If you follow the Presidential Polls on a daily or even weekly basis it seems as though the race between Barack Obama and John McCain is fairly close.
But is that really the case ?
Larry Sabato for one doesn’t think so:
Except for a few days when the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls showed a tie, Barack Obama has led John McCain in every national poll in the past two months. Obama’s average margin has consistently been in the 4-6 point range during this time. By contrast, the polls in 2000 and 2004 showed much more variation over time. State polling results have also consistently given Obama the advantage. According to realclearpolitics.com, Obama is currently leading in 26 states and the District of Columbia with a total of 322 electoral votes; McCain is currently leading in 24 states with a total of 216 electoral votes. Obama is leading in every state carried by John Kerry in 2004 along with six states carried by George Bush: Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada and Colorado. A seventh Bush state, Virginia, is tied.
Obama is leading in 11 of the 12 swing states that were decided by a margin of five points or less in 2004 including five of the six that were carried by George Bush. And while Obama has a comfortable lead in every state that John Kerry won by a margin of more than five points in 2004, McCain is in a difficult battle in a number of states that Bush carried by a margin of more than five points including such solidly red states as Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, and North Carolina.
And remember these June and July polls may well understate Obama’s eventual margin. Ronald Reagan did not capitalize on the huge structural advantage Republicans enjoyed in 1980 until after the party conventions and presidential debate. It took a while and a sufficient level of comfort with the challenger for anti-Carter votes to translate into support for Reagan. If Obama’s performance over the last eighteen months is any guide, a similar pattern could unfold in 2008.
Aside from the horserace results, there is evidence of a growing Democratic party advantage in the electorate. A recent analysis by Rhodes Cook of voter registration data in 29 states and the District of Columbia that permit registration by party shows that since November of 2004, Democratic registration has increased by almost 700,000 while Republican registration has declined by almost one million.
One could argue that we’re already seeing evidence of that in polls that show Republican Senate candidates in states such as Virginia, Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Minnesota either losing outright or facing a tough fight against their Democratic opponents. It seems only logical to conclude that a strong Democratic downticket will have an impact on the Presidential race — and I don’t buy into the theory that all those Mark Warner voters in Virginia will suddenly turn around and vote for John McCain in November.
Justin Gardner cites the Sabato article and asks:
[I]s this election really that close?
It will be hard to tell until after the Party Conventions, but I think there are signs out there that things are far worse for the McCain campaign than the tracking poll numbers would have you believe. He’s already fighting for his life in traditionally blue red states like Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, South Dakota, and Montana. If he’s going to have any chance of winning the election, he’ll have to hold on to all of those states and pick up two out of three out of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. So far, at least, he’s behind in two of those states — Pennsylvania, where Obama has a five point lead in the latest Rasmussen poll, and Florida, where the two candidates are tied after a long period where McCain enjoyed a significant lead.
Based on that, there seem to be more scenarios for an Obama victory in the Electoral College on the scale of Bill Clinton’s in 1996 or even George H.W. Bush’s in 1988 than there are for a McCain victory; and any McCain victory in November is likely to be as close as the past two elections have been rather than being a blowout.
Right now, I think the most realistic scenario has Obama winning with something in the range of 295 Electoral Votes, but I could easily see that changing quickly come September and the Democrats walking away with at least 360 Electoral Votes.
If McCain wins, I doubt he’ll get even as many Electoral Votes as Bush got in 2004.
What about you ?
July 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Doug,
We agree, this election won’t even be close. McCain’s only hope is to make the election about Obama because well, no one likes McCain.
The problem for McCain is that when the election becomes about his opponent, McCain can’t make the arguement for himself.
Plus, Obama got another major boost this week on the foreign policy arena with for all intents and purposes, the Iraqi government embraced his plan for Iraq.
If Sam Nunn is the Democratic VP candidate and he’s currently a front runner for the job, it seals McCain’s fate.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
The Post shows McCain gaining:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/24/ST2008072401398.html
Notice also that Mark Warner keeps his distance from Obama. Just in case Obama turns into the albatross, maybe?
July 24th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Election 2008: Electric Boogaloo
July 25th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I think you meant to say “red” states.
In any event, this is the biggest sign to me that McCain has problems. And hey, maybe he can turn it around, but if he has to actually pour money into states Bush didn’t have to in 2004, Obama might be able to easily swoop into more traditional swing states and run the table…especially with the resources he’ll be able to collect post-convention.
Good post. Thanks for the link!
July 25th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Justin
You’re right of course.
On another note, I seem to have a nagging memory in the back of my head of the elections in 1980 and 1984 when Republican wins were represented in blue and Democratic wins in red.
I don’t remember when the change happened.
July 25th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 20 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
July 25th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
With all due respect, NPV is a bad idea for reasons I’ve written about here:
http://tinyurl.com/57fukt
If you want to reform the Electoral College, here’s the way to do it:
http://tinyurl.com/46abra
July 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
There’s a reason for the election polls looking closer than the reality on the ground: the pre-Internet worldview of political pundits and the people running polling companies. Look at the process instead of the results. Pollsters assume that everybody has a wired “home phone” on the Plain Old Telephone System.
Duh.
All those young Obama voters aren’t reachable on “home phones.” They use cell phones almost exclusively. Many don’t have wired phones at all. A growing number of people’s home phones are Internet phone services — Vonage, Comcast etc. None of these are listed in the “white pages.” So pollsters are only calling people who answer listed numbers supplied by the “phone company.”
Expect lots of egg-on-pundit-faces in November.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:05 am
[...] I’ve noted before, Obama is polling fairly well in Indiana, which has gone Republican in every election since 1968 and, with the exception of LBJ’s [...]