Obama leads in every state that Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry won four years ago, which gives him a base of 252 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win.
Obama also has leads in five states Bush won: Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Were he to win all of those on Tuesday, he would claim the presidency with 291 electoral votes.
What about the toss states – Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida – which account for 87 votes? If Obama wins one or two of those, he will have over 300 electoral votes.