Democrats have targeted Gordon Smith since the very first days of the cycle. Along with New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota, Oregon was part of the original list of the DSCC was determined to go after. But a disappointing recruitment process followed by primary difficulties for Jeff Merkley made Democrats anxious that they could be wasting an opportunity here — just as they seem to be doing in Maine. Well, Democrats finally got some good news from the race with the first poll to find Merkley leading the Republican incumbent:
- After two straight polls that found Smith leading by single-digits, Rasmussen released its July survey today with Merkley narrowly ahead of Smith, 43% to 41%. When leaners are included, the two candidates are tied at 46%.
Make no mistake, this will not be an easy race for Democrats. Smith has always known he has a target on his back and he has prepared himself — even airing ads linking himself to Barack Obama! Projecting as moderate an image as possible is essential for Smith given Oregon’s increasingly blue profile, but it seems that even might not be enough. Forget Susan Collins, Gordon Smith is the most at risk of being Chaffee-ed this year.
Beyond Oregon’s Senate poll, we can launch our usual poll roundup, starting with a national poll:
- The latest Reuters/Zogby poll finds Obama slightly increasing his lead. He is now ahead 47% to 40%, though he only has a 3% lead among independents.
This is now the fourth national poll in two days showing Obama with a high single-digit lead, after Quinnipiac’s 9%, the NYT’s 6% and the Washington Post’s 8%. Just as in yesterday’s Quinnipiac survey, it is striking to see Obama leading comfortably overall but not among independents. In 2008, Democratic candidates can win based on their base and on voters who have come to identify with the party since 2004, as long as they can hold roughly even among independents. I stand by what I said yesterday: This confirms to me that it is a “strategic blunder” for Obama to emphasize his centrist positions. In Rasmussen’s Oregon poll, Smith and Merkley get the same percentage of the Republican and Democratic vote respectively and Smith leads among independents by a fairly large 10% — though he trails overall!
Next comes a wave of state presidential polls:
- SUSA’s poll of North Carolina finds McCain’s lead narrowing to only five percent, 50% to 45%. Obama gets 94% of the black vote but only 31% of the white vote.
- In Oregon, Rasmussen shows Obama up 46% to 37%, a lead comparable to what he posted last month.
- In Washington, Moore Information — a Republican firm — finds Obama leading 47% to 37%.
- And California’s most reputable survey, the Field, has Obama crushing McCain 54% to 30%.
- No surprises in Kansas, finally, as McCain is up 20% in Rasmsussen’s latest poll, 52 to 32%. That’s up from a 10% lead last month.
No surprises on the Pacific Coast, with Obama holding strong in all three of these states — increasingly so in Oregon and Washington, places Democrats should always be careful in. North Carolina remains an interesting state, with poll after poll showing McCain holding on by the tightest of margins. Note that SUSA’s sample includes 19% of black voters, whereas the 2004 exit poll shows that 26% of voters were African-American (and some predict an increase in black turnout). That shift alone might allow Obama to make up the difference of the SUSA poll.
But Obama will have to improve his share of the white vote to be truly competitive in this Southern state - or in any Southern state except Virginia. Kerry got 27% of whites here four years ago, roughly what Obama got in this SUSA poll. But the good news for Democrats is that Obama does not need to come close to McCain among Southern white voters: combined with overwhelming support from black voters, a significant boost among white voters is all Obama needs to win North Carolina. If 25% of the electorate is black and Obama gets around 90% of that vote, 36% of the white vote would be enough to carry the state.
Finally, a number of down-the-ballot polls:
- In North Carolina’s Senate race, SUSA finds Elizabeth Dole jumping up to a 12% lead, up from the 4% in May.
- The state’s gubernatorial race remains a complete toss-up, with Beverly Perdue at 47% and Pat McCrory at 46%.
- In South Dakota’s Senate race, Tim Johnson has no problem as he crushes his Republican opponent 60% to 35%.
- Finally, in the Kansas Senate race, Rasmussen breaks the long series of polls finding Sen. Roberts surprisingly weak by now showing him leading Jim Slattery 57% to 30%.
The Dole-Hagan numbers continue to disappoint Democrats, though SUSA’s poll does nothing but confirm what other institutes have already shown: Hagan received a dramatic boost following her primary victory in early May, but Dole’s ad campaign since then have allowed her to create some gap again. She rebounded by 15% in one month in Rasmussen, jumped back up double-digits in Civitas and PPP.
And the Democrat’s quest to find new seats to put in play is also countered today by Rasmussen’s Kansas results; but keep in mind that Research 2000 and Cooper Associates had also found unexpectedly tight numbers. What might have changed in the past few weeks? Taking no chances, Roberts started airing his first ad two weeks ago.
I think a major reason why Obama is not leading by a larger margin with independents has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of independents who leaned Democratic became Democrats due to the primary. That’s true for me and for several of my friends and family members.
Obama is doing better than Kerry with whites - 31%vs 27% and bearing in mind he is black which will turn some poor whites off (not just in the south). So for Obama so far so good.
Also he was right to go for the Independents because they will help solidify his lead in the coming months.
Taniel - I agree the increased size of the population identifying as Dems is encouraging for Obama but staking out a few centrist positions (or reiterating them) helps ensure that Independents who now classify as Dems do not move back to Independent status and are seduced by “Maverick” McCain.
Also the attack ads Republicans would run against Obama if he was against the death penalty for child rapists and on gun rights (issues in SE Ohio, parts of Virginia etc where he wants to do well).
See, the mistake you keep making Taniel is that Oregon is not Ohio, if you get what I’m saying. The Democrats and independents that will be voting in Virginia and Colorado are not the same type of Democrats and independents that vote in California and Oregon. Obama can win Oregon with 90% of the popular vote, however if Democrats and independents in Pennsylvania don’t think he is practical enough to do what needs to be done to protect the nation, he’ll lose the Presidency. And for his supporters, that’s not an option.
Right now, Obama is cutting off potential lines of attack by McCain. While personally, I hate the FISA “compromise”, the fact is that McCain calling Obama a flip-flopper is a much less potent an attack than calling Obama weak and impractical on national security. It’s the difference between Obama possibly losing Ohio because there’ll be enough that are afraid of “t’rrists” or him winning that state and Virginia and Colorado because people see him as pragmatic enough to make hard choices, while being infinitely better than McCain on domestic issues.
Again, 90% of the Democratic vote in California and Oregon will not put him in the White House, and personally, I’ll trust him to close the domestic spying loopholes (and stop CIA torture) way before I trust McCain.
Dannity,
If Obama had bee running in Oregon, Massachusetts and California, he would be much much further to the Left than he is now or that I am asking him to be. I am not silly enough to believe that a Democrat in those states has the same priorities or opinions than a Democrat in Ohio or North Carolina, two states that are now on Obama’s list and I am thus certainly not arguing that Obama should pretend he is campaigning to be Mayor of San Francisco or go back to all the very liberal positions he took on that 1996 questionnaire.
But there are obviously gradations of progressivism, and I do think there is a huge space between where a Democrat running in California positions himself and where Obama is positioning himself when he is voting for FISA, going back on his March rhetoric on NAFTA or approving of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard being labeled a terrorist group. You are acting as if there is no such space and as if there is a black-and-white choice to be made between San Francisco values and Mountain West moderation. And, as I said, I consider the FISA bill such a capitulation to what Bush has been asking for that I refuse to view this so-called compromise as something any moderate Democrats ought to embrace.
My point is that Obama is running as if we were in 2000 or 2004, ignoring the fact that many independents now identify themselves as Democrats and are looking to vote for a Democrat. The Gore/Kerry-an move to the center is even more foolish than it was four years ago. Yes, Guy, it is important to not alienate these independent voters; but why did they move to the Democratic Party if not out of disgust for the Bush Administration? Was it then sound to embrace the FISA bill, which exemplifies Bush’s insistence on conducting a politics of fear and strengthening executive authority? Democrats muddying differences from 2000 to 2006 did not serve the party; it only strengthened the Republican talking-points that Democrats started using, making it more difficult for (1) any Democrat to win on liberal ideas and (1) for Kerry to run an issue-based campaign.
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