Opinion: National electoral map: Obama’s lead over McCain growing
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This week’s new hypothetical electoral map from Karl Rove & Co. shows Democrat Barack Obama’s current electoral lead widening over Republican Sen. John McCain to the largest margin since the GOP’s National Convention right after Labor Day.
Obama now leads, according to Rove’s calculations, 259 electoral votes to McCain’s 163 with 116 in the toss-up category. The freshman Illinois senator has picked up 48 electoral votes since last week from Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylania.
McCain, meanwhile, has lost Missouri and North Carolina’s 26 electoral votes from his column into the toss-up category.
Rove predicts, ‘With 36 days remaining before the election, each candidates has the time and ability to change the dynamic of the race -– and I am confident that will happen several times more.’
A chart showing the weekly changes since June 1 and explaining the research’s methodology is available by clicking on the Read more line below.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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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.
For example, if the most recent poll in Montana was taken on July 1, 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.