Two New Polls and a Map

Two new polls show Barack Obama erasing John McCain's extended post-convention bounce. The horrible economic news from Monday and Tuesday, and the continuing insight into Sarah Palin's lies, distortions, and Cheney-esque escapades up in Alaska seem to have taken their toll.

Neither of these polls reflect voter sentiment follow today's sour economic report, so Obama's numbers could very well improve come the weekend.

Daily Kos/Research 2000:

Obama 48%
McCain 44%

Gallup:

Obama 47%
McCain 45%

New state-by-state polling shows the Electoral College map looking like this:



Obama: 293 electoral votes
McCain: 205 electoral votes
Undecided: 40 electoral votes
(270 needed to win)

A new CNN poll in Florida shows Obama and McCain tied, each with 48% of the vote. In Virginia, one poll shows Obama up by a couple of points, a second poll shows McCain up by a few, and a third shows the candidates tied. As such, I've painted both of those states green. But even if everything else on the map stayed as it is on Election Day and then both of the tied states fell to the Republican column, it wouldn't be enough for the McCain/Palin ticket. If Obama/Biden were to win the states in blue above, they would have 293 electoral votes, 23 more than needed for victory.

Things are still very much in flux. Last week the map showed a slight McCain lead in the Electoral College (it took about a week for those state-by-state numbers to reflect his slim national lead). But with Obama taking the offensive on issues of the economy, and McCain looking like he'd be Hoover redux, things are trending back toward the Democrats.