Colorado’s nine electoral votes are the only ones in the nation not leaning toward either Barack Obama or John McCain, according to an Electoral College projection Friday by the National Journal’s Hotline that shows Obama approaching a landslide victory. The political digest’s projection puts Obama at 349 electoral votes vs. 180 for McCain, a shift of 36 in Obama’s direction since earlier this week. A nominee requires 270 votes to win the presidency.
The situation state-by-state looks dire for McCain, the Hotline reports, with swing state after swing state falling into Obama’s column based on current polling.
Like the previous update, McCain’s drought of statistically significant leads in swing state surveys continues. In the 12 battleground state polls released since the previous edition of Battle, six have shown Obama with a solid advantage, while none have shown the same for McCain. Among the other six swing state surveys, Obama leads in five and McCain leads just one.
Standing alone in the toss-up column is Colorado, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state with plenty of help from independent candidate Ross Perot. Before that, Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide was the last time the state turned blue.
Colorado is the only one of Hotline’s 15 designated “battleground states” still without at least a leaning preference for one of the presidential nominees. Only two, Indiana and Missouri, lean toward McCain. Obama counts solid leads in Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, and has leaning support in Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio.
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