Three States Could Decide This Election

This election will be decided in just a handful of states. They are Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. If Obama wins Virginia or Colorado he has won the election unless McCain flips a blue state with an equal or larger number of electoral votes. If McCain wins Michigan or Pennsylvania along with Virginia, he wins the election. However, those states could stay the same as the last election. If that scenario is the case, then Colorado will be this year's Ohio or Florida. It will be interesting to watch. At the moment, using current polling data, if the election were held today, the map looks the same as 2004 except for Colorado, where Obama leads in the polling, giving him 273 electoral votes - three above the needed 270 to win the Presidency. 273 (D)-265 (R) is the electoral count based on polling if the election were held today. Now if that doesn't say that it will be a very late night waiting for the election night returns, I don't know what will. If you are wondering, Colorado has nine electoral votes, and the current polls have Obama at 45 and McCain at 44.

If you want an interesting twist, McCain could flip New Hampshire's four electoral votes. Based on current polling data, this situation would result in neither candidate with the requisite 270 electoral votes. Before you wish you paid attention in civics, I will tell you what happens. The electoral vote would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where each state's delegation would get one vote, and the Senate would vote for the VP with each Senator getting one vote each. That will result in Obama getting 29 votes and McCain with 20 (Kansas has 2 D and 2 R Representatives and will tie - until such a scenario is reality there is now way to know how it will vote).

To get very specific, whoever wins two of three states will most likely win the election: Virginia, Ohio, or Colorado.