TipsFocus.com

John McCain claimed early victories in Kentucky and West Virginia, while Sen. Barack Obama took vermont.

Four states have closed polling stations so far, Indiana, NorthCarolina, Ohio and Virginia, were too close to call based on initial returns, the networks said.

As expected, Obama captured Vermont and McCain won Kentucky as polls closed in about a half-dozen U.S. states, television networks projected.

More than 29 million people in 30 states have already voted, according to partial state and county data provided to The Associated Press, and that number was projected to rise to 44 million out of 137 million total votes nationally, according to estimates by Edison Media Research and George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald.

That would be an early vote of 32 percent of this year’s electorate, up from 22 percent in 2004 and 15 percent in 2000.

About a third of the American electorate was expected to vote before Election Day, largely to avoid long lines at the polls. (continue reading…)

With only a few days until the vote, Barack Obama has pulled to an eight point lead over John McCain in a tally of “traditional” likely voters in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll.

The same polling model Tuesday showed McCain within 2 points, his most encouraging news in the poll for a month. The poll now shows Obama leading 51 percent to 43 percent.

The poll would show initial reaction to Obama’s infomercial. The poll’s expanded model showed Obama moving into a nine point lead, 52 percent to 43 percent, among registered voters who told pollsters they intended to vote.

The traditional model considers registered voters who both say they intend to vote and have voted in the past as likely voters.

Now, this is a national poll, not a state by state one, and it’s a poll, and polls are what they are.

But if this is a good reflection of American voters right now, it’s not good news for a McCain camp, which is verging on being out of cash to spend on this campaign. That’s especially true as the Obama camp has seemingly limitless campaign cash.

As always, margin of error on these things is +/- 3 on the traditional, +/-2 on expanded. And while this is the poll we’ve chosen to track for an apples to apples comparison throughout the campaign, it’s only a poll.

In Pittsburgh,a 20 year old McCain campaign volunteer named Ashley Todd was recently robbed by an Obama supporting mugger.And then the attacker carved a “B” into her face.

Digital Journal:

A young woman campaigning for John McCain was recently robbed by a man who was then infuriated when he saw her McCain bumper sticker. He then carved the letter “b” (for Barack) into her face.

After telling his supporters last month to get in their neighbour’s faces, it appears that one of Barack Obama’s supporters may have taken his words, well way too far.

According to one report, the 20-year-old woman is a “campaign staffer for John McCain” from Texas. The young woman, was taking money out of an ATM in Bloomfield, a suburb of Pittsburgh, was approached and robbed by a man wielding a knife. After taking $60 from the terrified woman, it is being reported that the robber became enraged when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the woman’s car and he allegedly attacked the woman by kicking and punching her. He then took his knife and carved the letter “B” into her face.

The robber is described as a dark-skinned black man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, 200 pounds with a medium build, short black hair and brown eyes. The man was wearing dark colored jeans, a black undershirt and black shoes.

The assault happened outside of the view of the bank’s video camera system.

      A Victim of an Obama Supporter.

Pittsburgh Live has more details:

A knife-wielding man robbed a McCain-Palin campaign volunteer and etched a “B” into her face after he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the woman’s car, Pittsburgh police said.

Ashley Todd, 20, of College Station, Texas, was using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street in Bloomfield just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her, put a knife to her throat and demanded $60, police said.

Todd handed the man $60 she had in her pocket and stepped away from him, investigators said. The man then noticed the bumper sticker on the woman’s car, which was parked in front of the ATM. The man became very angry, made comments to Todd about John McCain and punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, police said.

“He continued to kick and punch her repeatedly and said he would teach her a lesson for supporting John McCain,” said police Chief Nate Harper.

The man then carved the “B” into Todd’s right cheek.

Is that a hoax?