McCain vs. Obama: Early General Election Matchup

CNN's "Political Ticker" has John McCain slightly ahead of Barack Obama in November's Electoral College contest.

It's great McCain's doing as well as he is, but at this point projections will help candidate strategy a bit, but won't have a whole lot of predictive power as to the eventual general election breakdown.

Congressional Quarterly's got a wrap-up of November's election trends in essay format:

Now that he’s clinched the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama can join Republican John McCain in plotting strategy to corral the 270 electoral votes needed to winthe White House this Nov. 4.

The map shows that, five months out, the two appear fairly evenly positioned — with each enjoying advantages in those areas of the nation where their parties have long dominated. Obama should be strong on the Pacific Coast and Northeast, while McCain should romp in the South and the Plains and in most of the Interior West.

If recent elections are a guide, only a limited number of states are truly competitive. As close as the 2004 election was in both the cumulative popular vote (51 percent for George W. Bush to 48 percent for John Kerry ) and in the Electoral College (Bush 286, Kerry 251), only 11 states with a total of 115 electoral votes were decided by margins of less than 5 percentage points; the last time so few electoral votes were so closely contested was the Ronald Reagan landslide of 1984.

Some of the 11 states where Bush and Kerry fought to a near-draw four years ago surely will be close again this year. These include Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are partly in the Appalachian region where Hillary Rodham Clinton dominated Obama among lower-income white voters during the primaries. But those states also have cities and wealthy suburbs where Obama should do well.

Other probable battlegrounds include Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico — all fast-growing Western states. Arizona would be on that list except that it is McCain’s turf. He’s already aired Spanish-language radio ads in Nevada and New Mexico.

Both sides are going after states they lost in 2004. Democrats are making a strong push in Virginia, where Obama crushed Clinton in the primary and where Obama made his first campaign stop last week after clinching the nomination. Current polls show a close race in a state that last voted Democratic in 1964. Republicans will be looking to wrest away Michigan, where McCain has already aired television ads and where he beat Bush in a 2000 primary.

The obvious caveat to any electoral vote projections in June: It’s sure to change. Five months ago, remember, neither McCain nor Obama was a sure bet to win his party’s nomination.

A problem for McCain? Ohio.

It turns out the he's got heavy conflict with the state's GOP, and McCain's been slow to crank-out a statewide campaign organization. Ohio was the swing state in 2004, and has been key to GOP elections throughout history, so we should see a priority for McCain on mending-fences and ramping-up. See the Los Angeles Times, "John McCain's Ohio Disconnect."

I'll have more later.