Opinion: National electoral map: Obama slides slightly, McCain holds, time shortens
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With barely 12 days left, Barack Obama maintains a hypothetical electoral vote lead, according to new research published by Karl Rove & Co., but it’s a bit smaller -- 306. But still above the 270 necessary to win the White House.
John McCain still trails, holding 171, and 61 electoral votes are called toss-ups.
Ohio (20) in recent days has moved from toss-up into Obama’s column, while Florida (27) has gone from Obama to toss-up, a net loss of seven for the Illinois freshman senator.
Rove sees McCain needing to win the toss-up states plus Ohio and another significant state to maintain any chance of winning.
A chart showing the weekly movements appears on the jump -- just click the Read more line below -- along with the usual explanation of the research methodology.
--Andrew Malcolm
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Methodology
For example, if the most recent poll in Montana was taken on July 15, the average includes all polls conducted between July 1 and July 15. States within a three-point lead for McCain or Obama are classified as toss-ups; states outside the three-point lead are allocated to the respective candidate.
There is no polling data available for the District of Columbia, but its three electoral votes are allocated to Obama.
This map and chart published regularly by The Ticket courtesy of Karl Rove & Co.
For each state, the map uses the average of all public telephone polls (Internet polls are not included in the average) taken within 14 days of the most recent poll available in each state.