Today Minnesota, which has been flirting with the 5% Obama lead line, once again goes over 5%. So Minnesota stops being a swing state, and goes into the “Weak Obama” category. The effect, McCain’s best case scenario moves even further from being a win.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – Obama 291, McCain 247
Obama Best Case – Obama 375, McCain 163

If everybody gets their leans – 353 Obama, 185 McCain

Now, even with this, if Florida weakens back into a swing state, McCain will have a path to victory… a hard path, which would involve sweeping all the swing states, even those Obama is ahead in… but it would be a path.

But for the moment, we continue to have a situation where McCain’s best case is losing.

Which is why he campaign has indicated that they are essentially about to enter into a scorched earth strategy. All negative, and with everything they have. It is about the only thing they can do at the moment. We’ll see if it works.