Here's a comparison with Kerry-Bush in 2004 before the election.
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Obama Leading In Eight Battlegrounds Bush Led In Four Years Ago
By Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld - October 28, 2008, 2:10PM
Here's another way to assess the state of the race right now: We've drawn up a chart comparing the Real Clear Politics averages right now in 13 core battleground states with the RCP averages in the same states from right before the 2004 election.
The results are startling. Obama is currently leading in eight swing states that Bush led in just before Election Day 2004, in several cases by big margins, and he's leading in all of the selected battleground states except for West Virginia. Take a look:
(Use the link below to see the table. Too much trouble to format it correctly for SI.)
Obama is winning by sizable margins in Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin, all states Bush led in four years ago. He's winning by slimmer margins in Florida, Missouri, and Nevada, also states where Bush led.
Also noteworthy: In every state but one -- Wisconsin -- the RCP average just before the election was predictive of the final outcome.
And get this: Obama is also competitive, or even winning, in an additional half-dozen states that RCP didn't even bother calculating the average of four years ago. Obama is winning in Virginia and holds a slight edge in North Carolina; he's roughly tied with McCain in Indiana; and he's even within striking distance in Montana and North Dakota.
Wow.
(Ed. Note: RCP doesn't have an archive of exactly what their averages were calculated as being one week before the election, the equivalent point to where we are now. That said, the raw poll data did not significantly change for most of the individual states during that final week in 2004.)
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