Obviously these are not the first polls, but it's interesting to see what the field looks like right now, even before the Republicans have figured out which candidate they want to run the country. My guess about who that would be is: it will be an old white guy! But that's hardly surprising given the Tea Party and its predilection for wanting to vote in people who look like them.
Assigning states to blue, undecided, or red is based upon wikipedia's statewide polling results. If a state has been confused, I put it as undecided. If it is consistently or nearly consistently Democrat, it's blue. If it's consistently or nearly consistently Republican, it's red. Here's what the country would do if given an election today.
That's 254 electoral votes for Obama, 92 for a Republican, and 84 votes still under debate. Note that:
1) this leaves out 108 votes from states which apparently have not been polled yet (no polling in Indiana??? How weird)
2) Obama is still almost winning just from these votes.
3) None of the confirmed states look different than the 2008 election results.
4) All of the 'undecided' states, except Florida, went for McCain in 2008.
If we assume that "2012 is going to be a repeat of 2008" and give unpolled states to the party that won them in 2008, the map looks like this.
That's 324 for Obama, 130 for Republican, and 84 for undecided. This is a map in which Obama was won, no matter which way the undecided states go.
Of course, if the election is a complete re-do of the 2008 results, then Obama wins 359 and Republican gets 179. This is a 6-vote difference from 2008 because of census-created changes in electoral vote distribution. Unlike 2000 and 2004, it looks like 6 electoral votes will not make much of a difference in 2012. Take that, Supreme Court and your ability to decide elections!
But who knows; lots of things bad or good for Obama or the Republicans could happen between now and 2012. But at current it looks like Obama's chances for re-election are pretty good.
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