State of the Race: 2 Days to Go

We have 20 new state polls today. And with two days to go, it looks like John McCain is finally closing. But not enough. Here are the battleground state numbers:

North Carolina (15)--Obama +0.9
Missouri (11)--McCain +1.0
Indiana (11)--McCain +1.4
North Dakota (3)--McCain +1.9
Florida (27)--Obama +2.4
Georgia (15)--McCain +3.9
Ohio (20)--Obama +4.1
Montana (3)--McCain +4.4
Arizona (10)--McCain +4.9
Nevada (5)--Obama +5.1
Virginia (13)--Obama +5.1
Colorado (9)--Obama +5.6
Pennsylvania (21)--Obama +7.4
New Mexico (5)--Obama +7.8
West Virginia (5)--McCain +8.9
South Dakota--McCain +9.4
New Hampshire (4)--Obama +10.2
Wisconsin (10)--Obama +10.4
Minnesota (10)--Obama +11.4
Iowa (7)--Obama +12.9

TODAY'S ELECTORAL VOTE PROJECTION:
Obama: 353
McCain: 185

The national polls stayed relatively still today, and Obama still has about a 5 or 6-point lead nationally.

McCain ticked up about a point in North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Pennsylvania since yesterday's update. And it's a good thing too, because those are all states that are critical to a McCain's best case electoral scenario.

McCain's increases in these five states are due to the flurry of Mason-Dixon battleground state polls that were released today. They give McCain a 3-point lead in NC and a 2-point lead in OH. They also gave Obama a 5-point lead in CO, a 4-point lead in PA and a 3-point lead in VA.

Some other polls they released today were in Florida (O+2), Missouri (M+1), and Nevada (O+4).

Now, Mason-Dixon's polls have leaned 2-3 points more toward McCain than the average of other polls taken in those states at the same time. This doesn't mean that they are biased or partisan. They are non-partisan, but they just have a different way of sampling the electorate than other pollsters, and they may turn out to be the most accurate on election day.

McCain also gets some more good numbers in Pennsylvania today. His deficit in the Morning Call tracker in down to 7 points, SurveyUSA has him down by 7 as well, and Rasmussen has him down by only 6. I'll keep an eye on the numbers coming out of this state tomorrow and Tuesday, but I still don't think that he will win the state. It very well could be close--even within 2 or 3 points--but I think he'll come short on election day.

The only state that Obama improved in was Iowa, where a Des Moines Register poll has him up by 17 points. And Ann Selzer, the pollster that conducted the poll, is usually pretty accurate when it comes to Iowa elections. But nonetheless, the McCain campaign thinks they have a shot there. McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, says that they're down by only a few points there based on internal polling. Somebody's gotta be wrong.

Expect a ton of polls to come out tomorrow, as is customary with the Mondays before election day. I will have a detailed analysis of those numbers as well as predictions for the 20 battleground states listed above on the morrow.