Battleground: So many polls out there...
Posted: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 9:21 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
States
New LA Times/Bloomberg polls show Obama ahead among likely voters by seven in Florida (50%-43%) and by nine in Ohio (49%-40%).
New Quinnipiac polls show McCain gaining ground in Florida (Obama ahead 47%-45%, down from 49%-44%), but maintaining big leads in Ohio (51%-42%) and Pennsylvania (53%-41%).
And the AP is out with a slew of state polls. "The polling shows Obama holding solid leads in Ohio (7 percentage points), Nevada (12 points), Colorado (9) and Virginia (7), all red states won by Bush that collectively offer 47 electoral votes. Sweeping those four — or putting together the right combination of two or three — would almost certainly make Obama president."
Also: "In addition, Obama is tied with McCain in North Carolina and Florida, according to the AP-GfK polling, two vote-rich states Bush carried in 2004. Obama is throwing his time and money into the Sunshine State, which has 27 votes, part of a strategy to create many routes to victory and push toward a landslide of 300 or more electoral votes. North Carolina has 15 votes."
The Washington Post runs the maybe-the-polls-are-wrong story.
ARIZONA: There’s another Arizona poll showing a dead heat. "With less than a week until Election Day, McCain is leading his Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, by 2 points, 46 to 44, down from a 7-point lead a month ago and a double-digit lead this summer, according to a poll from Arizona State University."
COLORADO: Michelle Obama's visit to GOP stronghold Colorado Springs this week emphasizes the Obama sampling of the game plan successfully employed by Colorado's Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and Sen. Ken Salazar. "Both Democrats made a point of visiting every one of the state's 64 counties and had a basic campaign blueprint: run up the winning margins in Democratic bastions like Denver, edge out their Republican rivals in critical counties, such as Adams and Jefferson, minimize losses in GOP strongholds such as El Paso County and the Western Slope, and hold their own in Arapahoe County, as well as in rural areas."
FLORIDA: Gov. Charlie Crist extended early voting hours. "Hoping to relieve overburdened early polling sites -- while trying to entice even more voters to cast ballots before Election Day -- Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday ordered the state's 67 supervisors of elections to extend hours at the polls," the Miami Herald reports.
INDIANA: Obama leads 48%-47% (within the four-point margin of error) in a South Bend Tribune/WSBT-TV poll out yesterday.
NEVADA: Today's update from Jon Ralston's must-read flash report: "The numbers in Washoe County continue to amaze: It's 51-33, Democrats, in early voting - 48-36 when mail ballots are added. A 12-percentage point lead in Washoe County? Add the Washoe and Clark numbers together and here's what you have: D - 52 percent, R-32 percent, Others-16 percent. Unless "Others" is having a love affair with John McCain, kiss Nevada goodbye, GOP."
NEW HAMPSHIRE: "Less than a week before Election Day, polls show McCain struggling -- even here, in the state that first fell in love with him nearly a decade ago and twice rescued his presidential ambitions from oblivion," the Boston Globe writes. "Exasperated and fearing a Democratic landslide, Republicans across the country have lashed out at McCain's campaign as too timid or too erratic. In New Hampshire, there is some discontent, too. A top campaign official publicly objected when the national campaign made phone calls attacking Democrat Barack Obama in the state, and former governor and longtime McCain supporter Walter Peterson said he fears the campaign's top brass has alienated too many New Hampshire independents by catering to social conservatives."
Obama holds a 54%-39% in New Hampshire, a Boston Globe/University of New Hampshire poll finds. "Financial distress has clearly driven voters from McCain to Obama, who was trailing his Republican rival by 2 percentage points in September -- a 17-point swing in just one month. Nearly half of those surveyed cited the economy and jobs as their top concerns, and they overwhelmingly saw Obama as the candidate best equipped to address them." Though, we've seen those New Hampshire polls before...
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign says the Republican nominee will visit the Granite State at least one more time in the next five days.
NORTH CAROLINA: Who's toxic now? The Atlantic’s Ambinder noticed the conspicuous absence from McCain's recent rally of a Republican senator who's fighting for her political life.
PENNSYLVANIA: Read the press clippings today and you'd think the numbers in the Keystone State have closed dramatically. But have they? The Boston Globe: "It is the one reliably ‘blue’ state where McCain, the Republican nominee, believes he has a shot, as he looks to compensate for the unknown number of ‘red’ states that may slip from his grasp. Obama's advisers point out that almost every public poll over the last month shows Obama with a double-digit lead; if that holds, it would give the Illinois senator a far larger margin of victory than Al Gore or Senator John F. Kerry had in Pennsylvania in the last two elections.”
“Still, Obama's repeated visits here - he held rallies in Chester, outside Philadelphia, yesterday, and in Pittsburgh the night before - suggest that his campaign is worried enough about the state, which he lost handily in the primary to Senator Hillary Clinton, to maintain a major presence this close to Election Day."
