North Carolina's coveted 15 electoral votes may be back in play after a new poll in the state showed President Obama tied with Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Last week, RealClearPolitics called the state for Romney, moving it from the "tossup" column to "Leans Romney," and pushing the Republican ahead of the president in the Electoral College count.
But the race is still close in North Carolina, and this latest Public Policy Polling survey seems to have been the final straw. Late on Thursday, RCP moved the state back into the tossup column. Obama now leads the count of Electoral College votes, 201 to 191, with 146 undecided.
Romney is still the slight favorite in North Carolina, though how slight depends on whom you ask.
RCP has him 5 points ahead in an aggregate of state polls. FiveThirtyEight is far more confident of a Romney victory, giving him an 81.4 percent chance of taking the state on Election Day.
In 2008, Obama reversed the trend in North Carolina, winning the state for the Democrats for the first time since 1976.
While North Carolina is still a likely Romney win, trends there may tell a lot about its much more ambivalent neighbor to the north, Virginia.
Like North Carolina, Virginia also supported Obama in 2008, the first time the state went Democrat since Lyndon Johnson's landslide in 1964.
The polls are still extremely close there, and Romney has a very slight edge in most recent state polls.
Along with Florida, Virginia and North Carolina round out the Southern swing states.
All of them were clear tossups until the first presidential debate, when Romney rallied his support nationwide.
Since then, they have been trending toward Romney, with North Carolina on the leading edge of the turnaround.
Romney's surge in the national polls is now over, and his numbers are slowly coming back into line with Obama's. After the first debate, the national polls reacted first, while the swing state polls took several days to move.
If that effect is repeating itself, swing state polls may start to move in Obama's direction. And if the entire pattern holds, North Carolina will be the first to begin the switch.
That would be very bad news for Romney. Most scenarios that project him with a lead or in a close fight in the Electoral College with Obama assume he makes a strong showing in the South, either sweeping all three swing states or anchoring his support with North Carolina and making a strong push in Florida and Virginia.
Of course, the election is not decided on trends. If support for Romney is dropping in North Carolina but still rising in Virginia and Florida, the election may happen before the latter two states can follow North Carolina's lead.
An Election Day snapshot doesn't care about momentum, only margins.
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