Obama Opens Up 6 Point Lead in Virginia McCain led 49 to 47 in the last poll done by Survey USA, at the height of his convention bounce. Obama now leads 50 to 46. The Rasmussen polls have been in line with the Survey USA polls in Virginia so far, so a Rasmussen poll will likely show the same thing when it comes out. Obama is completely obliterating McCain in the African American vote, as expected, but is also doing very well in the Hispanic vote in Virginia. It also looks like Virginia is a very pro-choice state, which is helping Obama, and the Palin pick, once it sank in to a lot of those pro-choice people, what she actually stood for, went behind Obama. Also important, because this marks the first time Obama is over 50 in the Virginia polls. The interesting thing about Virginia, is that during the convention bounce, and McCain's good periods, Obama never lost any of his vote. It was just some of those undecideds shifting to McCain, while Obama has been holding a good voting bloc consistently. This is especially good news for Obama campaign, because he tends to under poll. Throughout the primaries, he was being underestimated in the polls. This is because of his great ground game provides a big bounce, maybe 3 points on election day, that the polling isn't picking up. This number in the Democratic Primaries, was even larger. I know, I know everyone has heard the Bradley effect, blah blah blah, people lying, saying they support Obama. But Obama has een underperforming in pre-election polls. It is in the exit polls where he was overperforming. This is quite simple imo. In the exit polls, where these people are face to face with the pollster, rather with a bit of anonimity through the telephone, they are more apt to lie in person, as not to appear racist to a real person. If Obama takes Virginia, he wins the election, simple as that.
Not if McCain takes Pennsylvania. Obama had a 9 point lead at one point, now it's down to 2-3 points.
McCain's not taking Pennsylvania. Or to put it more wisely, in the grand scheme of things, McCain taking Pennsylvania won't matter much. It's not a very good tipping point state. If McCain wins Pennsylvania, he will have already won the election as part of a bigger blow out. If Obama is winning Virginia, McCain won't be winning Pennsylvania. A 3 point lead during McCain's convention bounce is a strong indication that Obama will win the state. I think it is stupid for the McCain campaign to be playing offense. Michigan and Pennsylvania are nice pipe dreams, but they aren't happening, the same way Florida isn't happening for Obama. It is quite simple, McCain has to play defensive, and play electoral math. He will have already ceded Iowa, so Obama is up to 259 EV's already. So by defensive, McCain just can only allow Obama 9 EV's. So looking at the tipping point states of Obama of Virginia, Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, those are it. It comes down to those 5 states for the McCain campaign, and it's all about playing defense from now on. They can't let go of Virginia or Ohio at all. Then they just need to hold on to 2 of the 3 Southwests states, and McCain will have victory. There's not really much more to the election than McCain playing defense in those 5 states, and Obama playing offense in those states trying to come to some combination of at least 10 EV's, preferably 11.
I'm a little confused by MSNBC's map. Is Chuck Todd high? They have Wisconsin as a toss up. He stated because Obama isn't polling above 45-46 percent....yet the 538 snapshot of the state shows Obama at 49.1. Then they have New Mexico listed as a leans Obama now. That state only has 47.4 snapshot on 538, and that is only 0.2 points ahead of McCain. With Obama's ability to move in Chicago people into Wisconsin so easily, I just can't see Wisconsin being too close.
I don't see New Mexico going to McCain either. Pennsylvania could be part of a big win for McCain, but this campaign has been pretty unorthodox so far and it's worked to their benefit for the most part, so I don't think them trying to win in PA to win the election would be a big shock.
http://www.siena.edu/level2col.aspx?menu_id=562&id=19322 Siena New York Poll: With 50 Days Left, New York Is Far From True Blue Obama’s Lead Falls to 5 Points; Down From 18 Points in JuneObama Seen As Stronger Than McCain on 4 of 6 Issues; Voters See McCain As Better Than Obama on 4 of 6 of Attributes Loudonville, NY. Seven weeks until Election Day, the race for President has tightened in New York, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) leading Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 46-41 percent among likely voters, according to a new Siena (College) Research Institute poll released today. Obama’s five point lead is down from eight points in August, 13 points in July and 18 points in June, when he led 51-33 percent. On a series of six questions concerning current issues in the campaign – economy, Iraq, terrorism, health care, America’s position in the world, and education – likely voters believe Obama will do a better job on four. Conversely, out of six attributes voters often look at in choosing a candidate – compassion, patriotism, experience, intelligence, integrity, and leadership – New York’s electorate gives the edge to McCain on four.
My biggest issue with these polls is how they target "likely" voters, when Obama has proven his ability to get "unlikely" voters to the voting booths. I'd be interested in finding out how these polls determine which voters are likely, and which are not.
Penn and NY are locks for O; this is as low as Barry can be. When McCain gets that 0.1 % lead or whatever the hell it is, then bother me.
What it means is that McCain can go on the offense and make Obama spend time and money on a state that should be a lock.
They can compare the answers with past results for accuracy. There was a big stink in 2004 about how the pollsters weren't counting the cell phone users and how they were all going to vote for Kerry. Probably better to have some science and math on your side
The most important differences worth noting. All except the CBS/New York Times survey try to decide whether individual respondents qualify as likely voters or not. Only CBS/NYT models likely voters by weighting respondents by their probability of voting. Thirteen survey organizations (ABC/Washington Post, AP-IPSOS, ARG, CBS/New York Times, Gallup, Harris, LA Times, Marist, NBC/Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac, TIPP, Time) ask vote questions of all registered voters and later apply screen questions to select likely voters. These organizations often report results for both registered and likely voters. Most of the others (Battleground, Democracy Corps, ICR, Insider Advantage, Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, and TIPP) typically define likely voters with screen questions and ask the vote question only of those who pass the screen. The Fox/Opinion Dynamics has alternated between screens for registered and likely voters. Fourteen survey organizations use some sort of self-reported measure of past voting as part of their model or screen. These include ABC Washington Post, AP-IPSOS, ARG, CBS/New York Times, Democracy Corps, FOX/Opinion Dynamics, Gallup, Harris, LA Times, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac, Rasmussen and Time. The others do not. Seven surveys (ABC/Washington Post, Gallup, LA Times, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac and Time) use models that emulate the key feature of the famous Gallup model. They aim for a specific "cut-off" percentage - a proportion of likely voters among adults that corresponds to the expected turnout among likely voters. Most of the others do not aim for a specific "cut-off" percentage. Four surveys routinely weight by party as part of their likely voter model: Battleround, Rasmussen, TIPP and ABC/Washington Post (only during October and then only partially). The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll sometimes weights by party, but on an ad hoc basis. The Insider Advantage survey will weight by self-reported party registration in states that register by party.
There was a report on Drudge a week ago that said Obama wasn't even close to predicted fundraising numbers. If I'm correct, McCain is not as far as it may seem from Obama $ wise.
Hillary will make NY a lock for Barack whenever he finally decides to guarantee her a cabinet position.
Obama's got more hard money than McCain by a long shot. McCain gets $84M of public money, Obama just raised $66M last month alone. The RNC has a huge war chest, though. If they figure out how to use it right, they can help mitigate the difference.
