Could the Presidential race be a tie?

HIGHLY UNLIKELY, but a colleague of mine in American has just sent me this:

Sen. Barack Obama’s victory in the Oregon primary last night all but mathematically ends the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. Though Hillary Clinton - her impressive win in yesterday’s Kentucky primary notwithstanding - is likely to continue her campaign, expect more Super Delegates to soon announce for Obama, thus allowing him to officially eliminate the former First Lady even before the final Montana and South Dakota primaries commence on June 3rd. Going into Oregon and Kentucky, Obama was just 109 votes from reaching the magic 2,026 number in committed delegates necessary to clinch total victory. Tonight’s results should leave him within 63 votes of that apex. With more than 200 Super Delegates alone still uncommitted, Obama should have little trouble in soon reaching presumptive nominee status.

The Illinoisan took 58% of the vote in Oregon, meaning he won approximately 30 committed delegates. Clinton scored a 65-30% win in Kentucky, but it is apparently too little, too late. Her only hope is to claim enough delegates to get inside the range where adding the sanctioned states of Michigan and Florida actually changes the outcome. With only three primaries remaining (Puerto Rico votes June 1st, in addition to Montana and South Dakota), she now has little chance of gaining the 78 committed delegate votes needed to make the penalized states count.

Turning to a general election forecast of an Obama-John McCain race, based upon the latest available public polls from each of the 50 states, McCain has a slight 249-242 Electoral Vote lead, with three places, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin (47 aggregate Electoral Votes) all rated as dead heats. Comparing the data to the 2004 presidential election map, Colorado, Iowa, and New Mexico would switch from Republican to Democrat, while New Hampshire returns to the GOP column after voting for John Kerry four years ago. It takes 270 Electoral Votes to win the Presidency. Under this scenario, should Ohio vote McCain and Michigan and Wisconsin choose Obama, the election would end in a 269-269 tie. A presumed Democratic House of Representatives would then serve as the tie-breaker (each state casting one vote) and elect Obama as the 44th President.