It is McCain’s turn for good polling news today. The latest poll in Nebraska moves the state to a greater than 10% lead for McCain, putting it into the “Strong McCain” category. A special note about Nebraska. It is one of two states (the other being Maine) that does not choose to allocate its electoral votes on a winner take all basis, but rather by congressional district. Unless it was a toss up state though (which it obviously is not at this moment) it is unlikely that it will actually split its electoral vote. (Maine by the way, is Strong Obama, so it is also unlikely to actually split.)

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case – Obama 333, McCain 205

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261

Thinking about Nebraska and Maine, it is interesting to note that ultimately each state can choose how it allocates electoral votes. It is only by long standing tradition that it is winner take all based on a popular vote. Any state that wanted to could just as easily change their state laws to have the legislature choose the electors, or the governor. Or for that matter they could choose to have them selected as winning prizes in the state lottery. It is completely up to the states. It is actually kind of a shame that states are not more creative on this.

I still remain in favor of the notion of appointing electors well in advance of the election from a pool of uncommitted people, and having them actually have to be convinced by the candidates to choose one or the other.

That would be different. :-)

Obama does seem to be on a roll. With the new polls today, three states move in Obama’s direction. The most critical is Ohio, which now moves from Leaning McCain to Leaning Obama. Ohio has 20 electoral votes, so this is a huge shift. It is enough to put Obama in the lead (barely) in the situation where you give both candidates all of the states where they are ahead by even a tiny bit. The lead is less than 5% though… actually less than 1%… so really this is a state that very much could easily go either way. But with all the leaning states (and DC) Obama is once again in the lead.

At the same time, Obama strengthens his lead in Pennsylvania. He is now ahead in Pennsylvania by more than 5%. This makes me take the possibility of McCain winning Pennsylvania out of his best case scenario. With Pennsylvania being a pretty large 21 electoral votes though, I fully expect McCain to work hard to bring this state back into play.

Finally, Virginia, which had only strengthened to a more than 5% lead for McCain a few days ago, weakens again and comes back into play as a leaning state, therefore strengthening my “best case” model for Obama.

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225
Obama Best Case – Obama 333, McCain 205

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261

Now, note we still have 11 states and 105 electoral votes in states where the leading candidate is ahead by less than 5%. Either candidate could easily win by pulling the right mix of those states. Right now, all of this basically just means everything is completely up in the air.

Not to mention, this is of course a snapshot of NOW. (Actually, now and the recent past, as many states have very sparse polling, sometimes less than one poll a month.) And between now and the convention, we’ll have, as one pundit whose name I can’t remember right now called it, two or three “geologic ages” in the state of the race. Things will happen, the candidates will react to them. VPs will be selected. Candidates will make mistakes. Candidates will actively start campaigning in the battleground states. General election TV ads will start airing. Etc.

We have a long way to go. And certainly from this far out, it is completely wide open still.

Having said that, Obama has had a very good last few days in terms of the state by state polls. We shall soon see if this is a long term trend, or if it quickly gets reversed. This is the first time Obama has been ahead since April 20th. And the first time since April 15th that Obama’s best case was better than McCain’s best case.

Looking back though, in the time since we first had polls in all 50 states back on March 8th, Obama has been in the lead with the “all the leans” metric two other times. Neither time lasted more than a week.

So we shall see. My initial prediction is that this time will last longer and be the beginning of a trend in Obama’s direction now that we essentially have a nominee (even if Hillary continues to fight).

I think we’ll see more leaning states flip to Obama soon. (I’ll go out on a limb and say Michigan will flip soon.) And we’ll see some states strengthen for Obama and several more weaken in their McCain support and come back into play for Obama.

I could be wrong though. We’ll know soon enough.

On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner I mentioned that my own prediction was that we were near McCain’s high water mark in terms of General Election polls, and that as soon as the Democratic nominee was absolutely final and Obama could concentrate on the general, McCain’s margins would start to slip.

Are we perhaps seeing the first signs of this today? For the first time since the 1st of May there are poll results that are good news for Obama. Namely, my five poll average for Pennsylvania now moves the state from Leaning McCain to Leaning Obama. Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes, so that is big. Now, it is still “leaning” which means Obama is ahead by less than 5% and the state is very much in play and either candidate could take it. But still, good news for Obama after a long dry spell.

Meanwhile though, McCain gets stronger in Virginia, moving it from “Leaning” to “Weak” meaning that McCain’s lead is now more than 5% (but still less than 10%). This effectively takes Virginia out of the “could go either way” category. With 13 electoral votes though, Virginia might be big enough for Obama to still spend some time trying to bring it back into play.

Anyway, the summary:

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 334, Obama 204
Obama Best Case – Obama 309, McCain 229

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – McCain 281, Obama 257

Even not considering the fact that we have over 5 months before the election and a lot will change between now and then, these numbers just show this race is still very much completely wide open, with the 10 states that are “too close to call” making the range of possible outcomes huge.

As a recap, those states at the moment are: Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), South Carolina (8), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New Hampshire (4) and North Dakota (3).

New info on new polls from South Dakota moves the state all the way from “Leaning McCain” to “Strong McCain”. This essentially takes the state out of play for Obama, weakening his “Best Case Scenario”.

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 334, Obama 204
Obama Best Case – Obama 327, McCain 211

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – McCain 302, Obama 236

A new poll moves my “last five polls average” for Michigan from Leaning Obama to Leaning McCain.

At the moment there are 123 electoral votes worth of states in the “leaning” category, meaning that in reality they could easily go either way. However, of those, at the moment 91 electoral votes worth are leaning toward McCain, and only 32 are leaning toward Obama. Once Obama can truly be done with this primary season, he has some work to do if he is going to be in a strong position in November.

Current Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 334, Obama 204
Obama Best Case – Obama 330, McCain 208

And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – McCain 299, Obama 239