The electoral arithmetic looks brighter for Obama
September 30, 2008
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THOSE who fear that democracy is losing its vigour in the modern West should have been reassured by the first debate between the US presidential candidates. Not because of anything that emerged from the debate itself, for it revealed almost nothing that was not already known about the two candidates and their views. But because, if polls are any guide, American voters are beginning to show a real shift in their allegiance. And that shift seems to be based not on what the candidates had to say to each other, or on what spin doctors had to say about it, but on the voters' own assessment of what is happening in their country.

In American presidential elections, the vote that matters is not the tally of popular support for each candidate, but the number of delegates that the candidates win in the electoral college that formally chooses the president. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, has long performed well in estimates of the national popular vote: he reportedly leads his Republican rival, John McCain, by an average of 5% across all polls. But Senator Obama has struggled to win enough support in the states he is likely to need to win to secure an electoral-college majority.

This week, however, for the first time in several months, the polls show that if the election were held now the electoral college votes in one of those crucial states, Virginia, would go to the Democratic candidate. The balance has also swung in another state that had hitherto inclined to the Republicans, North Carolina. Senator McCain has a slight edge in Ohio, a "swing" state that the eventual victor is expected to have to win, but the evidence is that the college count is shifting in favour of the Democrats.
..." From The Age.com