Electoral College: MN weakens for Obama, NC weakens for McCain

Two category changes today.

First, Minnesota slips from a “Strong Obama” state to a “Weak Obama” state. Still in Obama’s column, still not a “leaning” swing state, but now with a small enough lead (less than 10%) that McCain might want to consider putting resources there to try to put it into play.

Second, and probably more significant at this point, North Carolina moves from “Weak McCain” to “Leaning McCain”… putting the state very much into play as a potential swing state and improving Obama’s best case scenario.

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case – Obama 351, McCain 187

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 272, McCain 266

There were also additional new polls yesterday that got quite a bit of blogger coverage showing positive trends for Obama, most notably in Ohio and Florida. I am not ignoring these. My “last five poll” averages simply did not have either one of these move to a new category based on those new polls. Both states are near the edge of a category boundary though, so if new polls confirm what today’s polls show, they may flip soon. But that will all depend on what the next polls in those states show.

The same was true of North Carolina before today. There was blog talk for a couple weeks now about how it might be a swing state now based on one or two polls. I did not shift the category until there were enough polls so that the 5 poll average showed a McCain lead of less than 5%.