Battleground: Virginia

In an election where each candidate has to fight for every electoral vote, Election 2008 promises to be a close, down-to-the-wire race for the White House. According to the Washington Post, here's how things stand as of now:

According to their data, 168 of the 538 total electoral votes are leaning toward Sen. Barack Obama, and 174 votes lean towards Sen. John McCain. That leaves 196 swing votes up for grabs. In percentages, Obama has secured 31.2% of votes and McCain has 32.3% of votes. At this point, 50.2% of the votes are relatively undecided, leaving the race open for either candidate to take. Yet both are still a ways away.

The winnning cadidate must have at least 270 electoral votes (a simple majority of 50.2%) to secure the presidency. That means McCain needs 96 more and Obama needs 102. Of course, opinions change day to day, and this information needs to be taken with a grain of salt. This is by no means official, but it is an interesting look at how close the election is.

In this highly contested race, Virginia seems to be the state du jour. Although most recent polls show that Obama has the lead, it's only a lead of 0.5% (Obama: 48.0%, McCain: 47.5%). If he does manage to take the state, he will be the first Democrat to do so since 1964 (when Former President Lyndon Johnson won) and only the second since 1952 (when candidate Adlai Stevenson won the state, but lost the presidency to Dwight Eisenhower).

Obama won the Democratic Primary there in February 64% to Clinton's 35% and Edwards's 1%. McCain also won the Republican primary but by a smaller margin (50% to Huckabee's 41% and Paul's 5%). It's safe to say the Virginia is still anybody's state.

Additional Links:
1. The LA Times recently ran a story on this highly-contested race in Virginia.
2. Full breakdown of Virginia voting here.
3. State-by-state analysis of the presidential race in all states on Washington Post's interactive map.