Obama 74.4% chance of winning, Romney 25.6%

Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight and the NYT keeps showing Obama with an increasing chance of winning the election.  Obama’s chances versus Romney’s are currently 74.4% to 25.6%.

[W]e may be approaching the point where the state polls will have to be systematically biased toward Mr. Obama in order for Mr. Romney to have strong chances of prevailing on Election Day.

 

Nate’s graph shows Obama’s chances steadily improving since October 13/14.
It’s interesting to note that Nate and HuffPost say the race is virtually tied, in terms of votes, but not according to electoral votes.  And if you look at HuffPo’s electoral map, you can see why.  At this point, Romney has to win more than is likely in order to pull it off – meaning, he has to win ever state where he has strong support (191 electoral votes), every state that leans his way (15), every tossup state (55), and he’d still be 9 electoral votes short of winning.

That’s not to say it’s impossible, but a lot has to go Romney’s way for him to win.
Politico’s Mike Allen is saying that this could be the closest race in our lifetimes:

 If you’re a political junkie, enjoy it, soak it in: In our lifetimes, there may never be another  race that looks this close for the final two weekends.

The Huffington Post also has an interesting piece up about how Hurricane Sandy might affect the election (in case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s a massive storm heading to the East Coast that’s freaking everyone over here out). The head of Gallup is worried that the storm might make it difficult to correctly poll people who live out east.

Newport, appearing on MSNBC’s “Jansing & Co.,” responded to a question from Chris Jansing about the potential impact of the storm on Gallup’s polling by saying, “It affects us, because if a sizable hunk of the country can’t communicate — power’s out or they’re disrupted — then that can affect our national estimate. So you’re right, we might have to stop polling for the days when the storm hits, unfortunately.”

I also wonder how the storm might impede any early voting, and also it will steal the news cycle away from the candidates – though not entirely.  The President will have to weigh in, and possible tour the area – that could help or hurt depending on whether it’s seen as empathetic or opportunistic.  As for Mr. Romney, expect him to be holding lots of press conferences in people’s flooded interviews announcing that he’s there to help.