Indiana's 11 electoral votes

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann
*** A shift towards Obama: As the slew of recent national and state polls suggest, our new map reflects a shift in Obama's direction. Four new states have been added to our Toss-up category: three red states (Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina) and one blue state (Pennsylvania). This gives Obama a 212-174 edge, after his more narrow 233-227 lead last week. What's interesting about these shifts is that while Obama is showing an improvement in fast-growing states (CO, FL, NV, NC, VA), he can't seem to put away the Northern tier states of slow-growing states (MI, PA, WI) or make progress in what some believe is still the all-important state of OH. BTW, how is it that, nationally, Obama's numbers are going up but he's struggling in big states like MI, PA and OH? Is this about Obama's inability to make the sale with older white voters? If he can change the electorates in these Southern and Western states, he can afford to lose two of those three industrial states, but it puts more pressure on him to win two of the following three: FL, NC and VA.

Likely Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (157 electoral votes)
Lean Obama: IA, MN, NJ, NM OR, WA (55 votes)
Toss-up: CO, FL, IN, MI, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI (152 votes)
Lean McCain: MO, MT (14 votes)
Likely McCain: AL, AK, AZ, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY (160 votes)

*** Hoosier toss-up: The most surprising move in our map is Indiana, a state that no one believed was a new battleground -- even when Obama's team was first laying out its 25-30 state strategy. Indiana, in fact, is probably the surprise of the cycle. It's a state that probably is somewhere BETWEEN Lean McCain and Toss-up, but because the state's poll numbers look more like a Toss-up state than a Lean McCain state, we're tipping it into the Toss-up category for now, especially since the RNC has decided to ad the state to its TV buy list.