Updated for 11:00pm EST on Saturday, November 3, 2012:  *** Spoiler alert: Today Obama made substantial gains in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa while seeing his margins fall in Wisconsin and New Hampshire; Romney improved his position in Florida.  Real Clear Politics (RCP) consistently has been the "go-to" source for accurate averaged daily polling data for both FOXNEWS and NBCNEWS. With less than 49 hours to go in the 2012 presidential campaign, RCP continues to report that Obama holds increasing leads in eight of their 11 toss-up states while Romney clings to smaller and more static leads in the remaining three.  In descending order of 'percentage of lead' in favor of Obama, followed in ascending order of 'percentage of lead' in favor of Romney, here are the published averaged numbers from RCP as of 11:00pm EST together with the most recent FiveThirtyEight election night probabilities of victory for either candidate:  In WISCONSIN, with 10 electoral votes, Obama's lead has fallen to 5.0%, down from 5.4% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama a 94.2% chance of victory here, up by 0.9% from Friday and by an astounding 8.5% since Tuesday.  In PENNSYLVANIA, with 20 electoral votes, Obama's lead has risen to 4.8%, up from 4.6% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama a 96.6% chance of victory here, up by 0.5% from Friday and by a respectable 2.5% since Tuesday.  In MICHIGAN, with 16 electoral votes, Obama's lead has risen to 4.0%, up from 3.5% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama a 98.6% chance of victory here, up 0.2% from Friday and by 0.5% since Tuesday.  In OHIO, with 18 electoral votes, Obama's lead has risen to 2.9%, up from 2.6% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama an 83.8% chance of victory here, up by 3.1% from Friday and by an astonishing 10.5% since Tuesday.  In NEVADA, with 6 electoral votes, Obama's lead has risen to 2.7%, up from 2.4% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama an 88.7% chance of victory here, up by 1.5% from Friday and by an astounding 9.0% since Tuesday.  In IOWA, with 6 electoral votes, Obama's lead has risen to 2.5%, up from 2.0% on Saturday morning. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama an 80.7% chance of victory here, down interestingly by 0.9% from Friday but up overall by a substantial 6.8% since Tuesday.  In NEW HAMPSHIRE, with 4 electoral votes, Obama's lead has fallen to 1.5%, down from 1.8% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama an 80.4% chance of victory here, up by 1.7% from Friday and by an astonishing 10.1% since Tuesday.  In COLORADO, with 9 electoral votes, Obama's lead is holding at 1.0%, up from 0.9% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Obama a 67.9% chance of victory here, up by 2.2% from Friday and by an astronomical 12.5% since Tuesday.  In VIRGINIA, with 13 electoral votes, Romney's lead has fallen to 0.3%, down from 0.5% on Friday. Interestingly, FiveThirtyEight increased Obama's chance of victory here (and not Romney's) to 67.0%, up 2.2% from Friday.  In FLORIDA, with 29 electoral votes, Romney's lead has risen to 1.4%, up from 1.2% on Friday. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Romney a 54.8% chance of victory here, but this margin is actually down a stunning 9.9% from Tuesday.  It should be noted that RCP's average in Florida does appear to have been hyper-inflated by two recent outlier findings in favor of Romney, the first a 6.0% margin today from the unapologetically right-leaning Mason-Dixon Group with localized results for only the two cities of Tampa Bay (site of the 2012 RNC) and Miami (Marco Rubio stronghold), the second a 3.0% margin from Gravis Marketing, a polling firm funded in large part by BAIN Capital, and an appreciably older finding by The Sunshine State News, an ultra-conservative website/blog which had Romney leading by 5.0% on October 24. Minus the influences of these extreme outliers, Romney's true lead is likely well under 1.0% and quite possibly closer to that of dead heat. Ah, Florida....  In NORTH CAROLINA, with 15 electoral votes, Romney's lead is holding at 3.8%. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Romney a 79.6% chance of victory here, down 0.3% from Friday.  In order for Obama to win re-election the least complex route would be through maintaining his current lead in the five toss-up states where his existing margins are widest (Wisconsin at 5.0%, Pennsylvania at 4.8%, Michigan at 4.0%, Ohio at 2.9%, and Nevada at 2.7%). Doing so would bring his electoral vote total on Election Day to 271. In this scenario, Obama could still surpass 270 while failing to hold Iowa, New Hampshire, and Colorado.  However, should Obama fail to hold the strategic prize of Ohio, the loss could effectively be neutralized by any of the following combination of wins from states where FiveThirtyEight is currently forecasting Obama victories:  Path #1: Obama loses Ohio but holds the remaining three states where he presently leads, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Colorado resulting in 272 electoral votes.  Path #2: Obama loses Ohio but steals Virginia while also taking only one state from among New Hampshire, Iowa, or Colorado resulting in 270, 272, or 275 electoral votes, respectively.  Interestingly, with Romney's lead having diminished significantly in Florida over the past two weeks and with Hurricane Sandy forcefully highlighting the stark contrast between the candidates regarding the value and necessity if not the mere existence of FEMA in a state which has perhaps the greatest dependence on federal storm relief efforts in the nation, a 3rd path has now emerged which could provide for some interesting election night television:  Path #3: Obama comes from behind to win Florida. This scenario would require only that Obama win the three states in which his present leads are widest (Wisconsin at 5.0%, Pennsylvania at 4.8%, and Michigan at 4.0%), resulting in 276 electoral votes.  For Romney to unseat Obama, he not only would have to hold the three states in which he presently leads, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia bringing his electoral vote total to 248, but also steal victories in at least one of the following possible combinations from states currently leaning Obama, listed in descending order of likelihood based on the reverse engineering of current FiveThirtyEight numbers for election night chances of victory:  Path #1: 24.15% chance of Romney stealing both Ohio and Colorado, resulting in 275 electoral votes.  Path #2: 17.90% chance of Romney stealing both Ohio and New Hampshire, resulting in 270 electoral votes.  Path #3: 17.75% chance of Romney stealing both Pennsylvania and Colorado, resulting in 277 electoral votes.  Path #4: 11.50% chance of Romney stealing both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, resulting in 272 electoral votes.  Working against each of these scenarios are rising averaged polling numbers over the past two days for Obama in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Colorado; in that same forty-eight hour period, only in New Hampshire has Romney succeeded in reducing Obama's margin, and that by a slight 0.3%.  Perhaps somewhat mystifyingly, the Romney campaign continues to make pronouncements alluding to their having embraced the "Pennsylvania Strategy" included in Paths 3 and 4 above, the two paths which have the least likely chances of victory.  So, is this a bold strategic maneuver on the part of Eric Fehrnstrom or a feint designed to counter Obama's anticipated re-allocation of campaign resources to a quantifiably softening political landscape in Florida? If the latter, based on published campaign schedules for key Democrat surrogates, it doesn't appear the Obama campaign is taking the bait.  In any event, should Romney fail to steal either Ohio or Pennsylvania he could overcome this shortfall by capturing the four other states in which Obama's current leads are smallest (Colorado at 1.0%, New Hampshire at 1.5%, Iowa at 2.5%, and Nevada at 2.7%) resulting in an electoral vote total of 273.  FiveThirtyEight this morning estimates the chance of Election Day victory for each candidate as follows: Obama 83.7% (up markedly from Friday morning's 80.9%) and Romney 16.3% (down markedly from Friday's 19.1%).  FiveThirtyEight now also projects that on Election Day the final electoral tally will be as follows: Obama 305 (up 6 from Wednesday's 299) and Romney 233 (down 6 from Wednesday's 239).  Lastly, although it makes no difference in terms of the final result which can only be determined by the Electoral College, FiveThirtyEight currently predicts a national popular vote distribution on Election Day as follows: Obama 50.6% (up from Thursday's 50.4%) and Romney 48.4% (down from Thursday's 48.6%).  With less than 49 hours of campaigning to go, and with Friday's published October jobs report playing to predictably mixed reviews (economy adding more jobs than expected; unemployment rate ticking up one tenth of one percent to 7.9%), holdout voters may now be left to nothing more than the proverbial 'feel in their gut' as Tuesday approaches.  Remember to change the clocks tonight (Spring forward, Fall back), mow the yard tomorrow, and re-stock the 7-layer dip on Monday for an exhilarating night of television on Tuesday!
Wrapping a whirlwind day of campaigning, President Barack Obama joined Bill Clinton — the last Democratic president, and vocal advocate for Obama — at a massive rally Saturday evening in northern Virginia.  Before a crowd estimated at 24,000, Obama b …