Electoral college poll: dead-even toss-up

As most of us know, the popular vote does not determine who becomes president and the overall national polls map to the popular vote, not the electoral college votes. But RealCearPolitics does have a map of the comparable electoral college vote based on the state-by-state polls. Currently, the map shows that both Obama and McCain have 157 solid electoral college votes, while McCain is ahead with another 70 leaning votes to Obama's 50 leaning votes, and 104 toss-up votes.

Some people say that Ohio represents the entire country. The map shows Ohio as a toss-up, with McCain slightly ahead by 1.9%.

The real clear bottom line is that this election is not a slam-dunk for either candidate.

Obama has a potential advantage in that his team is really good at registering new voters and reaching out to young voters, many of whom do not have traditional phones so they would not show up in traditional polling. He may in fact currently have a 2% to 5% advantage that the polls cannot see. Obama also has the advantage of opposing the war in Iraq (and planning to get out ASAP) and a crummy economy and poor financial regulatory oversight. McCain's primary advantage is simply that most sane people do not trust non-centrist Democrats with either defense or the economy. Obama may have plans, but they do not have credibility with many people.

-- Jack Krupansky