In our daily roundup of swing state polls, battle lines are growing clearer, Obama's support grows, but Romney moves into better position in the Electoral College.
I mentioned two Ohio polls that yesterday put Obama ahead in the most critical swing state. That trend continued late Thursday and into Friday morning.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Obama leading in Iowa by 8 points, a huge margin in a state that's been wavering recently.
Obama is also up by 6 points in Wisconsin, according to another NBC/WSJ poll.
In addition to the LE&A/Denno poll yesterday, an EPIC-MRA poll in Michigan gives Obama 6-point advantage.
Public Policy Polling puts Obama 3 points up in Colorado, another state that's been giving poll predictors headaches.
But to add to yesterday's North Carolina poll that put Romney ahead, two Rasmussen polls in Virginia and Florida have him up in those states, too, by 3 and 5 points, respectively.
With Romney looking very strong in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, and Obama likely to pick up most of the other swing states, the electoral map begins to look very much like the scenario I envisioned earlier this week: Obama 17 votes shy of winning outright.
Throw in Iowa and Obama still trails by 11, with only Ohio or the combination of Colorado and New Hampshire able to get him to 270 votes.
One of those outcomes is looking more likely. Even if Romney takes Ohio, Romney is 4 votes shy of 270, so he needs New Hampshire or Colorado, both of which are looking like they'll go blue.
Iowa would do it for Romney, too, though, so keep your eyes on the cornhuskers.
The most interesting thing about the map this year is all the contingencies and connections. While we get polls in different states at different times, they can only be interpreted in light of polls in other states. Factor in the margin of error for each poll for each state, and you get a mess of probabilities.
I'll keep parsing it for you.
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