Decision ‘08

A Peek At The Early Polling

You would expect Obama to be the frontrunner in this campaign, and you would expect he would get a bump from winning the Democratic nomination after so much hoopla…and you’d be right. Still, the early polling would seem to support my contention that this election is not going to the cakewalk some Obama supporters think it will be.

Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll has had Obama at about +6 for several days now, and a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Survey is right in line with that. In a perhaps ominous sign for McCain, however, 54% think Obama will win, while only 30% say the same about McCain - meaning a big chunk of McCain supporters are going into the election expecting defeat…

3 Responses to “A Peek At The Early Polling”

1 Ryan Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
All that said, if this is durable - and there’s no reason to expect it won’t change throughout the rest of the year - it would be sort of a blowout. The margins in 1980 and 1988 were about 8 points, and we don’t consider those particularly close elections. If Obama wins by 6, chances are he’s well over 300 electoral votes. Again, I believe these numbers will change, but 6 is a big margin.
2 Chris J. Breisch Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Early Make-or-break battleground states:

Michigan (17): Democrat last 4 elections, McCain currently leads by 4 pts.
Indiana (11): Republican last 4 elections, currently tied.
Ohio (20): Picked winner in last 4 elections, Obama by 1.
Missouri (11): Picked winner in last 4 elections, Obama by 1.
Pennsylvania (21): Democrat last 4 elections, Obama by 5 (this state likely goes Obama–I only include it because of his blue collar worker issues and his bitter/cling faux pas–If Obama somehow loses this state, he loses the election, possibly by a big margin)
Iowa (7):Picked Winner in 3 of last 4 (had Gore in 2000), Obama by 9. (this state likely goes Obama–I only include it because GWB did take this in 2004 and would be a loss for McCain in 2008 that would need to be compensated by a pickup elsewhere)
Virginia (13): Republican last 4 elections, currently tied.
Florida (27): Picked Winner in last 3 elections, McCain by 10. (this state likely goes McCain–I only include it because of it’s recent history as a battleground state–If McCain somehow loses this state, he loses the election, possibly by a big margin)
Colorado (9): Republican last 3 elections, Obama by 6.
New Mexico (5): Picked Winner in 3 of last 4 (had Gore in 2000), Obama by 4.

Colorado and New Mexico don’t carry much weight but are symbolic to McCain’s problems. These states, especially Colorado, should be colored in red. The fact that they aren’t shows how weak Republicans are in general.

There are scenarios where Connecticut and New Hampshire get thrown into the battleground mix, but that doesn’t seem likely, and would be bad news for Obama.

So, 141 EV’s out of the 270 needed to win are up for grab right there. Over half.

Currently: McCain 44, Obama 73, Tied: 24
If we look at the rest of the map and use 2000 and 2004 as the base, we get:
McCain 183, Obama 210.

(if my math is off somewhere, I apologize–doing most of this in my head)

McCain is giving Obama a 27 EV headstart in the base and is currently losing the battlegrounds. Not good. McCain needs to win both the states that are currently tied (IN, VA), and flip either OH or MO (currently down by 1 in each). Obama just needs nothing to change. I think it’s likely that he does flip OH, unless Republicans stay home (and given Republican corruption in that state the last 4 years, that’s a very real possibility).

VA and IN look to be huge for McCain. I honestly don’t know who’s going to win either of these states (and I live in one of them), and predict that we won’t know the answers until Nov. 4. Obama can win without either, although everything has to go perfectly for him. McCain can win with one of them if everything goes perfectly, but realistically needs both. He can’t win without picking up at least one.

As an aside, the mere fact that IN is a battleground also shows McCain’s troubles. GWB got 60% of the vote here in 2004.

In the end, I think that the 5 states we’ll be talking about right up until election day are IN, VA, OH, MI, and MO. MI really should be blue. The fact that it isn’t shows that Obama does have some chinks in his armor. If either candidate can pick up some momentum in these 5 states and take any of them off the battleground list, it is really bad news for the other camp.
3 dch Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
People its June, in a down year for Republicans and after 6 months of fawning new coverage Obama only has a 6 percent lead. Once he starts getting really hammered for his political positions, comments and associations lets see what the numbers are then.