State of the Race: 3 Days to Go

It was a slow polling day, with only 15 new state polls. Here's today's battleground state averages with three days to go until election day:

Missouri (11)--McCain +0.7
Indiana (11)--McCain +1.3
North Dakota (3)--McCain +1.6
North Carolina (15)--Obama +1.9
Florida (27)--Obama +2.7
Montana (3)--McCain +4.1
Georgia (15)--McCain +4.2
Arizona (10)--McCain +4.9
Ohio (20)--Obama +5.0
Nevada (5)--Obama +5.7
Virginia (13)--Obama +6.3
Colorado (9)--Obama +6.3
Pennsylvania (21)--Obama +8.2
West Virginia (5)--McCain +8.8
New Mexico (5)--Obama +9.1
South Dakota--McCain +9.1
New Hampshire (4)--Obama +10.7
Wisconsin (10)--Obama +11.1
Iowa (7)--Obama +11.6
Minnesota (10)--Obama +12.3

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

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

I know you'll all help me in welcoming South Dakota to our very exclusive battleground list! No applause needed. Especially if your first name is John and your last name is McCain. A new Rasmussen poll puts McCain up by only 9 points in the state. I don't think that Barack Obama will win here unless it is a nationwide landslide, but still, my model shows that South Dakota is a closer race that New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, so I felt obliged to put it on there.

McCain gained about a point in Missouri since yesterday's update, but that was just a retrospective reaction from the favorable numbers he got yesterday in the state.

The real story today is Pennsylvania. Three polls came out and confirmed that McCain is indeed closing in this state. The Morning Call tracking poll gives Obama an 8-point lead, ARG gives Obama a 6-point lead, and Rasmussen gives Obama only a 4-point lead--but the latter's methodology and internals were fishy (as I wrote about earlier).

McCain jumped up about a point and a half since yesterday in the Keystone State. And it's a good thing because he now absolutely needs it to become president. He is going to lose Colorado since more than half of the state has voted already and the number of Democrats has dwarfed the number of Republicans who have already voted.

So even if McCain wins Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Georgia, and Virginia, it won't be enough for him to reach 270 electoral votes. He still needs Pennsylvania. But that is still no easy feat--he is still down by about 8 points, but I would expect that to close up a bit more in the next few days to around 6 or 7.

Since there has been a lot of talk about McCain "closing" nationally and in a bunch of swing states. So I looked into how much he had actually gained ground in the 18 battleground states (sorry Arizona and South Dakota) in the past week:

McCain gained 4 points in Indiana, 2.6 points in Pennsylvania, 2.1 points in Missouri, 1.6 points in Montana, and 1.4 points in West Virginia.

Obama gained 3.7 points in New Hampshire, 2.7 points in Nevada, 1.5 points in Minnesota, and 1.3 points in North Dakota.

The rest of the states did not change by more than one point in the past week in either direction. McCain has gained one point nationally in the last week.

Let's take a look at where each candidate has gained ground in the last month:

McCain has gained ground in only 1 of those 18 states in the last month: West Virginia. And that was only by one point.

Obama has gained significant ground in many of the other states such as North Dakota (+9.4), Georgia (+4.5), Nevada (+3.8), Wisconsin (+3.7), New Hampshire (+3.4), Minnesota (+3.2), Ohio (+3.0), Virginia (+2.9), Montana (+2.8), Colorado (+2.5), North Carolina (+1.5), and Missouri (+1.1) in the last month.

The rest of the states did not change by more than one point in the past month in either direction. Obama has gained 2.4 points nationally in the last month.

So in the past week, McCain has made some good gains in states like Indiana, Pennsylvania and Missouri. But over the past month, he has not really closed well in any state.

He still has some major ground to make up--not just in Pennsylvania, but in his other must-win states: Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, and Virginia. And he's just about out of time.