Campaign Diaries

Today’s state poll roundup makes it clear why we can say that Obama is in such a strong position in the electoral college race. First, he looks to have locked away the blue states: Three weeks ago, Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania were all in dead heats. Today, most surveys from these states are finding Obama leading in double-digits, or at least high single-digits. Today’s Strategic Vision survey is, incredibly enough, the fifth consecutive poll to have Obama leading by at least 12%! And Rasmussen finds Obama leading by 16% in the Wolverine State, once an incredibly vulnerable state for the Illinois Senator.

Yes, an ARG poll finds Obama’s lead within the MoE in Minnesota, and as I have said before this is the one state in which Obama is not gaining (and the one state McCain is outspending him) - but he does appear to be keeping the lead, as Rasmussen and MPR’s polls suggested yesterday.

It is not surprising to see Obama surge by more in those states than in others: Michigan and Pennsylvania are both blue-leaning states, and the Illinois Senator was weak in them because he was significantly underperforming among registered Democrats. The financial crisis has first and foremost gotten Democrats to vote Democratic, and the effect of that is most felt in blue states.

With blue states quickly getting out of reach, it becomes that much more important for McCain to hold on to every single red state but IA and NM. And this is where his position today is interesting, as some polls show McCain has stopped the bleeding: And perhaps most importantly, he climbs back within the MoE (though still trails) in the new Rasmussen surveys of NC and FL and he jumps to a 7% lead in a Rasmussen poll of Indiana, the best polling news he has gotten in a while (perhaps the product of the RNC finally getting involved and convincing cross-over Republicans to stick with the GOP).

But threats are popping up everywhere for McCain. The Democrat surges to an 8% lead in Virginia today; the state looks to be increasingly leaning Obama at this point, as two polls released earlier this week had him up by double digits. He also grabs a 5% advantage in a Civitas poll of NC, while ARG shows Ohio OH his way. Obama even leads by 8% in West Virginia, and while that poll could very well be an outlier (it is, after all, released by ARG), the other surveys released by ARG today have trendlines that are very similar to those of other polls.

Let’s recap: Obama has some sort of lead today - within or outside of the MoE - in Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and West Virginia. McCain needs to win every single one of these states, and Colorado, and Nevada, and Missouri… It is no surprise, then, that McCain is trying to change the national dynamics. To pull off a sweep of all these states, he cannot rely on his ground game or on luck. He will need to tighten the national numbers. On to the day’s full roundup:

• Obama maintains his dominant position in the tracking polls, especially now that Hotline (which yesterday was mysteriously showing a 1% race) today has Obama leading 47% to 41%. This confirms that Hotline is the most bouncy of the five trackings. Obama leads 52% to 41% in Gallup, 51% to 41% in Research 2000, 50% to 45% in Rasmussen (-1%), 48% to 44% in Zogby (+2%).

• Obama leads 51% to 43% in a PPP poll of Virginia. He led by 3% three weeks ago.

• Obama leads 54% to 40% in a Strategic Vision poll of Pennsylvania. He led by only one in mid-September, but this trend corresponds to that found by most other pollsters.

• Obama leads 56% to 40% in a Rasmussen poll of Michigan. Obama led by 7% three weeks ago.

• Obama leads 50% to 47% in a Rasmussen poll of Florida. He led by 7% in a Rasmussen poll released on Monday - but he trailed by 5% ten days ago.

• Obama leads 48% to 43% in a Civitas poll of North Carolina. The race was tied three weeks ago.

• Obama leads 49% to 48% in a Rasmussen poll of North Carolina. He led by 3% last week.

• McCain leads 50% to 43% in a Rasmussen poll of Indiana. He led by 2% last month. This is one of the best polling results McCain has gotten for a while.

• Obama leads 48% to 45% in an ARG poll of Ohio. He trailed by 6% in mid-September. This survey, like the other ARG polls, was taken both before and after the second presidential debate.

• Obama leads 47% to 46% in an ARG poll of Minnesota. A mid-September survey found the same margin.

• Obama leads 52% to 43% in an ARG poll of New Hampshire. McCain led by 3% in mid-September.

• McCain leads 49% to 46% in an ARG poll of Missouri. He led by 5% in mid-September.

• Obama leads 50% to 42% in an ARG poll of West Virginia. He trailed by 4% in mid-September.

• McCain leads 50% to 45% in an ARG poll of Montana. He led by 2% in mid-September.

• Obama leads 50% to 42% in a Rasmussen poll of New Jersey. He led by 13% last month.

• McCain leads 50% to 43% in a Strategic Vision poll of Georgia.

• McCain leads 57% to 38% in an ARG poll of Texas.

Meanwhile, in down the ballot:

• Al Franken leads 43% to 37% in a Rasmussen poll of Minnesota’s Senate race. Barkley gets 17%.

• Mark Begich leads 49% to 45% in an Ivan Moore poll of Alaska’s Senate race. He led by 2% three weeks ago.

• Saxby Chambliss leads 47% to 44% in a Strategic Vision poll of Georgia’s Senate race.

• Jeanne Shaheen leads 51% to 42% in an ARG poll of New Hampshire’s Senate race.

• Mitch McConnell leads 47% to 38% in an internal poll released by his campaign in Kentucky’s Senate race. The previous McConnell poll had him leading by 17%, so even his pollster finds the race tightening.

• Pat McCrory leads 43% to 41% in a Civitas poll of North Carolina’s gubernatorial race.

• In NY-29, Eric Massa leads GOP Rep. Kuhl 49% to 42% in a Research 2000 poll. This is the third poll in a row (including an independent poll by SUSA) to find the Democrat with a significant lead in this rematch of the 2006 race.

• In MN-03, Democrat Ashwin Madia leads 46% to 43% in a SUSA poll. Last month, Paulsen led by 3%.

• In AK-AL, Ethan Berkowitz leads leads 51% to 42% in an Ivan Moore poll. He led by 5% three weeks ago.

• In PA-10, Rep. Carney leads 48% to 33% in a Franklin & Marshall independent poll, confirming the finding of other recent surveys.

• In PA-11, Rep. Kanjorski leads 47% to 39% in a DCCC poll of PA-11. Public polls and Republicans polls have Kanjorski trailing by substantial margins.

• In MI-09, Gary Peters leads GOP Rep. Knollenberg 43% to 40% in an internal poll for the Peters campaign.

• In NY-25, Dan Maffei leads 49% to 31% against Republican Sweetland in an internal Democratic poll.

Senate: The best news of the day surely comes for Democrats, who keep their edge in New Hampshire, gain one in Minnesota while yet another survey confirms that Chambliss is vulnerable (the DSCC has still not invested in the state). But Republicans should take comfort in Ivan Moore’s poll from Alaska: Ted Stevens might be trailing, but Mark Begich has not been able to build any sort of comfortable lead over the past few months. That makes it likely that an acquittal would save this seat for Republicans, and given how openly the prosecution is disrespecting the defense’s rights in this trial, Stevens could very well survive the trial - and the election.

House: Democrats get a lot of good news in this wave of surveys. Some of it comes from internal numbers to be taken with a grain of salt (as long as DCCC numbers in PA-11 are at odds with any other poll we are seeing, it is hard to give Kanjorski the benefit of the doubt), others come from independent pollsters. AK-AL, in particular, appears to be anchoring itself in the blue column - and Young will be hard-pressed to benefit from any bounce from a Stevens acquittal. And NY-29 does seem to be drifitng towards Massa, as three polls in a row have found the Democratic challenger ahead outside of the margin of error. The DCCC hasn’t spent any money on this race yet, but this race might soon be added to the lean takeover category.