Three states flip status today, one good news for McCain, which has been rare the last couple of weeks… and it is a big one… and two with good news for Obama.

Florida (27 ev): As has been mentioned before, Florida was in “Weak Obama” territory, but the five poll average was just BARELY over 5%, and one poll could easily knock it down below that level again. This has indeed happened, and I once again classify Florida as “Lean Obama” and a swing state. This is the good news for McCain, since without Florida it is essentially impossible for him to see a path to victory. And in fact, if this had been the only change of the day, there would indeed now be a way for McCain to win, although it would involve him sweeping ALL of the swing states. But, there were other changes too.

Georgia (15 ev): McCain’s lead slips to below 10% in the last five poll average. This moves Georgia from “Strong McCain” to “Weak McCain”. McCain’s lead in Georgia is still substantial. It is not about to become a swing state. But this means that McCain is even seeing some weakening in his base states.

Virginia (13 ev): Obama’s lead in Virginia in the last five poll average now pokes above 5%. So Virginia moves from “Lean Obama” to “Weak Obama”. Remember, it was not that long ago that this state was leaning toward McCain. Things have changed quickly. Virginia has voted Republican in all of the last ten elections. The last time Virginia voted Democratic was for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. So this is a big pick up.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – Obama 277, McCain 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 375, McCain 163

If everybody gets their leans – 353 Obama, 185 McCain

Swapping Virginia for Florida is not an even trade. Because Florida has more electoral votes, Obama loses some ground here. However, Virginia was big enough that despite Florida once again moving to be a swing state, John McCain’s best case if he won every single swing state is still to LOSE. It would however be a closer loss than it would have been without Florida.

Is this the beginning of the narrowing I predicted in previous updates and in the podcast? I will refrain from saying so just yet. The one new poll in Florida that pulled the state back into being a swing state was from a new pollster. This is the first poll of theirs to show up, and it is a bit of an outlier from other recent polls (it actually showed McCain slightly ahead).

So while I do expect some tightening (basically, an increase in the inventory of swing states) over the next month, since I think Obama has to be near his realistically possible maximum… I’m not sure that this is evidence of this quite yet. We’ll need to watch how things move over the rest of the week to see if this trend is confirmed by other movements.

Edit: 8 Oct 2008 22:42, fixed error where I accidentally said McCain in a couple places where I meant Obama.