We know McCain mostly pulled his resources out of Michigan, and Ambinder now reports that Obama staffers there are heading to other states like Indiana and North Carolina (and not, it should be noted, to Ohio).

But are Republicans giving up on Wisconsin as well? Wispolitics reports that the RNC's independent expenditure arm is going dark in the state for the first time:

Sources at Wisconsin TV stations in Eau Claire, Green Bay and Milwaukee said the RNC's latest buy ended Tuesday and no new purchases had been made for the week of Oct. 15-21. McCain's campaign has TV buys in Wisconsin at least through Sunday.

A source at a Green Bay station said the RNC didn't have anything running statewide for the next week. The group had been booking air time from week to week, but the RNC hasn't indicated if it will return to the air after the week of Oct. 15-21, the source said.

One Milwaukee station source said he had expected an RNC buy and said he was "shocked" that it hadn't reserved time for the rest of this week.

The latest Q-poll shows Obama up 54-37 in the state. And although McCain and Palin just spent a bunch of their time on a multi-day swing through Wisconsin just a week ago, no visits from either party's candidate have been scheduled since.

Last night I mentioned Survey USA's Georgia early voting numbers that show Barack Obama with a 6% lead among those who've already voted (while McCain is ahead by 8%.) Nate Silver brings us all 5 states where SUSA has some early vote numbers and the results are rather stunning.

NM: Obama +23 (statewide: Obama +7)
OH: Obama +18 (statewide: Obama +5)
GA: Obama +6 (statewide: McCain +8)
IA: Obama +34 (statewide: Obama +13)
NC: Obama +34 (statewide: McCain +3)

As Nate says:

...Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.

Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it's not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry. In the past, early voters have also tended to be older than the voting population as a whole and more male than the population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama or most other Democrats.

But no other Democrat has had a turnout operation like Barack does and no other Democrat has excited the youth and African-Americans the way Barack does. For just one indication of the enthusiasm driving this early vote, check out this dispatch from early voting in Georgia yesterday:

Just cast an early vote in Cobb County. Only took one hour, forty-five minutes -- exactly three weeks before Election Day.

A long line folded itself three times in a relatively hot October sun, shortly before lunch-time. Perhaps a dozen people couldn't stick it out -- they left before getting to the front of the line.

Every one of those who gave up the effort was white. Once in, not a single African-American walked away while I was there. If voter fatigue becomes a factor over the next three weeks, and on Election Day itself, one has to wonder if Republicans are more likely to lose out than Democrats.

And while Nate is right, of course, to point out that "it's unlikely that John McCain is actually losing all that many persuadable voters to the early voter tallies," I still maintain that every vote that McCain doesn't bank before election day, is one vote that is less likely to actually vote on election day. If this thing looks on Nov. 3rd to be a blowout for Obama, who do you think is more likely to stay home on the 4th?

Here are today's numbers:

Today's other polls look like this:

• Battleground tracker (.pdf): Obama 51/McCain 43 among likely voters
• Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg: Obama 50/McCain 41 among likely voters
• CBS News/New York Times (.pdf): Obama 53/McCain 39 among likely voters
• Pew: Obama 49/McCain 42 among likely voters
• Ipsos-McClatchy: Obama 48/McCain 39 among registered voters

Looking across all of these surveys, Obama polls at or near 50 percent (48 percent to 53 percent) and McCain performs at or near the low-40s (38 percent to 46 percent). There will likely be one more round of polling today reaching voters who have not yet viewed the debate, but the numbers above give a fairly good baseline to where the race stands heading into the debate -- a solid national advantage for Obama that McCain will have to whittle away at quickly if he has any hopes of winning the presidency.

Enjoy.

• Highway 61: I'm a milk drinking, whatever-happens-to-be-running-this-week driving, NASCAR watching, salmon eating, progressive populist liberal, and I Cast My First Presidential Ballot For Barack Obama.
• California, OCT 17: Mormons to deliver Prop 8 letters, petition to LDS Church HQ.
• Republicans vote each other off a sinking island in dirtyhippie's The Corner: My Favorite New Reality Show.
• More nervous Bush Republicans spotted by andrewalker08: With Sagging Poll Numbers, Chambliss To "Define" Martin.
• Go walking with atdleft and CA-46: In the Neighborhood.
• On the 6th Anniversary of the IWR, Vets Speak Out for Merkley. (Sarah Lane)
• Jmorton has your Fundamentally Strong Cocktails and Wa-Mu Martinis in Debate Party McLiar Bingo - Now with Randomizer!
• More of the good fight in Dracomicron's Red to Blue (MN-6th): Tinklenberg competitive vs. Bachmann.
• Even John McCain Wouldn't Vote for John McCain. (sricki)
• Touring the West as America's RN Union "Drives for Healthcare"--Day 2, it Gets Emotional. (California Nurses Shum)
• Tarheel74 takes on the mantra "Obama will raise your taxes".

In my last post I noted the overall disparity between the advertising efforts on behalf of Barack Obama and John McCain. Over at The Fix, Chris Cillizza goes a step further and breaks down spending by state, which I have reproduced below. Note that although independent expenditures by the Republican National Committee don't bring the same bang for the buck as candidate ads they are included in the total for McCain. Note, too, that the chart is arranged slightly differently than Cillizza's original, with the states arranged by the percentage difference in ad spending between Obama and McCain (plus the RNC) the week of October 7-13.

The first thing that jumps out from these numbers is that McCain and the RNC, combined, are outspending the Obama campaign in a single state -- and even there it appears from Cillizza's chart that the Obama campaign is outspending the McCain campaign. In nearly half of the states, Obama is at least doubling the ad budget of the Republicans.

But beyond that, look at the map. There are about twice as many states in play right now as there were at the same time four years ago -- and this list doesn't even include Nebraska's second congressional district, which it appears the Obama campaign is targeting, or West Virginia, which Obama is already hitting with his Virginia and Pennsylvania ads. Close to three-quarters of Obama's ad expenditures in this range are in states that George W. Bush carried just four years ago. This is exactly why folks in the netroots had been clamoring for a candidate to opt out of the public financing program in the general election -- so that Democrats aren't forced into the box of chasing after the single path to 270 but rather are on the offensive and put the GOP on its heels.

Chris Cillizza has the numbers, and they're shocking:

Reports obtained by The Fix detailing spending by the two campaigns as well as the Republican National Committee show that Obama dropped more than $32 million on television in 17 battleground states between Oct. 7 and Oct. 13 -- an increase of $12 million over what he spent between Sept. 30 and Oct. 6.

During that same time period, McCain spent approximately $10 million on ads in 14 states (the Arizona senator is not on television in Indiana, Michigan or Montana) while the RNC's independent expenditure effort disbursed $6 million more in eight states.

Jeanne Cummings, who has her own article on the disparities between the expenditures between the two campaigns for The Politico, passes on a choice quote from the top political ad-watcher in the country:

"Obama is spending $3.5 million a day on television ads," said Evan Tracey, CMAG's chief operating officer. "If he does that through Election Day, it will be more than McCain got from the government for his entire general election campaign."

So the Obama campaign is far outspending the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee -- combined -- on advertisements, by a 2-to-1 margin in fact. But this spread actually underestimates the difference in the number of ads. Why? As Marc Ambinder explains, not only do the independent expenditures by the party committees figuratively offer less bang for the buck -- they can't be coordinated with the campaign, and are thus less effective -- they literally do as well.

But comparing IE spending and campaign spending is like comparing fermions and bosons. IE committee don't get the preferred rate; campaigns do. So the Obama campaign, by consolidating spending, gets more bang for its buck.

Moving beyond the overall numbers, which show the Obama campaign running at least twice as many ads as the McCain campaign and RNC put together, the individual differences are just as remarkable. First Read reports this morning that while the Obama and the Republicans are at near parity in advertisements in smaller markets ("like a Green Bay or a Youngstown"), in larger markets the gap between the two is immense. Just how immense. In the Washington, DC market, which is key to hitting Northern Virginia (as well as parts of West Virginia, presumably), according to the Cummings article cited above, the Obama campaign ran 1,342 television spots during the first three weeks of September compared to the eight spots the McCain campaign ran on broadcast networks in the media market during the same period. No, not 800 spots, eight.

These numbers are shocking and haven't been seen in in at least a generation. They're also thanks to we, in no small part, the small dollar base of the Democratic Party. Keep it up.

Remarkable, that the Democrats are going to go another cycle without losing a single seat in the US Senate. The Rothenberg analysis looks pretty solid:

Likely or Lean for a Democratic takeaway: VA, NM, NC, OR, AK, NH, and CO. A 7 seat gain, which is just phenomenal. A number of these face tough GOP candidates, so take nothing for granted, but it sure sounds sweet.

MN is ranked as the sole toss-up. This seems a real wild race, with the 3rd party candidate, Barkley, now gaining in the polls. He's at 18% in two recent polls, and Franken has lead in recent polling by single-digits. That would get us to 8.

Only in the "Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party" column, does a Democrat come up, Mary Landrieu in LA, but there's no recent indication that she's in danger. The three Republicans here, Chambliss (R-GA), McConnell (R-KY), Wicker (R-MS), could all three be takeaways. Musgrove could win on the special MS ballot, beating Chambliss would be sweet justice, and nailing McConnell to get to 60 is possible too.

Then there's the last column, "Currently Safe" seats:

ID Open (Craig, R)
NE Open (Hagel, R)
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)

I'm holding out hope for at least one of these Republicans to be defeated, so is the Senate Guru:

Pollster.com lists Georgia as one of only two states (with Montana) that qualify as "Lean Republican." The others are either solid red, toss-up or are some shade of blue. Looking at the Georgia polls over the past few months, it's actually been pretty consistently a single digit race (the Pollster trend estimate has McCain up by 7), which is pretty remarkable given that Bush won Georgia by 17 points just 4 years ago.

The latest poll out of the state is from Survey USA, which shows McCain up by 8, a net gain of 3 points for Obama since the last week of September.

One thing to look out for in Georgia is the early voting, which started there on September 22. Ben Smith is reporting that as of Tuesday, just about 500,000 voters have cast ballots early or absentee, which is 75,000 more than voted early in all of 2004. Another stunning figure: 37% of them are African-Americans, a group that makes up 29% of the population and a group that Survey USA estimates will make up 26% of the electorate. Are we seeing yet another under-estimation of African-American turnout? Not that it will be above 30% necessarily, but one suspects that it might reach their proportion of the population, as PPP is estimating it will in North Carolina. As for who's winning the early voting in SUSA's poll, it really should come as no surprise:

Early and absentee voting began in Georgia on 09/22/08. Among the 18% of Georgia voters who tell SurveyUSA they have already voted, Obama leads by 6 points; among those who have not yet voted, McCain leads by 11.

Obama is banking votes at a record pace and the further behind McCain gets nationwide, the less motivated McCain supporters will be to even show up on Nov. 4th, let alone before. Georgia could turn out to be a sleeper.

It also is home to one of the more intriguing senate races of the cycle. Most estimates consider Democrats to be fairly likely to win 8 seats for a 59 seat total in the Senate with Lieberman (Nate Silver's model gives it a better than 40% chance) and by the look of things, Jim Martin in Georgia may be poised to be the 60th.

One recent poll has Martin tied with Saxby Chambliss and the SUSA poll that had McCain up 8 has Chambliss up just 3. In an interesting sign of some Obama coattails, Jim Martin is winning those who have already voted by 4 points, while Chambliss is winning those who've yet to vote by 4 points. Although, since Martin is outperforming Obama in the state, here's hoping Martin helps Obama as much as Obama helps him.

A few more signs of real momentum in Jim Martin's direction:

• The DSCC has bought $500,000 in ad time for Martin
• Take a look at what Charlie Cook has to say about the race (h/t Brownsox):

  We moved Georgia to Lean Republican last week (see October 9 Update), but what we are hearing from political insiders familiar with the state leads us to move it over to Toss Up today.

• And the largest newspaper in Georgia, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, has endorsed Martin. They begin their endorsement:

  n his almost six years in the U.S. Senate, Saxby Chambliss has built a reputation as a loyal defender of President Bush and his policies and as a champion of corporate interests.

  The people of Georgia now have to decide whether that's the senator they want for the next six years as well.

  And conclude:

  [Jim Martin] is what he seems like, a smart guy who wants to help his fellow Georgians and doesn't care who gets the credit. [...]

  Overall...the best candidate is Martin. In what look to be six difficult years ahead, he would do well for the people of Georgia.

Help Jim Martin continue to build on his momentum over at ActBlue.