The Electoral Map
Posted on September 29th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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I have to agree for the most part with Gregory Cochran against Dan McCarthy on the questions of Obama’s chances in the Electoral College and trends in the polls. National and state polls have tended to go in the same direction with each shift in the campaign, and the state polls have followed the changes in the national tracking results. Cochran is right that Obama’s margin in the national polls points to Democratic success. In mid-summer, many swing state polls showed an Obama surge consistent with his national polling lead, and during late August and early September the state polls showed the reverse as McCain leap-frogged ahead of Obama on account of Palin enthusiasm. Ever since 9/15 when the markets tanked after Lehman’s bankruptcy, Obama has been steadily advancing in national and state polling, and Friday’s debate changed nothing here. McCain-leaning states have started reverting to toss-up status, and existing toss-up and weak Obama states have trended towards Obama. Just a few weeks ago, McCain had an outright lead in RCP Electoral College projections without toss-up states; today he trails by 65 votes. There are today fewer reliable McCain-leaning states and more toss-up states that are running away from him, which makes it McCain’s tough hill to climb to reach 270. His imploding running mate and his chaotic campaigning style do not bode well for the next five weeks. Unless we assume that Obama has to have a five or six-point lead before Election Day to compensate for a Bradley Effect problem in his polling, Obama is in a comfortable position right now.
Dan is correct that most of the toss-up states vote Republican more often, and the toss-up status of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota remain worrisome for the Democrats, but I would point to a few states where movement towards Obama is significant and offers a clue to what will happen in a little over a month from now. Colorado has not voted for a Democrat for President since 1992, but it has been more or less solidly in Obama’s column all year. The state has been trending Democratic for several years, which is also reflected by the strong Mark Udall Senate campaign. New Mexico and Missouri are bellwether states. More than other states, they have voted for the winner; New Mexico matches the popular vote percentages with rather eerie regularity. Right now Missouri is trending away from McCain after many months in his column, and New Mexico has been leaning Democratic for months. I assumed that the significant presence of military personnel, veterans and Hispanics, plus being a neighboring state, would make New Mexico favorable territory for a military veteran and pro-immigration Arizonan Senator, but it has not been happening.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are all traditionally Democratic states in recent presidential elections, and despite Obama’s relative weakness in rural and small-town Pennsylvania these states are very likely to come back to the Democratic nominee just as traditionally “red” states such as Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia are going to come back to McCain. Colorado and New Mexico are going to prove to be decisive, as Obama must have them if he cannot win Ohio and Florida (and it is my estimation that he cannot), and McCain bizarrely seems unable to gain sufficient traction in these Southwestern states. All that Obama needs to win is to hold the Kerry states and keep his leads in Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico. That seems the most likely scenario.
If you assign toss-up states to the candidates where they are leading by some small margin, Obama enjoys a commanding lead of 301-237. Had the financial crisis not struck two weeks ago, things might have been very different, but that is where things are.
Filed under: politics
I think you’re right about North Carolina. It seems unlikely to me that Obama can win there. But I wouldn’t be so sure about either Indiana or Virginia. VA has recently been polling about as strongly for Obama as Colorado. People undersestimate exactly how far VA has moved toward the Democrats, and Mark Warner’s candidacy can’t hurt in the slightest.
As for Indiana, I think the polling there is highly suspect due mostly to the vast difference in ground games for the two campaigns. If McCain continuest to take Indiana for granted, he could be in for a very rude awakening. I think Ann Selzer’s the bellwether here. If she’s right in her assumptions about youth and minority turnout being higher than expected, her Obama +3 result in IN could be prescient. Remember how well Obama closed against Clinton there too.
Is it really so “bizarre” that McCain can’t gain traction in Colorado and New Mexico, when Latinos have turned against the GOP candidate by huge margins?
http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2008/08/consolidating-the-hispanic-vote/?section=Analysis
When the GOP nominee is McCain, who is at least nominally from the Southwest, yes, I do find it bizarre. I suppose I should take it as confirmation of my argument that even the most pro-immigration Republicans will not get that much support from these voters, but I am surprised by how few inroads he has made.
You say: Unless we assume that Obama has to have a five or six-point lead before Election Day to compensate for a Bradley Effect problem in his polling, Obama is in a comfortable position right now.
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I suspect that at least on this occasion, the “Bradley effect” will not be measurable, at least in the elctoral colleges.
It’s one thing for Deukmejian to pull an upset in a relatively short campaign in which racial animus could be both concentrated and to some extent, embarrassing. It’s quite another to believe that in an extended and highly polarising campaign that has been more or less non-stop since the mid terms, Bradley voters wouldn’t have found politically acceptable reasons to defect.
Polls suggest something like 11% of voters think Obama is some sort of Muslim “manchurian candidate”. In the past 6 months we have seen PUMA, ‘bittergate’, Reverend Wright, Rezko, and Michelle Obama’s “I’m finally proud to be American” remarks. If this doesn’t all appeal to Bradley voters, it’s hard to imagine what would. Throw in the fact that McCain is running, to some extent, against the Republicans, trades on being a war hero, and has an Alaskan Annie Oakley as a deputy, and you have to think those Bradley voters are already in the red column in the polls.
It might even be that the current perceptions of crisis on Wall Street encourage at least some Bradley voters to set aside their prejudice and head to the Democratic candidate, who consistently rates higher on the economy. There’s a famous Simpsons’ episode in which Homer sets aside his homophobia after being rescued by a homosexual. It may well be that Bradley voters come to see Obama this way.
On this reasoning, Obama’s polling looks more like a floor rather than a ceiling, and when you throw in their GOTV effort and the underpolling of cellphone only voters, the electoral map, even in relatively safe states like Kentucky does look ominous for the Republicans. I read that McCain is down from a 20 point to only a ten point lead in Kentucky and now trailing in North Carolina. Significantly, Obama has picked up support in Kentucky amongst “white men”.
It’s hard to imagine someone of McCain’s temperament will react coolly to these atmospherics if they haven’t changed in 2 weeks time.
With Palin now looking to be dragging him down, another dose of Katiue Couric and her due to go to air before Thursday’s debate, you do wonder where the McCain campaign can fight back.