Even with the addition of the Albuquerque Journal to its John McCain column, Editor and Publisher online is predicting Barack Obama will win in a landslide victory, based on E&P’s tally of daily newspaper endorsements and a prediction system that factors in the circulation numbers of each paper.

E&P number cruncher/election result diviner Greg Mitchell says:

Before you laugh too hard, consider this: In 2004, I did the same thing in this space — and picked 14 of the 15 tight races correctly. Only missed on Florida (still waiting for that recount).

As of Monday, E&P says:

The Democratic team now leads by 273 to 142, a nearly 2-1 margin and an even wider spread in the circulation of those papers. … The circulation of the Obama-backing papers stands at over 21 million, compared with McCain’s 7 million.

McCain has slightly closed the gap with editorials from smaller papers arriving this past weekend. But he lost Newsday in New York and the Tucson Daily Star in his home state.

Tellingly:

Well over 50 papers have now switched to Obama from Bush in 2004, with less than half a dozen flipping to McCain. The latest: the daily in Dick Cheney’s hometown of Casper, Wyoming and the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. In addition, several top papers that went for Bush in 2004 have now chosen not to endorse this year, the latest being the Indianapolis Star in key swing state Indiana.

The Chicago Tribune endorsed Obama — the first Democrat that it has backed in its long history. Three of the top five dailies in deep red state Texas switched from Bush to Obama this time.

Mitchell also predicts Obama will take 11 of 13 battleground states, losing in West Virginia and possibly in Virginia, though he doesn’t seem certain about the latter.

He says New Mexico is pretty much a toss-up, although his list as of Monday was incomplete, listing six New Mexico dailies at 3-3: the Albuquerque Journal, Silver City Daily Press and Roswell Daily Record for McCain, and the Santa Fe New Mexican, Las Cruces Sun-News and Farmington Daily Times for Obama.

The Los Alamos Monitor and Taos News have also endorsed Obama.