I want to comment on some of the polls that have been released of late and what they indicate about the race right now.

The polls in the Southern states indicate that John McCain is pulling away.  For example, Rasmussen has McCain now leading by nearly 20 point in Alabama.  While some polls in North Carolina and Virginia indicate the race continues to be closer in both states, McCain will pull away in both states as state polling catches up with national polling.  In two battleground states from the past two elections, Florida and Missouri, SurveyUSA has numbers up tonight showing McCain up 6 in the former and 5 in the later.  These numbers are similar to George W. Bush’s performance in 2000 and 2004.  Indeed, McCain has been polling better in Florida than Bush ever did, at this stage of the race.  In short, John McCain should feel comfortable about his performance in the South and in the peripheral battleground states of Missouri and Florida.

In the other part of the L that elected George W. Bush twice, namely the Plains and the Mountain West, the race continues to be close in several states, especially Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana.  (I do not include North Dakota for the simple reason that, despite media fantasies aside, it has voted Republican in every Presidential election since 1940 with one exception.  Indeed, it has voted Republican in every election since 1916, with the exceptions of 1932 and 1936)

Interestingly, Rasmussen has a poll just released showing McCain pulling away in his homestate of Arizona to 21 points (with leaners).  Given that the incumbent won the state by roughly half that in 2004, I have to believe that McCain will have some pull in the region, especially in Nevada.  That said, these states account for 22 electoral votes.  I view them as more troublesome in November than any Southern state, including Virginia. 

I now move to the Northeast and to the Midwest.  The first poll is a poll in Connecticut that has Obama leading McCain 51% to 36%.  In 4 polls conducted in a state Obama won in the Democratic primaries, he has never exceeded 52%.  The second is the poll from Massachusetts today indicating a single digit race and the poll in New York yesterday showing a dramatically tightening race.  While Obama continues to be running decently in the Midwest (more on this in a second), he seems to be hovering around 50% in reliably Democratic states in the Northeast. 

The polls in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa have been all over the place, with some showing Obama probably beyond reach and others showing a deadheat.  Michigan and Ohio continue to be close, with McCain holding an edge in the later.  Indiana is also very close, but in the end, it should go Republican as well.  (The Hoosier State, since native son Benjamin Harrison lost the state in 1892, has voted Republican in all but 4 Presidential elections, one of them with native son Thomas Marshall as the Democratic Vice President in 1912 (Wilson lost it in 1916 to Charles Evans Hughes, whose running mate Charles Fairbanks was from Indiana) and the other 3 being the Democratic landslides of 1932, 1936, and 1964.)

In short, the situation for the GOP has not been this bright since 2004.  For the first time, we have a reasonable shot at amassing the electoral votes needed to win the election.