11-01-2008, 04:09 PM
there is absolutely no reason to conclude that McCain is competitive in Iowa, and there is a slew of evidence that Obama is on track to win New Hampshire, even if the UNH Tracking Poll is now coming a bit off its outlier-ish numbers. Ohio is another big problem for McCain. Except for the Strategic Vision poll, everything else we’ve added to the database over the past several days shows Obama with leads ranging from 3 points to 16 (though the latter result, from Ohio University, looks very much like an outlier). In North Carolina, which seemed to be tightening last week, Obama now appears to be holding on to a very small lead, and much of that state has voted too.
So given this morass, Pennsylvania seems to be the one thing that McCain has to hang his hat on. But he remains very unlikely to win it, and even if he does, Obama has any number of firewall states that could preserve a victory for him. McCain’s win percentage is down to 2.8 percent, his lowest number of the year.