The 2008.PRES.OBAMA Intrade contract now trades at 73, whereas the 2008.PRES.McCAIN Intrade contract is currently trading at 27 (compared with 70.1 and 29.8 respectively as reported on yesterday’s update).

The state-by-state contracts continue to imply that Mr. Obama holds a 338-185 “lead” over Mr. McCain (based upon my cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes). While North Carolina (15 Electoral College votes) remains the only state still “qualifying” as a swing state according to my criterion on contract pricing and the allocation of Electoral College votes, Indiana (11 Electoral College votes) and Missouri (11 Electoral College votes) are very close to dropping out of the McCain column and into swing state status (note that the last price for INDIANA.REP was 57, and for MISSOURI.REP it was 56, whereas INDIANA.DEM and MISSOURI.DEM last traded for 45 and 44 respectively).

FiveThirtyEight.com currently gives Mr. Obama a 346.8 to 191.2 advantage over Mr. McCain.

Addendum: October 8, 2008 Electoral College Vote allocation

Barack Obama (338): California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Florida (27), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Ohio (20), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Virginia (13), Washington (11), and Wisconsin (10)

John McCain (185): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3)