The crucial battleground states number about a dozen: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Taking the polling averages used by Nate Silver in the New York Times, the president is ahead in 10 of the 12 vital states. If those polls were borne out on Election Day, Obama would coast to victory with 332 electoral college votes. Only 270 votes are needed to win the presidency.

Awarding Obama only the states in which he now leads by 3 percentage points or more in the polling averages still sees him safely home.

By that measure, as of last Friday, he would win 8 of the 12 battlegrounds, for a total of 290 electoral votes.