electoral votes are allocated.
For each state, the map uses the average of all public telephone polls (Internet polls are not included in the average) taken within 14 days of the most recent poll available in each state.