Breathing exercises for liberals and Democrats

In light of President Obama's debate last Wednesday night and a recent Pew Research poll which showed Romney ahead by 4% among "likely voters" over the president, I can't tell you how many times I've heard or read liberals/Democrats in a full-blown panic. Relax... 

According to the latest Gallup poll, the president has a 53% approval rating. While he's down by 2 points among "likely voters," he's up by 3 among registered ones. He's also seen improvements in RAND and YouGov polls, which seem to showcase him re-establishing a 4-5 point lead over the Republican nominee. Numbers-geek Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com is still giving the president a 70% chance of winning the election and even noted that the "likely" voter model is often times unreliable and more times than not, the actual election numbers run more in line with the registered voter polls than the likely voter ones. 

Also, we can't forget that while many people may disagree with the electoral college (I'm one of these people), it's currently how we reward someone the presidency on election day. National polls may receive a great number of headlines, but what it really comes down to are state polls and one candidate attaining 270 electoral votes on November 6th. 

With that in mind, let's look at how the race is shaping up right now. When I last looked at the electoral map a couple weeks ago or so, I saw Obama's guaranteed victories to be in the following states:

1) Washington (12 electoral votes - 12 total)

2) Oregon (7 - 19)

3) California (55 - 74)

4) Hawaii (4 - 78)

5) New Mexico (5 - 83)

6) Minnesota (10 - 93)

7) Illinois (20 - 113)

8) Maine (4 - 117)

9) Vermont (3 - 120)

10) New York (29 - 149)

11) Massachusetts (11 - 160)

12) Connecticut (7 - 167)

13) Rhode Island (4 - 171)

14) New Jersey (14 - 185)

15) Delaware (3 - 188)

16) Maryland (10 - 198)

17) Washington D.C. (3 - 201)

From that point, I've altered things a bit. I no longer see the first two in this next list as guarantees, but as very strong leans and even added a third:

18) Michigan (16 - 217)
19) Pennsylvania (20 - 237)
20) New Hampshire (4 - 241)

The next five states I'd categorize as leans:

21) Wisconsin (10 - 251)
22) Ohio (18 - 269)

23) Iowa (6 - 275)
24) Colorado (9 - 284)
25) Nevada (6 - 290)


So, at this time, the President has 17 states locked up (including D.C.) for a total of 201 electoral votes. He has a total of 20 nearly locked up for a total of 241 electoral votes. There are yet five others leaning his direction for a total of 290 electoral votes. While the president has been in pretty good standing in Ohio and I'm close to moving both that and Wisconsin to the near-lock list, Obama hypothetically could lose Ohio, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina and still come out on top with 272 electoral votes.

I believe there are now three true toss-up states that could go either way come election day:

26) Virginia (13 - 303)
27) Florida (29 - 332)
28) North Carolina (15 - 347)

Lastly, while it may be a long shot for the president to win any of these remaining states, he's not completely out of the running yet:

Indiana (11)
Georgia (16)
Missouri (10)
Montana (3)
Arizona (11)

So try to relax some liberals/Democrats. It doesn't matter how the public largely perceived last week's debate and the recently released Pew Research poll is of no importance either. Romney has a great deal of ground to make up all across the electoral map. While the race is far from over, I'd much rather be in President Obama's situation right now than Mr. Romney's. 

http://www.270towin.com/