McCain is a known commodity. People may not agree with his politics, but he is familiar, safe, comfortable. He's the old pair of shoes you go back to when your feet hurt. Obama may be selling change - but only young people think that change is the most important thing. Older people want stabiliy, experience, comfort. Okay, not all of them, but enough that Obama has an uphill battle.

Five points is well within the Bradley Effect zone, which I hope that the effect of which has dissipated over time.  But I'm an Atheist for a reason, blind faith does not come easily to me, so I am quite concerned.

He should not be afraid to stand behind his proposed foreign policy. He's been a bit shaky due to moderating some of the stances he took(negotiating with Iran; should always state "at time and place of MY choosing") but as long as he appears to be coherent and in control on foreign policy and sticks with the "Change That Works For You" themes, he should win this election.

My main curiosity is this:  What difference will money make?  It seems for the first time in a very long time that the Democratic nominee has the potential to bury the Republican with campaign spending.

Assuming Obama keeps up his unprecedented fundraising, and McCain's funders remain tepid or "only" up to their usual effort, will gobs and gobs of money rewrite the electoral map to some extent?

I think a lot of Clinton's success with white voters was a rejection of "identity politics" as the determining factor in the Democratic nomination.   And I think that you'll see the same kind of patterns emerge among white voters in November as the kind of analysis that BTD has provided here becomes more widespread.  (not faulting BTD for the analysis -- but the more "black turnout" is discussed as a major factor in the election, the greater the likelihood of a 'white backlash')

If Obama was actually qualified for the job, I don't think this would matter so much.  But lets face it, the sole reason he's even competitive right now is that the GOP 'brand' is is such disrepute, and Obama is the person with the "D" next to his name.

as well, mccain will get a nice bump there due to the convention. and the 527's haven't kicked in yet.

VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS: all have 20% AA population, all will go mccain. obama might win OH, if he or one of his surrogates doesn't say or do something inordinately stupid between now and nov. i'm not going to hold my breath.

frankly, these polls are pretty useless right now, because the real fireworks haven't begun. let's see what they say after both campaigns have brought out their big guns, after the conventions.

the purported "conventional wisdom" is that the conservative wing (is there another one?) of the republican party doesn't like mccain, he's not conservative enough for them. that may well be true.

As far as losing whites by 35 in NC, that seems realistic to me. Doesn't that poll also indicate that there will be more 18-29 turnout? Research triangle white youth could well be the difference in pulling it from something like 46 to 35. That could be legitimate. If anything, I think they're undersampling AAs for the gen. election. NC has had a small growth percentage-wise in AA population since 2004.

VA I think doesn't provide enough details to tell if it's legitimate or not, but the trend line on Ras VA polls doesn't seem to be very fluidic. Things typically only move by a point or two, so even if they're using poor demographic makeup, it's nice to see that Obama is gaining ground in the state.

Projected Electoral Votes
Barack Obama:  309
John McCain:  229

Projected Popular Vote
Barack Obama:  51.69%
John McCain:  47.31%

He says, "Barack Obama continues to lead John McCain by a comfortable margin [and] appears to have this presidential contest well in hand at the moment."

Other Republican predictors, such as Cold Hearted Truth, The Hedgedhog Report, Election Junkie and FiveThirtyEight, also all have Obama winning, but are hoping for a turnaround.

Link to Election Projection site is here:

"If Sen. Obama seriously is thinking about picking Sen. Clinton as his running mate, these numbers might cause him to reconsider. The people who really matter come November - independent voters - turn thumbs down on the idea. And, many say they are less likely to vote for him if he puts her on the ticket," Brown added.

Florida: Obama edges McCain 47 - 43 percent;
Ohio: Obama tops McCain 48 - 42 percent;
Pennsylvania: Obama leads McCain 52 - 40 percent

While Democrats support the idea, independent voters in each state say Obama should not choose Sen. Clinton as his vice presidential running mate. Results are:  

Florida: Democrats want Clinton on the ticket 57 - 33 percent while Republicans are opposed 59 - 17 percent and independents oppose it 46 - 37 percent;
Ohio: Democrats want Clinton for Vice President 58 - 31 percent, but Republicans say no 60 - 19 percent and independents turn thumbs down 47 - 31 percent;
Pennsylvania: Democrats say yes to Clinton 60 - 31 percent, while Republicans say no 63 - 20 percent and independents nix the idea 49 - 36 percent.