Presidential Polls Virginia: Race Too Close To Call Between Obama, Romney
A handful of key swing states are quickly becoming the most important in the 2012 presidential election, which is exactly one week away.
According to The Huffington Post's Electoral College map projection, which is based on an analysis of various nationwide and state by state polling data, shows five states in the toss up pile as of Tuesday: Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.
Those states represent a total of 73 electoral votes - a hefty sum considering each candidate needs a total of 270 electoral votes to successfully win the election. That sum would be incredibly valuable to either candidate, based on The Huffington Post's current projection, which has President Barack Obama at 259 electoral votes and Mitt Romney at 206 votes.
In Virginia, 13 electoral votes are up for grabs to the candidate who can carry the state on Nov. 6, but the race is incredibly tight.
According to The Huffington Post's data analysis, Obama is ahead in Virginia by just a hair. The president is polling at 48 percent in that state, while his Republican challenger Romney is one percentage point behind him at 47 percent.
Data from national polling firm Rasmussen tells a slightly different story.
In that poll, Romney is ahead with support from 50 percent of Virginian voters surveyed, while Obama has support from 48 percent. Of the remaining respondents included in the poll, only 1 percent of voters are still undecided about how they will cast their vote on Nov. 6.
The Rasmussen report defines Virginia as one of the closest states in the race over the last few weeks.
"Last week, Romney hit the 50 percent mark for the first time [in Virginia], while Obama earned 47% of the vote," the report said. "With the exception of last week, however, the candidates have been within two points or less of each other in every survey in Virginia since April."
