Where do we stand?

We are currently 18 days and four hours away from knowing who the next President of the United States will be (you can take a peek at the calender to the right to know the exact number of seconds).

At this moment this is the our best guess at the state-by-state breakdown of the race:


The one obvious thing to note is that there continues to be a lot of blue. Now even the major networks are noticing this and have begin to re-shape their election night coverage. From Politico:

Network news executives said they are preparing for an unusual Election Night challenge: How to be honest with the audience, and still keep them tuned in, if the race between John McCain and Barack Obama is effectively decided before most Americans have finished dinner. The quandary is highlighted by Virginia, a state that has not voted Democratic for president since 1964 but where Obama is now leading in polls. [Because] there is no realistic McCain electoral college strategy that does not depend on winning the Old Dominion, the networks want to be prepared for an early end to the night.

However, while polling has shown Obama up in some traditionally red states, in states such as Ohio, the Obama campaign believes victory depends on persuading more voters to support him. Furthermore, the perilous lead in Florida that Obama held the last time we mapped the race; looks to have evaporated. But new polling shows the race essentially tied in North Dakota, and very tight in West Virginia.

Based on this information, along with the sourcing we have been receiving from our contacts on the ground, we see Obama with a 288-194 lead over his rival with 56 electoral votes left undecided. Even with national polling appearing to turn his direction, to win McCain will need to capture all of the states in "too-close-to-call" and steal two of the states currently projected for Obama.