Alex Spillius is The Daily Telegraph's Washington Correspondent.

Yes Obama can – thanks to Hispanics in the West

ONE day to go. I veer between concern about cold turkey once its over and an impending sense of immense relief.

It is hard to see anything but a Barack Obama victory, and here is why. This gets a bit train-spotterish, but at this stage that is what counts.

All the Illinois senator needs to do is hold onto John Kerry's 2004 states, which would give him 252 Electoral College votes, and win 18 more for a majority of 270 in the electoral college.

Using the RealClearPolitics average of polls, his lead in all the Kerry states is above the margin of error of three to four points.

In another four states (Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada) won by George W Bush last time he also in the comfort zone.

In Virginia he is up by 3.8 and in Florida and Ohio he is up by 4.2 – 0.2 points over the margin.

In other Republican/red states in 2004 (Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana and Montana) that are now battlegrounds, his lead is below the margin of error, or McCain leads by a fraction of one percentage point. If Obama wins even half of those too, he has a landslide.

To win McCain needs to take all of Bush's states, overturning deficits well over the margin of error going into polling day.

In a couple of states, like Virginia, the late polls have tightened in McCain's favour. But other have shifted towards Obama.

A conservative estimate would give McCain all the states where Obama's lead is below the margin of error. That still has Obama winning by 278-260 in the 538-vote electoral college.

In that scenario, Obama's victory would be down to the west – Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. For all the publicity about African American support, he would have the Hispanic vote to thank.