Who's Gonna Win -- Let's Do the Math

According to the Campaign Coverage Index for the week of Oct 27- Nov 2 from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, the top storyline in the media was coverage of the contest for crucial battleground states, filling 16% of the campaign newshole studied. The battle over swing states was also No.1 the previous week, but at a smaller 10% of the coverage. Yet the fight over Missouri, Ohio, and Florida is just the tip of the iceberg. When you add other strategic narratives—most notably, head-to-head polls (at 5%), candidate attacks (4%), ads, including Obama's 30-minute "infomercial," (3%) and electoral vote arithmetic (3%), attention to the horse race accounted for about one-third of last week's campaign coverage. That's up modestly over the previous week's horse race coverage and a significant jump from that of the week of Oct. 13-19. And while the media were ever vigilant for signs of a tightening race, the overarching narrative was that Obama was the clear, and possibly even overwhelming, favorite to win.