See here:
A Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll this week shows the Illinois senator leading by nine points, while a Pew Research Center survey gives him a seven-point lead. But an Investor’s Business Daily-TIPP poll shows Sen. Obama with a nearly four-point advantage. Recent polls by Rasmussen Reports and Zogby International show Sen. Obama leading by four and five points, respectively.
One Gallup poll shows the Democratic nominee’s lead has shrunk since last week, falling to six points from 10. “Clearly, the race has tightened,” says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Daily.
Gallup’s likely voter poll shows an Obama lead of only two points, well within the margin of error. The Associated Press-Yahoo! poll also shows a very tight race. I know that there are a lot of people who think that this race is as good as done, but they may be in for a big surprise.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
It's never over until it's over
olderthangandalf Saturday, October 18th at 7:10AM EST (link)You wouldn’t believe it if you read it in a novel, but McCain could turn the trend.
His biggest problem is not with the popular vote totals, though. It’s with the electoral college.
As we all know, you can have 60 percent of the popular vote, but if you don’t have 270 electoral votes, you aren’t going to be President.
Obama did a good job of building his campaign around the rule book in the Democratic primaries, and he’s done the same here. The net is that McCain is going to have to work in a lot of places to get his 270.
For starters, he needs Ohio and Florida, two big states. Right now, he can win both, as they are both effectively tossups, but it’s going to require GOTV and a strong close.
Let’s assume that he picks up North Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and Nevada, all states that a Republican ought to win, but all states where the polls are still pretty close.
So, with Ohio and Florida, and North Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and Nevada, he’s turned a lot of marginal states, but he’s not done.
He will need Virginia. Right now the Old Dominion is colored blue on the Pollster.com map, but McCain will need this traditionally Republican state. It can happen.
That gets him close – but he still has to win Colorado or New Mexico or Minnesota to get it done.
Of course, if Pennsylvania gets turned around that changes everything with a quick 21 electoral votes, but I’m not seeing at this stage how McCain loses Virginia and Colorado and carries Pennsylvania. If he carries Pennsylvania, he should easily win the election.
The way the electoral vote thing lays out, we will know soon after the east coast polls close if it will be an interesting election. If McCain loses Florida, it is over. If McCain wins Florida and Pennsylvania, he’s likely to win. If McCain wins Florida but loses Pennsylvania, the state to look to is Virginia. If he loses the Old Dominion, he can still win the popular vote but he’s unlikely to get 270 electoral votes.
It’s a lot of states where he is currently behind that he has to run.
JMac Making me Nervous
LizVBronx (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 7:42AM EST (link)Stop saying “We got them where we want them”. They got US where they want us. Fight Fight Fight!!!!
Good take on this
LibRick (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 8:20AM EST (link)In the Democratic primaries, Obama concentrated on the map, rules, and delegates. Hillary was closing at the end but Obama had already fenced her out.
In this general, the Obama campaign is doing the same thing. They feign a play on the popular vote but seem singularly focused on an electoral vote fence out. He has McCain spread pretty thin and in a money crunch.
Obama’s campaign is so disciplined. Whether you like him or not, you gotta admire his campaign.
I admire NOTHING about his campaign.
janis (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 8:37AM EST (link)He is an unprincipled liar surrounded with thuggish supporters and organizations intent on stealing the election with voter fraud.
If that’s the kind of thing you admire, well then….
It's all Virginia.
drjecdo Saturday, October 18th at 9:03AM EST (link)If McCain wins Virginia, it is going to be a close electoral college. If he loses Virginia, then it is an Obama landslide.
If McCain wins VA then OH, FL, IN, MO, WV, NC, and ND will end up for McCain. Personally, I think it comes down to Colorado, NV, and NM. That one electoral vote in ME (can divide its 4 EVs) could end up being huge if McCain wins VA and CO, but loses NV and NM.
IMO, Any state where Obama has a +4 to +9 lead is a toss-up – MN, NM, VA, CO. Any state where his lead is <4 – FL, OH, NV, MO, NC – is probably actually leaning McCain, but could go the other way if the late deciders get on the Obamedia bandwagon to a landslide.
As socialists go, his team has been strategic and competent
olderthangandalf Saturday, October 18th at 9:33AM EST (link)Philosophically, I disagree strenuously with Obama. At his core, he’s a big government socialist that would be happy with a Scandinavian style capitalistic welfare state. I’m more of a small business libertarian kind of guy who views big government as the power to destroy, so we just don’t agree on where to take the nation.
Unlike Janis, I do admire at a technical level how he has run his campaign. He makes a big strategic plan, and then executes nearly flawlessly with an eye to detail. When he makes a big mistake, he makes a quick correction, sometimes so smoothly that you barely notice what he did wrong. With all due respect to our candidate, no way McCain could have defeated a candidate as strong, as well funded, and as appealing to the party base as Hillary was in the Democratic column. He barely had it together enough to eke past a pool made up of cross dressing social liberals on one side, and big spending tax raising social conservatives on the other.
Never underestimate the opposition. In this case, don’t underestimate Obama, especially as we get to the get out the vote stage of the campaign. His team is on the ground and organized in every one of the states listed in my post, and if the GOP is not ready to go toe to toe in turnout and peer-to-peer persuasion in the last few weeks, McCain will not win. It’s not just the candidate and the message, and it’s not just outside events that change the context. It’s also the individual citizens on the ground.
There's how it ought to be...
LibRick (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 9:44AM EST (link)and how it is. An unprincipled liar with a good campaign can win over a principled candidate with a bad campaign. The job of a political campaign is to win in the real arena of politics, not what ought to be. They are selling a product.
It is in that sense that I think the Obama campaign is admirable because it’s doing what it needs to win. That’s their job and they are doing it well. It doesn’t make it right but then right is not their job. They are hired to win.
Were it not for the MSM who covers for Obama and Slow Joe,
janis (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 10:09AM EST (link)then many of the faux pas that have marked the O campaign would have been all over the news. The fact that people think the Obama campaign has been technically wonderful may be overlooking this factor.
The Obama campaign blundered pretty badly by doing what it did to Sarah Palin and now to Joe as well. Kind of tone-deaf, don’t you think?
I get your point...
I actually always thought you guys were arrogant pinheads. Saturday, October 18th at 10:14AM EST (link)and the planning and competence of Obamas campaign is undeniable
Agree, the EC is the problem
paint_it_red (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 10:55AM EST (link)But I take heart in three factors:
One, momentum is swinging in McCain’s favor. Obama is fretting his money in states, that from an EC perspective, are a waste of time and he probably won’t win anyway (NC, GA, IN, WV, MT). McCain is a strong finisher and Obama a weak closer.
Two, there is the Bradley effect. I am convinced that there is going to be an exemplification of it of Obama since Obama and his supporters have relentlessly played the race card. In conversations with Obama supporters, they seem astonished that I have reasons for opposing him other than race and his foreign nature. They seem so convinced McCain supporters are bigots, because that’s what Obama continues to condone, and even allude to himself, that McCain is doing. Folks who say they like Obama are not necessarily saying so because they really do. Some of those are going to vote for McCain.
Three, there are two types of polls. There are the partisan/unreliable polls such as expanded polls and then there are the reputable ones. If you don’t include in the RCP average (found here) the unreliable ones – such as the NYT, LA Times, and expanded polls rather than traditional, this is a 4 point race, not a 6 point race. The Yahoo poll cited in the original post shows it even closer. But, these same averages that are used to distort the national difference between the two as plus 6, or in VA as plus 10, are also going to distort the state polling in many swing states.
In conclusion, McCain still has some work to do, but he should be able to get there if he finishes strong.
“It is not good to cultivate a respect so much for the law as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right.” Henry David Thoreau
“The means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“If you want peace, work for Justice.” Pope John Paul II
Welcome to the NFL
olderthangandalf Saturday, October 18th at 3:25PM EST (link)I have to disagree with you on Palin. I don’t think she has hurt Obama; I think she may be what gets him elected.
A lot of the worst stuff that happened to Palin (for example, the blogosphere exploding with speculation that Trig wasn’t really her child) was perpetrated by actual and probable Obama supporters but not by the Obama campaign. It will be remembered in years to come as one of the tackiest explosions of poor behavior in American electoral history, but it’s not really fair to lay it on Obama himself. Of course, I also think it’s unfair to lay it on McCain if some nutjob holding a tacky sign shows up among the 5,000 people at one of his rallies, and the MSM seems to think I’m wrong on that one.
Even if the bloggers deserve to be sued, it is perfectly appropriate for the opposition and the press to hold a candidate for high office to account for their beliefs and to question vigorously their readiness for the job. We do that daily here about Obama, and he only is in the race today because millions of people turned out to vote for him. Palin didn’t stand for any election to get the VP nomination, and it’s perfectly appropriate before the election that counts that her competence and experience be thoroughly examined.
In fairness, she’s actually been pretty much handled with kid gloves by the Obama campaign itself. You can search Nexis for a long time and not find much emanating from the campaign that’s critical of Palin, and Biden was definitely hands off in his debate. There are two reasons for that – first, I think they figured there was little upside in being perceived as being mean to her especially in light of the blogosphere’s excesses, and second, I think they figured that the press from the National Enquirer to the New York Times had done a pretty thorough job of digging into her.
I reject the notion that the press should not have given her thorough scrutiny (by this, I don’t mean to say that the slime about her personal life was appropriate; I do mean to say that digging into Troopergate and her level of knowledge and her style of managing were all fair topics). In fact, I think they ought to be screaming bloody murder that she still hasn’t given a public press conference, which is remarkable for a VP candidate who could easily be our President very soon. Bottom line is that the health and safety of my children may depend on whether she really is ready for the job, and there is no reason not to make her show she’s ready before we place their future in her hands.
Of course, I’m not the Palin fan that some here are. I’m an overeducated Episcopalian financial conservative who prefers obtaining his meat from the butcher. I think McCain probably erred in picking her because she still scares me when I think of her in the White House; if she’s really ready for the job, they’ve certainly erred in rolling her out in a way that has raised beaucoup questions about her. Given the way she got rolled out, with the painful Couric interview and all, I think she has badly hurt the ticket with everyone except the social conservative part of the base. In fact, I think some of the Obama bounce that has been attributed the economic crisis was actually Palin related as independents and social moderates got turned off and/or worried by her.
As for Joe the Plumber, I’m not sure we will be talking about him next week. We may be talking about Obama as a socialist – which is fair, because that’s basically what his core beliefs lead you to – but I’m not Joe W will be the bridge into that topic.
Pejman, you old naysayer... you surprise me...
Crowe (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 3:31PM EST (link)This is possibly the most positive thing I’ve seen you write about McCain’s chances of winning… and this when he’s down, no less. Usually you’re one of the first I would look to for bad news when things were going well for McCain!
I like this version!
“We sleep soundly in our beds only because
rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harmDear Leader Obama gives us leave to do so.”trends
Michael DeWeese (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 4:04PM EST (link)Rasmussen Trend Line
Date McCain Obama Spread
10/18/2008 45% 50% Obama +5
10/17/2008 46% 50% Obama +4
10/16/2008 46% 50% Obama +4
10/15/2008 45% 50% Obama +5
10/14/2008 45% 50% Obama +5
10/13/2008 45% 50% Obama +5
10/12/2008 45% 51% Obama +6
10/11/2008 45% 52% Obama +7
10/10/2008 45% 50% Obama +5
10/09/2008 45% 50% Obama +5
10/08/2008 45% 51% Obama +6
10/07/2008 44% 52% Obama +8
10/06/2008 44% 52% Obama +8
10/05/2008 44% 51% Obama +7
10/04/2008 45% 51% Obama +6
This would indicate that over a 11 day period from 10-7 to 10-17 that the trend of the movement for voters was towards McCain by 4 points. At this rate, McCain would be ahead of Obama by 2 points on 11-4.
Brain Dead Republican
Palin is fine
bigfoot (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 4:06PM EST (link)Gotta disagree completely with you about your Palin comments.
Don’t believe she hurt the campaign at all. Her selection has the conservatives, at least most, very fired up.
Lastly, she has the core beliefs that will help her as Vice President and/or President. Reagan relied on his conservative principles to guide him.
And, I for one, will take that any day over Gaffe A Day Biden and his 268 years of senate experience.
“To believe in nothing is to believe in everything. To believe in everything is to believe in nothing”
For many of us right now, PALIN IS THE BEST WE'VE GOT.
Rod_Patrick (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 4:32PM EST (link)Romney, Thompson, Guiliani, etc., despite their VERY GOOD credentials and experience, do not have the right ingredient to electrify the base and give the people. If they do, why didn’t they win in the primaries and inspire people?
Leadership also requires charisma.
By the way, Palin has a natural knack for leadership and has a common sense.
She has fired up some of the base
olderthangandalf Saturday, October 18th at 4:34PM EST (link)No doubt about it. There are areas in the country where turnout will be much greater thanks to her, and there may be people in Congress next spring that will owe it to her.
From looking at some of the polling crosstabs, I think that is offset to some hard to measure degree by independents and non-social conservatives who aren’t wild about her, but some of those people might change their minds.
In terms of conservative beliefs, I believe that she is a rock ribbed social conservative.
I’m not so sure that she’s a fiscal conservative – not saying she isn’t, just saying that her spending in Wasilla doesn’t reassure me, that her handling of the Alaska budget doesn’t tell much given the abundance of oil money, and some of her offhand comments about wildly expensive programs she thinks would be good make me wonder.
Of course, I wasn’t persuaded that Mike Huckabee was a fiscal conservative, and, to me, she has a lot philosophically in common with Governor Huckabee.
Palin is the most energizing VP pick since . . .
JSobieski (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 4:52PM EST (link)before I was born.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
What do you figure about Nancy Pfotenauer
olderthangandalf Saturday, October 18th at 4:54PM EST (link)She goes on MSNBC and says northern Virginia is not “real Virginia.” Northern Virginia is all suburban, so maybe it’s not real anything, but it’s about a third of the state’s voters. It also has trended bluer and bluer in recent elections.
She wasn’t misquoted, and she declined an offer to take it back.
I’m figuring it’s a calculated turn out thing, not an accident. People in western and southern Virginia get pretty tired of watching the state’s better colleges fill up with kids from the suburban high schools while theirs get turned down, and they also get pretty tired of all the attention paid to the suburban areas. It might turn them out to think McCain thinks what they know, which is that real Virginia lies somewhere outside the collar counties around DC. Meanwhile, the folks in the burbs maybe are either already set to vote Democratic, don’t care, or agree that where they grew up is, in fact, the real Virginia.
It is an interestingly provocative comment to make in a crucial swing state.
If McCain had picked Rudy....
MrSandman (Diary) Saturday, October 18th at 5:00PM EST (link)we would be ahead in all the polls right now.
The Palin pick offended as many as it pleased.
Maybe workable in a different year, against a different candidate, but not now.
McCain’s blatant attempt at pacifying the fringes of the GOP party are blowing up in his face. He should have reinforced his reputation as a maverick and told the fringe to go pack sand. Rudy would have brought in enormous numbers of GOP and Ind voters who are now either going to sit out or vote Dem.
“Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this Administration.”
— Republican Senator Jim DeMint
No.
Rod_Patrick (Diary) Saturday, October 25th at 3:00AM EST (link)They would attack Guiliani just like Sarah Palin. They would raise all the dirty linen of Guiliani in public. The public’s perception of Guiliani would also be tarnished and you would be talking about another candidate to replace Guiliani. Why? Because NO ONE IS PERFECT.
In short, you missed the point.
My advice to you: Stop being influenced by the liberal rhetoric.