By the Hair of His Chinny, Chin, Chin

Is all that separates John McCain from Barach Obama. An avalanche of 27 state and 6 national polls released yesterday suggest that the race is a virtual dead heat in the popular vote and that McCain is hanging on by a thread in the Electoral College:


The table below shows the state of the race in the eight states where the candidates are separated by less than four percentage points:


I've made a few adjustments to the model over the past week or so. First, I've given the state polls equal weight with the national and correlated state polls in determining the expected distribution of the votes in each state. That is, the state polls, national polls and the correlated state polls each contribute 33.33% to the estimated value in each state. Second, where there is a state poll, I use the results from only one iteration of the model in order to derive the estimated shares in that state. If there are no state polls, I use the results from three iterations of the model in order to derive the estimated percentage shares in that state (if you have further questions, please leave a comment and I will be happy to respond).