This is simply what a state by state map would look like (roughly) if Obama really led nationally by the 5% RCP average (roughly). I would ignore it. The EC map doesn’t really matter one way or the other unless the national race was within 1.5-2% or so. If a candidate is leading by more than 2 percent nationally, it is a virtual certainty that he will also be leading in enough states to get to 270 EVs, even if you don’t know what specific states.
What you should focus on is who these pollsters are polling and are these people actually representative of likely voters. Virtually all of the pollsters are assuming that Democrats are going to have a huge and historically unprecedented turnout advantage over Republicans on election day — as much as 7-10 points or more in some polls I’ve seen recently. This is badly skewing the RCP average towards Obama, both in national polls and the state by state polls.
But in actual elections, no party has had more than a 4 point advantage in turnout in any Presidential election since 1988. Did you think that the 2006 mid-year election was horrible for the GOP? It was. You know what advantage Democrats had over Repbulicans in that election? 3 percent. That’s right, 3 percent. 37 to 34. Not 10 percent, not even 5 percent. In 2004, the highest turnout election ever in a Presidential election, neither party had any advantage in turnout. In 2000, the Democrats had a 4 point advantage — but Gore defeated Bush nationally by only 0.5% (and, of course, barely lost in the Electoral College — note that this margin is < 1.5%, but I already mentioned this earlier).
Very well said and I agree 110%