Top map is Obama vs. McCain and the bottom Is Hillary vs McCain, the darker the shade the stronger the lead, and a white center is a statistical tie, while total white is an exact tie
This is from www.fivethirtyeight.com, differences are due to varying map algorithms
Now what this says to me is that Hillary and Obama have Varying strengths, she’s better in the Northeast and in the large states, he’s stronger in the Midwest and the West Coast, but key is getting to 270 votes, right now she has it, but its possible he’ll have it as well; a lot of states for both are still in the margin of error.
Popular vote polls aren’t much better http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html, they have the Democratic cantidates tied or leading McCain [Correction: Since I first posted this the daily Gallup for today came out with Obama 2 points behind McCain, whether this is the start of a trend or just a one day thing, remains to be seen], some have Obama polling better than Clinton against McCain, others have Clinton polling better. Problem is most are within the margin of error, with a few exceptions showing Clinton outside the margin ahead of McCain, whether those are sighns of Clinton’s strength or just outliers remains to be seen.
In the end the best Judge of who is the right choice for the party comes down to whichever polls better in the states with close senate and house races, as the cantidate with better coattails can ensure a larger majority in Congress.
Thankfully Electoral-vote has a map for that as well
From here we can see that the Dems are going to want the cantidate who can run stronger in Colorado, Alaska, North Carolina, Minnesota and Georgia, as those are the states where the races have the best chance of tipping one way or the other, and with the exception of Georgia that is Obama. He polls better in those regions with the close senate races, so his coattails and money will be more beneficial to the cantidates in those states.
