"On Sunday, the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator shows the Democrats with a 284 to 229 lead in the Electoral College. States with 25 Electoral Votes remain in the toss-up category (see recent daily results).
If “leaners” are not included, the Democrats lead 238 Electoral Votes to 189. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House.
Today, North Carolina shifts from Safe Republican to Likely Republican based upon data from Rasmussen Markets. Additionally, Wisconsin shifts from Likely Democrat to Leans Democrat based upon data from Rasmussen Markets and a new poll released today. New polling was also released for New Mexico, and the state remains in the Leans Democrat category.
Ten states with 111 Electoral Votes are either a pure Toss-Up or just slightly leaning to one party or the other. These are likely to be the early battleground states of Election 2008: Florida (27), Ohio (20), Virginia (13), Missouri (11), Colorado (9), Iowa (7), Nevada (5), New Mexico(5), New Hampshire (4), and Wisconsin."
Not as good as I thought, battleground states are comprised of 97EVs that we won in 04, and 4 that the rats won...plus Wisconsin. We are just trying to hang on to what we won, and nothing is at risk for them outside of NH and Wisc.
It doesn’t matter what their polling data is telling them right now, no matter how many liberal loons turn out in east Charlotte, Asheville, Durham and Raleigh. NC is completely safe for McCain. I’m willing to bet that McCain will easily beat his opponent in Nov, barring a major Howard Dean moment or an extreme October surprise.
Until the Democratic nominee is determined, the polling data used for each state will be based upon an average of the results for Barack Obama vs. John McCain and Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain.This means that if Sen. Obama is the Dem pick, then things are even worse for the GOP than this analysis indicates, since Sen. McCain polls far better against Sen. Clinton than Sen. Obama.
On the other hand, Sen. McCain gets crushed so badly by Sen. Obama in battleground states that not averaging with Sen. Clinton's numbers doesn't really change the Electoral College outcome much. (For example, in Pennsylvania, Sen. McCain actually beats Hillary. But gets only 39% against Obama's 49%. So Rasmussen has averaged these into a Dem likely win...if it's Obama, then it's just a more crushing Dem win.)
Wanna bet Charlie Crist is on the short list for VP? That would be bad simply because Charlie is exactly the same sort of "conservative" that McCain claims HE is which is to say RINO or more accurately a contra-conservative.
I'm one of that 63% that has been railing against him but when faced with the infinite horror of a real RAT in the White House like Hillary and Obama, I'll vote for McCain. It will be interesting to see (assuming his veep pick is a "proper" conservative with read creds) if the talk show folks (Rush, Ann, Sean, G. Gordon and the others) will coalesce into a real substantive push in the same direction as points to the White House. If talk radio gives their blessing, I'll bet that 63% rises to something like 90%. Agreed? Or not?