Campaign Diaries

As the election nears, we are getting an increasing number of state polls every day, and this second wave of polls today contains surveys from a large number of battleground polls - including 8 Midwestern polls from the Big Ten project sponsored by 11 universities and 3 polls from Insider Advantage. The take-away lesson is the same as yesterday - an increasing number of states are moving in the toss-up category, as blue states are trending McCain and red states and trending Obama.

Of the Big Ten’s 8 polls, only the one from Illinois is outside the margin of error. The seven others - whether from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, from traditionally red Indiana or from blue-leaning Wisconsin and Minnesota - are within the MoE. Add to that Insider Advantage’s tightening race in Georgia, tight numbers in Virginia, and the next seven weeks will be quite intense. This is in many ways good news for McCain: We are used to seeing Obama competitive in red states, but polls finding McCain within striking range in places like MN, WI and PA continue to show that Obama will have to play defense much more than he expected a few weeks ago.

Obama does get some good news as well, certainly, starting with a 10% lead in Colorado in Insider Advantage (though remember that Insider Advantage had some strange samples last week, finding Obama improbably weak among black voters) and a 10% in Oregon. The afternoon’s full roundup:

• Obama leads 48% to 44% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Michigan.

• Obama leads 46% to 45% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Ohio. Without leaners, McCain leads 43% to 42%.

• The candidates are tied at 45% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Pennsylvania.

• Obama leads 45% to 44% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Wisconsin.

• Obama leads 47% to 45% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Minnesota.

• McCain leads 47% to 43% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Indiana. Without leaners, he only leads 43% to 42%.

• The candidates are tied at 45% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Iowa.

• Obama leads 50% to 40% in an Insider Advantage poll of Colorado. He led by 3% last week. The most curious internal is the absence of gender gap, as Obama leads by 10% among men and by 13% among women (there was also no gender gap last week). Obama’s biggest gain is among Republicans.

• McCain leads 48% to 46% in an Insider Advantage poll of Virginia. Obama only gets 75% of black voters - accounting for much of that margin.

• McCain leads 51% to 43% in an Insider Advantage poll of Georgia. That’s a 10% drop since last week.

• McCain leads 54% to 43% in a Rasmussen poll of Georgia.

• Obama only leads 47% to 43% in a Strategic Vision poll of New Jersey.

• Obama leads 55% to 42% in a Rasmussen poll of New Jersey. That’s an improvement for the Democrat.

• Obama leads 47% to 42% in a Strategic Vision poll of Washington. A late July poll had Obama leading by 11%.

• Obama leads 53% to 41% in a Rasmussen poll of Connecticut.

• Obama leads 50% to 40% in a David Hibbitts poll of Oregon.

• Obama leads 53% to 37% in a Big Ten Battleground poll of Illinois.

Meanwhile, in down-ballot:

• Jeanne Shaheen leads 52% to 40% in ARG’s poll of the New Hampshire Senate race. She led by 11% in August. Her lead among independents is 24%.

• Gordon Smith leads 42% to 39% in an independent poll of the Oregon Senate race, conducted by Portland-based Davis Hibbitts & Midghall. Constitution Party’s Dave Brownlow gets 4%.

• Tom Udall leads 56% to 41% in a SUSA poll of New Mexico’s Senate race. The last SUSA poll was taken in May, had Udall leading by a wider margin.

• Saxby Chambliss leads 53% to 36% in a SUSA poll of Georgia’s Senate race. Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley gets 8%, and the cross-tabs imply he is taking more votes from Martin.

• Chambliss leads 50% to 45% in a Rasmussen poll of Georgia’s Senate race. Buckley gets 8% here again.

• In FL-24, an internal poll for the campaign of Suzanne Kosmas has her 1% away from Rep. Feeney, 43% to 42%.

The New Hampshire, Oregon and New Mexico numbers are what we expect from these races - and Democrats will be pleased that Shaheen’s lead is surviving a tough barrage of ads aired by the NRSC and by the Sununu campaign. With 7 weeks to go, she is showing little sign of vulnerability. The Georgia numbers are more interesting in that we are still trying to determine whether Jim Martin has a shot against Saxby Chambliss. Different pollsters are showing differing margins ranging from the competitive to the non-competitive range. We’ll know that we should monitor the race more closely if the DSCC gets involved.