President Obama continues to cement his hold on crucial swing states while paring down Republican challenger Mitt Romney's lead in the national polls.
A New England College poll in New Hampshire gives Obama a 6-point lead over Romney, 50 percent to 44 percent.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll there gives him a smaller 2-point lead, 49 percent to 47 percent.
A Gravis poll in Iowa also has Obama leading, by a full 4 points, 49 percent to 45 percent.
An NBC/WSJ/Marist poll in the same state concurs, giving Obama a whopping 6-point lead. However, a Rasmussen poll in Iowa gives the lead to Romney by a single point.
In Colorado, two polls show mixed results. A CNN/ORC poll there shows Obama leading by 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent.
But a Rasmussen poll in Colorado has Romney leading by 3 points.
Obama also continues to lead in polls in Wisconsin and Nevada.
For several weeks it seemed as though Romney might win the popular vote but still lose the Electoral College, as Al Gore did in 2000, when his loss in Florida secured the presidency for George W. Bush.
But the last few days have seen Obama surge in the national polls, closing the gap with Romney, and in some surveys, taking back the lead.
With the election in four days, Obama seems poised to win reelection.
He has finally wrested back the RealClearPolitics national poll average from Romney. It now stands at just 0.3 percent in Obama's favor.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight predicts an 81 percent chance that Obama will take the Electoral College, and therefore, the presidency.
It boils down to Ohio.
Obama has consistently been ahead in Ohio, even after his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate. Every poll save one or two has shown Obama at least tied, and usually ahead, there.
And if Obama takes Ohio, then Romney would need to cobble together enough electoral votes from the remaining states, moat of which, as I mentioned above, are also trending towards Obama.
At this point, a Romney victory requires a huge push in Ohio, one that would cause a change of heart or turnout that nothing else has yet accomplished.
Of course, polls are simply predictions, and predictions can be wrong. There is still a 20 percent chance that Romney will buck the trend and take Ohio, or enough other swing states to reach 270 electoral votes.
The prediction market Intrade actually gives Romney a better than 30 percent chance to win.
So while the odds are certainly in Obama's favor, nothing is set in stone until Tuesday.
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