State of the Race: 6 Days to Go

There has been a ton of polling so far this week, so lets get to it. Here's today's battleground state averages:

Missouri (11)--Obama +0.2
Indiana (11)--Obama +0.7
North Carolina (15)--Obama +1.3
Montana (3)--McCain +2.5
North Dakota (3)--McCain +2.6
Florida (27)--Obama +3.0
Georgia (15)--McCain +4.1
Ohio (20)--Obama +5.4
Nevada (5)--Obama +5.7
Arizona (10)--McCain +6.0
Colorado (9)--Obama +6.8
Virginia (13)--Obama +7.0
West Virginia (5)--McCain +8.1
New Mexico (5)--Obama +8.3
Pennsylvania (21)--Obama +10.3
Minnesota (10)--Obama +10.4
New Hampshire (4)--Obama +10.5
Wisconsin (10)--Obama +10.7
Iowa (7)--Obama +11.4


TODAY'S ELECTORAL VOTE PROJECTION:
Obama: 375
McCain: 163

From my last update on Saturday, there have been 82 state polls. Most of them have been great news for Barack Obama and terrible news for John McCain. The battleground states should be tightening up at this point in the race, but it appears that Obama is expanding his lead, or at least maintaining it, in most of these states.

Since Saturday's update, Obama is up four points in New Hampshire, three points in Nevada, and one point in Colorado and Florida. New Hampshire is essentially a safe state for him now and Pennsylvania looks pretty out of reach--and those are the only two states that McCain has a chance to flip. Obama has double digit leads in both states. Sorry, John. So much for the Hail Mary pass.

I think something that truly signifies McCain's decline in the polls on a national scale is the most recent numbers from Arizona, his home state. The last three polls from Arizona have McCain up by 5, 2, and 8 points respectively. My average shows him up by about six points there. How embarrassing would it be if he lost his home state?

McCain has only made some minor gains in a few states since Saturday. He's up about two points in Missouri and about one point in Indiana, and West Virginia since my last update. He's pulled about even in Missouri, which is a relatively big step in the right direction in a state that he must win.

West Virginia looks like it's leaning more and more towards McCain again, but Obama has won a victory there in a sense in that he got the RNC to spend advertising money there. The RNC also dished out advertising cash in Montana this past week. Montana. Bush won by 21 points there, so you know the Republicans are in trouble. As Rachel Maddow said last night, that's comparable to the Democrats defending Massachusetts.

McCain better pray that something drastic happens in the next six days, like when Osama bin Laden came out with that video a few days before the 2004 election. That scared a lot of undecided voters into supporting Bush in the last few days, and helped tip the election in his favor. But Al Qaeda already endorsed McCain, so I guess that's out.