New Numbers: Colorado Most Important for Obama

I know that this blog is dedicated to looking at the Colorado Senate race, but Nate over at FiveThirtyEight has just reported on a veritable tsunami of new polling that is too pressing to ignore and certainly effects, and is affected by, Colorado. While just yesterday Nate's projection model had Obama winning the Electoral College only 45% of the time, in light of the flurry of recent polling his projection has swung to find Obama winning the election 61.2% of the time. Check it out here.

There is much that is noteworthy for Coloradans. One likely overstated poll indicates that Obama holds a 10 point lead in Colorado (another shows a smaller margin of +1). In either case, it certainly speaks to Colorado's swing-tasticness (for the past week or so McCain has had a lead of +2). Nate argues Colorado's importance in the event of a popular/electoral split:

Colorado remains the best bet; it's projecting eight-tenths of a point better than Obama's national numbers. What that means is that, theoretically at least, Obama would still be expected to have a winning elecotral map if he lost the popular vote by 0.8 points. That is why Colorado is so essential; it is the state most likely to be involved in a split result between the popular vote and the Electoral College.

Needless to say, Colorado is on political stratigists maps for good (though I guess if they didn't have Colorado on their maps initially they might want to get better made maps...).