Virginia is likely to be the bellwether here. If Barack is the victor there, I think the race is over. After that, thge key states appear to be Missouri and Ohio. If he takes both, this is an unprecedented landslide.
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NOTE: Virginia, Indiana, and Florida all close early, at 4 o'clock Pacific Time!
Here are some battleground states with their electoral vote totals, 2004 results and recent details about the contests in each state.
* Colorado -- Nine electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry 52 percent to 47 percent in the state in 2004, but since then, Democrats have won the state Legislature and governor's office. Two polls Thursday showed Obama leading by 6 and 4 points respectively.
* Florida -- 27 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry 52 percent to 47 percent in a state known for the disputed result that decided the 2000 election. Florida is a classic swing state with many older voters who could favor McCain along with Jewish voters who are normally Democratic but have been wary of Obama. The two most recent polls both gave Obama a 4-point lead, while some earlier polls had showed a narrower margin.
* Indiana -- 11 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by 20 points in 2004 in a state that last voted for a Democrat in 1964. But it borders Obama's home state of Illinois and he has poured resources into his Indiana campaign after finishing a strong second to Sen. Hillary Clinton in the May Democratic primary. The race remains a toss up, with one Thursday poll giving McCain a 3-point lead, another showing Obama with a 1-point edge, and a third saying the two candidates were dead even.
* Missouri -- 11 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry 53 percent to 46 percent in 2004 in a classic battleground with a mix of cities and conservative rural areas. McCain led in the two most recent polls with narrow margins of 3 and 2 points.
* New Hampshire -- Four electoral votes. Kerry beat Bush by 1 point in 2004. McCain's history of big primary wins in New Hampshire in 2000 and this year gives him hope he can take the state in November. Democrats captured both the state's seats in Congress and gained control of the state Legislature in 2006 in an anti-Republican wave on which Obama hopes to capitalize. A Thursday poll showed Obama up by 13 points, the latest in a string of surveys that have put his lead in double digits.
* New Mexico -- Five electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by fewer than 6,000 votes in 2004. As the senator from neighboring Arizona, McCain is familiar to many New Mexico voters, but he will have to battle Obama for the growing bloc of Hispanics, who make up more than 40 percent of the state's population. A Wednesday poll gave Obama a 10-point lead, while other recent surveys have shown him ahead by between 5-8 points.
* Nevada -- Five electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by 20,000 votes in 2004 in a state won by Republicans in eight of the past 10 presidential elections. As in New Mexico, the burgeoning Hispanic population will be crucial -- it now makes up nearly a quarter of Nevada's residents. A poll on Thursday showed Obama with a 5-point lead, while other polls in recent days have shown him up by as much as 12 points.
* North Carolina -- 15 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by 12 points in 2004, even though the Democratic vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, was from the state. More than one-fifth of the population is black and an influx of transplants to high-tech urban areas have given Obama a chance. A Friday poll showed the race as a tie, while three others have given Obama slim leads of between 1 and 4 points.
* Ohio -- 20 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by about 120,000 votes in the state that ultimately decided the 2004 race. No Republican has won the White House without Ohio, and McCain will have a hard time piecing together a win without the state. One new Thursday poll gave Obama a 7-point lead, while another had him up by 4.
* Pennsylvania -- 21 electoral votes. Kerry beat Bush 51 percent to 48 percent in 2004, but Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states won by Kerry where McCain's camp had seen a chance to reverse the result. A poll on Thursday had Obama in the lead by 13 points.
* Virginia -- 13 electoral votes. Bush won fairly easily by 9 points in 2004 in a state that has not gone Democratic in a presidential election since 1964. But Virginia's trend has been toward Democrats in recent state elections amid dramatic growth in the Democratic-leaning northern suburbs of Washington, D.C. Two Thursday polls both gave Obama 4 point leads, narrower than in some earlier surveys.
* Wisconsin -- 10 electoral votes. Kerry won by 11,000 votes out of more than 3 million in 2004, but Obama has held a lead for months in a state where he crushed Hillary Clinton in a February Democratic primary showdown. Two polls on Thursday showed Obama ahead by 16 and 11 points respectively.
UPDATE from Huffington - 5:30 PM ET on November 3
New national polls this afternoon:
- WashPost/ABC News: Obama 53, McCain 44
- Fox News: Obama 50, McCain 43
- CBS News: Obama 51, McCain 42
UPDATE - 2:00 PM ET on November 3New national polls on the last day of the race:
- Hotline: Obama 50, McCain 45
- Ipsos/McClatchy: Obama 50, McCain 42
- Daily Kos/Research 2000: Obama 51, McCain 45
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