If you look at the nine...

...battleground states on Intrade, you'll notice that Governor Romney is leading narrowly in Colorado (9 electoral votes) and Virginia (13), and comfortably in Florida (29) and North Carolina (15). President Obama, on the other hand, is leading comfortably in the other five: Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18) and Wisconsin (10). What's more, this has been the case for a couple of weeks now.

The election is only eighteen days away. Barring any unforeseen events overseas or domestically, and if the third debate is essentially a draw, the president should win the election with 281 electoral votes to 257 for Romney.