Countdown to the Election: 2 Days

good evening, my lovelies.... please forgive the late post but the heartache had to continue today.

not only did texas lose to tech last night in the final seconds... but the texans lost today to the vikings. just not a good weekend for football. except the cowboys. they lost... that's always nice.

oh... and i'd like to take a moment to say i don't really understand why everyone gets so excited when the clocks "fall back." there seems to be a delusion out there that you get an extra hour of sleep.

um, no you don't... you just wake up an hour earlier... i didn't wake up at 8 this morning. i woke up at 7. yeah... so now i'm waiting for my normal bedtime but i've actually been up an hour longer..........

bodies become attuned to the internal clock, people.

but anyway.....on to politics. some interesting developments from realclearpolitics.com.

and people...i beg of you to visit this site. i realize all of the 24 hour news channels seem to be breaking news with montana now a toss-up and arizona now a toss-up. yeah... i know. RCP is way ahead of you.

jesus... i think i'm a bit cranky all of the sudden.

anyway.... the really interesting development is not the number of traditional red states that continue to fall out of the mccain column....but the two blue states that have been taken out of the obama column.

this morning....RCP took ohio and virginia out of the "leaning obama" column. a HUGE development.

so the electoral map...with toss-ups...looks thus:

obama 278
mccain 132

so that's a net positive of 146 electoral votes for obama...and still over the needed number of 270. but we now have 128 electoral votes considered "toss ups."

without toss-ups...we're looking at an estimated 353 electoral votes for obama and only 185 for mccain. watching the sunday morning talk shows today...these numbers seem to be the going prediction.

now, while obama is losing points in the estimated electoral map...he is gaining points in most national polls. he currently stands 50.7% to 44.3% over mccain, or +6.4%.

i also wanted to put up the racial voting breakdown as polled by gallup. interesting numbers which might explain why obama should win come sunday.

african americans: 91% obama, 4% mccain
hispanic: 65% obama, 27% mccain
white: 44% obama, 50% mccain

with such large numbers in certain populations overwhelmingly going for obama... it's a hard road to 270 for mccain.

but let's look today at the two states taken away from obama (at least for now) and why they've been recategorized as "toss-ups."

ohio, of course, was the big story from 2004. RCP average of polls currently has obama at 48.8% and mccain at 44.6% (or +4.2 obama). now....while recent polls from la times/bloomberg has obama up 9 points (49% to mccain's 40%) and a fox news/rasmussen poll has obama up by 4 points (49% to 45%).... a new poll out today from mason-dixon shows mccain up by 2 (45% obama, 47% mccain).

that's not a tightening of the polls...that's a reversal.

now...this is only one poll, but it's enough to question where ohio might go. therefore, ohio is back in the questionable column.

in virginia we're looking at more of a tightening... RCP average still has obama up +3.8% (49.8% to mccain's 46%). and, in fact...obama still leads in all polls.

that lead has just dropped from a 6 or 7 point lead down to less than 4 points.

mason-dixon has obama up by three but the latest polls from surveyUSA, fox news/rasmussen and marist all have obama up by 4 points. in fact, surveyUSA has obama at 50% and the other two have obama coming in with 51% of the vote.

anytime you have over 50%....you're generally golden.

so, yes, mccain has closed the gap. just yesterday obama was up 51% to 45% on average. but with polls still coming in with him garnering more than 50% of the vote... i don't fret much.

my prediction.... obama snags both ohio and virginia.

some other predictions...since they did this on this week today... i agree with most that the democrats will gain a net 8 seats in the senate. this will bring their total to 59 seats... one shy of the 60 seat filibuster/veto proof majority.

i also expect a net gain of over 20 additional blue seats in the house.

races of note: watch for former SNL alum al franken to beat norm coleman in minnesota. watch for hagan to defeat dole in NC. stevens (the longest serving GOP member of the senate) should lose his seat in alaska thanks to the guilty verdicts... and the most interesting race could be if the GOP leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell of kentucky, loses his seat on tuesday to wealthy businessman bruce lunsford.

so..... while the numbers are still very fluid - i'm still optimistic looking ahead.

i'm not ready to jinx anything and i still believe in being cautious. and....for vishnu's sake... you still need to VOTE!

but... things appear to be looking good.

see you tomorrow. get some sleep.

obama/biden 08!

e.