Realclearpolitics has the average lead at 8.0 and Pollster.com has the average lead at 9.0, The lead has grown steadily in the last few days. Obama’s vote is at its highest ever and the lead is the widest ever.
There is evidence that the McCain-Palin ticket is fraying under the pressure:
Even as John McCain and Sarah Palin scramble to close the gap in the final days of the 2008 election, stirrings of a Palin insurgency are complicating the campaign’s already-tense internal dynamics.
Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain’s camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain’s decline.
Update: Another interesting way of assessing the strength of Obama’s position is to compare it with John Kerry at the same time 4 years ago. The Electoral Vote Predictor site allows you to do that. For instance, at the same time last campaign Kerry was projected to be winning 247 electoral college votes (ecv), whereas Obama today is projected to be winning 375 ecv on the basis of polls in each state. That’s a long way ahead given that Kerry only lost by about 20 ecv. More interestingly, 10 days out last time only 84 of those ecv were coming from states classified as ’strong democrat’ according to the latest polling. Today, Obama is drawing 260 evs from ’strong democrat’ states.
