First Look At The New Electoral Map

from FiveThirtyEight.com

Rasmussen has just released polling from five key swing states. When coupled with PPP's new poll of Michigan and SurveyUSA's new release from Virginia, we see a race that is relatively unchanged from the pre-convention period, but with incremental trends in different states that might portend changes in electoral strategy:

State/Pollster WAS          NOW            SWING
OH  Rasmussen  McCain +5    McCain +7      McCain +2
MI  PPP        Obama  +3    Obama  +1      McCain +2
PA  Rasmussen  Obama  +3    Obama  +2      McCain +1
VA  Rasmussen  McCain +1    McCain +2      McCain +1
VA  SurveyUSA  McCain +1    McCain +2      McCain +1
FL  Rasmussen  McCain +2    TIE            Obama  +2
CO  Rasmussen  McCain +1    Obama  +3      Obama  +4
====================================================
AVERAGE       McCain +0.6   McCain +0.7    McCain +0.1

A few thoughts, and caveats:

The best news for McCain at a micro level is that he appears as though he might have gained just a tiny bit of ground in the Midwestern Rust Belt states, something which may also have been reflected in the new ABC/WaPo national poll, which showed him performing well in the Midwest. I still think that Pennsylvania isn't going to close quite enough for him to qualify as a top-tier swing state, especially as there are a lot of Clinton voters out there who should be returning to the Obama ticket. But Ohio now looks like it probably isn't Obama's path of least resistance to 270 electoral votes, and I'd expect Michigan to continue to be very competitive.

(Continued here, with multiple graphs.)