Poll: Obama has tenuous Electoral College lead

Analysis by Chris Graham
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Arkansas and Arizona are moving from the tossup into the red column. South Dakota and, significantly, Florida, are now being looked at as too close to call.

This is the rendering of Zogby International, which has presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama with leads in states that would give him 273 electoral votes in November, and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain with leads in states that would give him 146 votes, with the polling in states with the remaining 119 votes, including Virginia, considered too close to call at this time.

Virginia is among those in the too-close-to-call category, even as the latest Zogby poll has Obama with a 44 percent-to-39 percent lead over McCain in the Commonwealth.

North Carolina and South Carolina are also listed as too close to call, with Obama ahead 47 percent-to-38 percent in North Carolina and by a razor-thin 42 percent-to-41 percent margin in South Carolina.

The lead for McCain in tossup Florida is 43 percent-to-39 percent.

“Seniors and whites provide McCain a cushion over Obama. However, no one should count votes here too soon,” pollster John Zogby said by way of explanation of the too-close-to-call designation for Florida.

Even as Zogby has Obama with a strong working margin overall, that same warning about counting votes too soon applies across the board as well.

“For the time being, Obama maintains the edge and has the strength of a majority of electoral votes. His triumphant foreign trip allows him to continue to define this race. But too many of these states are close and a sizable number are undecided or choosing a third party candidate. So there is a lot of fluidity,” Zogby said.