>I say supposedly, because although polls now show NC leaning to the Republican side, unless some huge blunder occurs (and it would have to be so huge as to sway even diehards), I think that Obama will take NC, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, and Wisconsin on November 6th. The popular vote may go the other way some of those states, but the electoral will go Obama.

your link to www.fivethirtyeight.com fits my personal view/estimates really well, esp. the granular view of states
leaning to a candidate as percentage of winning probabilty. I see the swing states result mostly as a function of
undecided voters switching to one camp, and more swing states falling into a specific camp
as the general trend moves the watershed line, which is the closest race state among those states lined up
along the probability dimension/scale.

On that scale NC is one of the swing states to fall most likely/earliest to Romney: do you think NC is placed at a false point
on that scale or that Obama will win by that great a margin ? In my view of things, the most likely swing states to fall to
Romney are (order desc) NC, Va, Co, NH, Nev - Fl somewhere in between (one of the states I feel fluctuate too much for
good take from overseas) and Oh being the one probably most decisive for winning the presidency in case it really is a close race on election day (fits with their tipping state and ROI calc) - which I think will not happen, as I said playing Cassandra last month.

regards

thomas