Despite Media Narrative, Independent Groups Have Obama Up by Over 100 Electoral Votes

Posted by Mark Nickolas, Huffington Post at 5:57 AM on August 7, 2008.

With all the breathlessness over the minute movements in the irrelevant national polls, the one thing no one seems to be noticing is that the electoral map is still trending very poorly for John McCain.

I realize that it cuts against the media narrative right now to focus on anything that doesn't suggest a dead-heat, but it's quite instructive to see how the independent groups (and even right-leaning ones) currently see the state of the race through the only prism that matters -- the Electoral College:

                     Obama  McCain    Margin
Real Clear Politics   322    216    Obama +106
Electoral-Vote.com    316    209    Obama +107
FiveThirtyEight.com   303    235    Obama + 68
Pollster.com          284    147    Obama +137
AVERAGE               306    202    Obama +104

If you think about the reporting of the fluctuating state polls lately that show a tight race, all of them involve red states that McCain can't afford to lose: Colorado, Montana, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Alaska, Georgia, etc.

Despite the media narrative that a number of blue states are competitive, the truth is none of the recent polling shows McCain making any significant inroads in the blue states. Consider:

• In Michigan, McCain had not led in any poll since May;
• In Pennsylvania, McCain has not led in any poll April, and a Republican poll released last week showed McCain trailing by 9, in line with the current Pollster.com average;
• In New Hampshire, McCain has not led in any poll since April;
• In Minnesota, while one recent poll showed McCain within the margin of error, no other poll in the past month (including one poll taken more recently) has him within 12 points.

So, while the media breathlessly reports the national tracking polls which shows a close race, the state polling is still showing a pretty significant Obama lead.

P.S. -- Again reminding us how big of a joke CNN's political reporting has become, their current electoral map has it Obama 221, McCain 189. What a farce.

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Tagged as: obama, polling, mccain