Veteran political forecaster Larry Sabato released his final projections for the 2012 election Monday, predicting a solid win for President Barack Obama in the electoral college.

The forecast shows a significant last-minute bump for Obama in the final days of the campaign — just last Thursday, Sabato had deemed the race too close to call. The bump, which Sabato attributes to Hurricane Sandy and Friday's not-disastrous jobs numbers, has given Obama an edge in several key battleground states, putting him on track to win 290 electoral college votes — well beyond the 270 he needs to win re-election, but still nowhere close to a landslide.

According to Sabato, four states — Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Colorado — have moved from "toss-up" to "leans Obama" over the past five days. Combined with Ohio, which Sabato has had in Obama's column since September, those states give the president a soft cushion in the electoral map. Even if Romney manages to win Florida and Virginia (which Sabato has moved to "leans Republican"), he still comes up short with just 248 electoral votes.

Here's Sabato's new map:

Going down the ballot, Sabato forecasts that Democrats will keep control of the Senate, 53 to 47, with the final tossup races, Arizona and Wisconsin, moving to "leans Republican" and "leans Democratic," respectively. He also projects that Republicans will maintain a majority in the House of Representatives, 239 to 196, with Democrats picking up three seats.

If Sabato is correct, the upshot is that after two years and more than a billion dollars spent on campaigning, the 2012 elections will have changed next to nothing — a Sisyphean outcome that isn't likely to improve the public's perception of Washington or the American political process.