the math: the big sort

Here's the good news for Mitt Romney: new numbers from Tennessee and Georgia indicate that those states aren't up for grabs (as though they ever were.) That's about where it stops.

The conventional wisdom is that there are 8-10 swing states. At this point, it really looks like there are only 7, and they are all leaning towards Obama. Ohio and Virginia are approaching "likely" territory (RCP averages are 4.4 and 4.5, respectively.)

Note that Romney has to win FL, OH, NC, VA, and one of the other three (NH would get him to 270 votes, exactly, assuming that the votes from ME and NE are not split).

Right now, the electoral map looks like a near-exact repeat of 2008, with only Indiana [Ed: and Missouri] changing hands. This, along with the fact that Romney's lead in many of his safe state s in the neighborhood of 20 points, really points to how sharply regionalized our politics have become. I don't know what that means for the future, but it probably isn't good.

Anyway, if you don't like these results, you can still get different ones from opposite-land, at least for the next few weeks. 

UPDATE--I actually didn't realize exactly how much media attention Unskewed Polls is getting. Paul Constant makes a really good catch:

I think giving all this attention to Unskewed Polls is kind of dumb. The other sites advertised on Unskewed Polls—MittRomney2112, GOP 2112—are basically just click bait waiting for old people to mistype a URL. That doesn't make me believe they're very confident in their brave new polling model.

Me neither.