Campaign Diaries

The stage heading into the third and last presidential debate could not be more clear: polling results have been stable for much of the past two weeks, as Obama has seized a commanding position at the national level and at the state level. While McCain does get the occasional good news (if leads within the MoE in Missouri and West Virginia or only trailing within the MoE in Nevada and North Carolina) can be considered good news, but the path to an electoral college majority has never looked more daunting for the Arizona Senator.

At a time the GOP is scaling back its operations in its last remaining blue states, it has become more important than ever for McCain to hold on to every single red state but Iowa and New Mexico (where two new polls confirm Obama’s commanding position). And forget for a moment Missouri, West Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada (all states in which Obama looks to at worst be tied) as the bad news keeps accumulating for McCain in the three red states that are currently rated lean Obama in my presidential ratings.

First is Virginia, where CNN now finds Obama up double-digits (confirming SUSA and Suffolk findings from last week). Second is Colorado, where CNN finds Obama leading outside of the margin of error. The third is Florida, where three new surveys find Obama leading today, two of which have him ahead outside of the margin of error. This means that the past 13 polls of Florida all have shown Obama leading. The loss of any one of these three states would likely spell the end of McCain’s presidential ambitions, but it’s not like the GOP can pour resources here since it has so many other red states to defend.

• Obama leads 48% to 39% in an Ipsos/McClatchy national poll. He led by 7% last week.

• Obama leads 49% to 42% in a Pew national poll. He led by 6% at the end of September. Among registered voters, he leads by 10% (up from 7%). Only 29% of respondents think McCain has done a good job explaining how he would respond to the financial crisis; 48% say Obama has done a good job.

• The tracking polls, however, show Obama’s lead is a bit smaller than what it was a few days ago. He leads 50% to 45% in Rasmussen, 48% to 40% in Diego Hotline, 48% to 44% in Zogby, 51% to 40% in Research 2000. In Gallup, he leads by 7% among registered voters, 8% among the “expanded” likely voter model and only 3% among the traditional likely voter model.

• Obama leads 53% to 43% in a CNN/Time poll of Virginia. He led by 9% two weeks ago.

• Obama leads 51% to 47% in a CNN/Time poll of Colorado. He led by the same margin two weeks ago.

• Obama leads 51% to 46% in a CNN/Time poll of Florida. He led by 4% last week.

• Obama leads 48% to 44% in an Insider Advantage poll of Florida. He led by 3% last week. This is still within the poll’s large 5% MoE.

• Obama leads 47% to 42% in a Datamar poll of Florida.

• McCain leads 48% to 47% in a CNN/Time poll of Missouri. Obama was up by 1% two weeks ago.

• Obama leads 49% to 46% in an Insider Advantage poll of Nevada. He led by 1% last week.

• Obama leads 48% to 46% in an Insider Advantage poll of North Carolina.

• McCain leads 49% to 47% in an Insider Advantage poll of West Virginia.

• Obama leads 52% to 45% in a SUSA poll of New Mexico. Obama gets more than 70% among Hispanics.

• Obama leads 55% to 42% in a Rasmussen poll of New Mexico. He led by 5% last month.

• McCain leads 51% to 45% in a CNN/Time poll of Georgia.

• Safe states: McCain leads 55% to 41% in a SUSA poll of South Carolina. Obama leads 64% to 28% in a Rasmussen poll of Massachusetts. He leads 56% to 39% in a Rasmussen poll of Illinois.

Meanwhile, in down-the-ballot surveys:

• Christine Gregoire is up 48% to 47% in a SUSA poll of Washington’s gubernatorial race, the 8th straight SUSA poll to find this race within the MoE.

• Tom Udall leads 58% to 40% in a SUSA poll of New Mexico’s Senate race; he leads 57% to 37% in Rasmussen.

• Perdue leads 45% to 44% in a PPP poll of North Carolina’s gubernatorial race.

• In PA-11, yet another independent poll finds Rep. Kanjorski trailing, 40% to 35% according to Franklin & Marshall. That’s actually a slight improvement for Kanjorski, but an incumbent at 35% rarely wins.

• In WA-08, Darcy Burner’s latest internal poll shows her ahead 47% to 40%.

• In AL-05, Parker Griffith’s internal poll shows him ahead of his Republican opponent 46% to 38%.

• Safe seats: Lindsay Graham is up 16% in South Carolina, Markell is up 28% in Delaware.

No big surprises in the day’s down-the-ballot polling. Gregoire and Rossi have been locked in a dead heat in Washington for the past four years, while Udall is cruising in New Mexico. At the House level, independent surveys are finding Reichert leading against Burner but this is the second Democratic poll in a row to have her leading. As for PA-11, this poll That is actually a slight improvement for Kanjorski, but an incumbent at 35% rarely wins. Barletta is very well positioned to pick-up the seat for Republicans.