OK, let me start here with my usual warning, and a little bit bigger and up front than normal. When states move from “Leaning” to one candidate, to “Leaning” to the other candidate… really either way the state is still very very close. Some random comment made by one candidate that gets traction could easily move the state right back where it was. The details of who turns out and who does not on election day could also easily flip the state the other way. “Leaning” states are TOO CLOSE TO CALL. They could flip back the other way very easily. Observers should not get too excited (or upset) when states move toward (or away from) their candidate on this metric. It is actually much more important when a state moves from “Leaning” to “Weak”, taking a state out of the realm of swing states.

Having said that… today in my last five poll averages… Florida (27 electoral votes) and Ohio (20 electoral votes) both flip over the line and move from “Leaning McCain” to “Leaning Obama”. This makes a HUGE difference in the “everybody gets their leans” metric.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 298, Obama 240
Obama Best Case – Obama 375, McCain 163

If everybody gets their leans – 348 Obama, 190 McCain

This means that even though just a few weeks ago we were showing a slight McCain win, right now we are looking at Obama winning with a 158 electoral vote margin. That might not quite be a landslide yet, but it is the largest Obama lead so far… by quite a bit. The trends in the last few weeks have not been kind to John McCain.

In terms of where Obama stands WITHOUT swing states, he is still not quite as strong as he was in July. But he now has eight states leaning in his direction that he can work on trying to pull further in his direction. If he can pull 30 more electoral votes from “Lean” to “Weak” then he won’t even need ANY swing states to win. Based on the current sizes of the leads in the states, and the number of electoral votes at stake, it looks like the quickest path to this would be pushing hard in Wisconsin and Florida.

McCain’s position is now looking very precarious. His attempts to take control in the race seem to have backfired. Will this mean that there will be even more “Hail Mary”‘s coming as he tries increasingly desperately to change the momentum of the race? Maybe so. But I suspect that actually calming down and trying to keep a more steady pace might be the better tactic for him. It may be too late for that though. We are running out of time.

Three changes today, two of which are highlighted in the title, both of which are bad news for Obama. The third is good news for Obama, but less likely to matter.

Colorado (9 ev): Just a few days ago Obama’s lead in Colorado topped 5%, moving the state out of swing state status. Well, his lead sags back below 5% in the five poll average today, so Colorado once again moves from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama”. This may be a state like New Mexico though, where the reality is that we are right on the edge between these two categories, so new polls will cause the state to bounce back and forth.

Oregon (7 ev): This is the one piece of good news for Obama today. His lead in Oregon hits 10%, moving the state from “Weak Obama” to “Strong Obama”. He looked pretty secure in Oregon anyway though, so this probably won’t make much difference to anything.

Montana (3 ev): Another state in this part of the country that Obama had hoped to be able to flip to blue, or at least make competitive which now looks like it is not to be. McCain’s lead in the five poll average grows to over 5%, making Montana no longer a swing state as it moves from “Lean McCain” to “Weak McCain”.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 319, Obama 219
Obama Best Case – Obama 375, McCain 163

If everybody gets their leans – 286 Obama, 252 McCain

The movement over the last couple of weeks is still in Obama’s direction, but this is a reminder that things are still quite unsettled. And we still have 12 states and 156 electoral votes essentially up for grabs. Obama has an edge right now. But things can change drastically in just days.

By the way, of those 12 states, three have their candidate ahead by 4% or more in my five poll average… meaning that one new poll in the right direction could very easily push those states out of swing status. Those three states are Pennsylvania (21 ev) with a 4.6% Obama lead, Wisconsin (10 ev) with a 4.6% Obama lead and Colorado (9 ev) with a 4.0% Obama lead. If all three of those went over 5%, it would leave Obama 10 ev away from being able to win with only states he was ahead by more than 5% in.

Along the same lines, there is currently only one state where the lead the last five poll average is 1.0% or less. That would be New Hampshire, where Obama has exactly a 1.0% lead at the moment. One good poll for McCain could very easily move this back to McCain’s side of the fence.

Edit 22:08 UTC – A few minutes after posting the above, I decided to also check on weak states that were most likely to move into swing category. In the process I started to look at the margins for all of the weak states. Almost immediately I looked at Tennessee… and discovered to my horror that although McCain’s margin in Tennessee has *always* been over 10%, I have *always* had it listed as one of the “Weak” states… from the very beginning! I had never caught it before because the state is sparsely polled and had never changed categories. My apologies for the error. All current charts (including the one in this post) have been corrected, not just from now going forward, but retroactively. Charts in previous update posts remain how they appeared previously, with the “Strong McCain” red line 11 electoral votes lower than it should have been. All other lines were not affected. Because this was a weak/strong change, none of the best case scenarios were affected at all, so this in no way would have effected any of the analysis. (But the look at states likely to move from weak to lean will wait for another day.)

Four states change status today. Two move in McCain’s direction, two move in Obama’s direction. But only one of those four states is likely significant, and that one moves in Obama’s direction. The specifics, in order of electoral college influence:

Colorado (9 ev): Colorado has been one of the critical swing states. With the exception of a few days earlier this month, Colorado has always been on the Obama side of the fence, but for almost the whole election season it has been just barely on the Obama side. Today, for the first time since March, Obama’s lead in the state moves above 5%. This makes this a “Weak Obama” state rather than a “Lean Obama” state and means the state is no longer too close to call. It might be vulnerable yet to strong campaigning or major events, but at the moment it is safe to color blue.

South Carolina (8 ev): One of the states that a few months ago Obama hoped to be able to turn blue. That has now completely evaporated as McCain’s lead now moves over 10% in the last five poll average. South Carolina is now “Solid McCain”.

Iowa (7 ev): Obama consolidates his lead. The five poll average now has Obama’s lead as more than 10%, so the state moves from “Weak Obama” to “Strong Obama”.

Maine (4 ev): Obama weakens a bit in Maine. His lead falls to less than 10%, moving the state from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”. It is still a long way from transforming into a swing state though, so while this is movement away from Obama, it doesn’t really matter too much to McCain at the moment.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 327, Obama 211
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160

If everybody gets their leans – 282 Obama, 256 McCain

All in all, today’s changes favor Obama. But we still have a wide open race with 13 swing states and 167 electoral votes which are essentially unpredictable. At the moment you do have to give Obama the advantage. But it is still a small one. It will take a few more states moving in Obama’s direction for this to actually start looking like a significant Obama lead.

Those hoping for an end to the McCain bounce… not so fast!

In today’s set of polls, there is only one category change. In Minnesota, it seems Obama peaked in July with a 13.2% lead. His lead there has been declining ever since. Today that lead slipped below 5%. That moves the state from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama”. Minnesota is now therefore a swing state. This brings us to FIFTEEN swing states representing 181 electoral votes. I can’t emphasize enough how huge that number is, and how much it means that this race is in a completely unpredictable position at the moment.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 341, Obama 197
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160

If everybody gets their leans – 269/269 ELECTORAL COLLEGE TIE

While it is true that McCain “peaked” in national polls and things have been moving more in Obama’s direction… and it is true that a number of “Weak McCain” states that he moved out of Lean status in the post convention period have moved back to “Lean McCain status” and are back int eh pool of swing states. But Obama has NOT stopped leaking “Weak Obama” states into “Lean Obama”. What has been happening in the last week or so can best be described not as an end to McCain’s bounce, but rather as more states from BOTH sides moving toward the uncertain middle.

Also, it is useful to compare to how things were immediately before both conventions. Using August 24th (the Sunday before the Democratic convention started) as a baseline to compare to today here is what we have:

McCain Strong States: Gained 60 electoral votes
McCain Strong+Weak States: Gained 6 electoral votes
McCain Strong+Weak+Lean States: Gained 22 electoral votes

Obama Strong States: Lost 5 electoral votes
Obama Strong+Weak States: Lost 60 electoral votes
Obama Strong+Weak+Lean States: Lost 19 electoral votes

(The Strong+Weak+Lean numbers don’t represent a zero sum and differ by three because we got the first poll for DC in that time period.)

I note that Obama’s position improved in the few days after the baseline I selected, although those polls reflected pre-convention changes. If I’d picked a baseline a few days later all of the above would look even worse for Obama and it might more accurately represent where he really was right before the conventions. But even as is the picture above is clear. In the wake of both VP picks and both Conventions, McCain is still the big winner.

So yes, you see some Obama momentum in regaining some swing states that McCain had pulled to his side right after the Republican convention. But the rest of the “lines” I track have continued to be neutral or in McCain’s direction. People keep saying the bounce has peaked, but so far, really, we just have a race being blown wide open. We have gone from a pre-convention situation that was very favorable to Obama, to a very very even race.

We have a few more days (perhaps a week) more of polls representing the post-convention pre-debate period. We have the first debate at the end of this week. Then starting next week we’ll start to see what kind of effect the debates have on this race.

As always these days, lots of polls. But only two changes.

Missouri (11 ev): McCain’s lead drops to less than 5%, once again putting Missouri in play as a swing state. It had slipped out of swing state territory into “Weak McCain” in the wake of the conventions. But that seems to have ended, and the state is reverting back to being a close state, although still on the McCain side of the fence.

North Dakota (3 ev): Since the beginning of this race North Dakota was one of the western states that Obama hoped to make a battle out of. And for the most part, earlier polls had shown McCain to be in the lead, but not by much. Recent polls though have started to change that, and today his lead moved above 5%, taking the state from “Lean McCain” to “Weak McCain” and pulling it out of the pool of swing states.

New Summary:

McCain Best Case – McCain 331, Obama 207
Obama Best Case – Obama 363, McCain 175

If everybody gets their leans – 269/269 ELECTORAL COLLEGE TIE

Basically, the two states changing today are just swapping categories. We have the same number of swing states as we did before. Just a different mix of them. Although surely he would like both, for Obama having Missouri competitive is probably better than having North Dakota competitive since it has more electoral votes. So overall today is a net plus for Obama.

Given trends in national polls, one would expect things to start moving faster in Obama’s direction. But at least using my technique of looking at the last five polls in each state and categorizing the results as I do, there has been some movement in Obama’s direction over the past few days, but for the most part so far it has been in increasing the number of electoral votes in swing states by pulling states out of McCain’s “Weak” column, opening up the range of possibilities some, but not yet actually pulling states over to the Obama side.

There are some states right on the edge though, so, as usual, we’ll look for the next set of polls.