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Trends in the last few days just have not been favorable to McCain. And today just continues that. A new poll flips New Hampshire from Leaning McCain to Leaning Obama. Obama’s lead is under 5% though, so New Hampshire is still a swing state. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 276, McCain 262
More bad news for McCain. His lead in Georgia now slips below 10% putting Georgia into the “Weak McCain” category. Georgia still isn’t a swing state. But it is getting closer. The summary stays the same though: McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 272, McCain 266
In terms of state by state polls, this is a very bad day for John McCain. First of all, Wisconsin strengthens for Obama. Obama’s lead is now more than 5%, taking Wisconsin out of the swing state category. McCain may still be able to bring these 10 electoral votes back into play, but it would take work. Second, and a bigger deal, Florida weakens for McCain. His lead there is now under 5%. That is 27 more electoral votes off the list McCain can feel pretty good about and into the “fully in play” category. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 272, McCain 266 The “everybody gets their leans” numbers still remain incredibly close. But the best case scenarios are getting more and more unbalanced. Obama’s best case is now getting into landslide territory. McCain’s best case is just barely more than squeaking out a victory by a margin of a couple of states. There are 140 electoral votes now in the “leaning” category that can easily go either way. Assuming Obama gets all his strong and weak states and DC, that gives him 238 electoral votes. Which is 32 electoral votes from the win. That is only 23% of the electoral votes in the swing category. He only needs any two of Florida, Ohio, Michigan or North Carolina in order to do that. Two out of 12 swing states. (Or instead he could get a bunch of the smaller states…). By contrast, if McCain gets all his strong and weak states, he only has 160 electoral votes. He needs a full 110 electoral votes from the swing states to win. That is 79% of the swing state electoral votes. From the big state side of things that means McCain would need all of these: Florida, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Missouri. Eight of the 12 swing states. A lot of Obama’s gains in the last few weeks can be attributed to a “bounce” from clinching the nomination. If the trend continues, and McCain doesn’t manage to fight back a bit, and Obama manages to flip a few more states in his direction and out of the swing state category… we might actually end up with McCain’s best case scenario being a loss… …or Obama may start to peak and then things get closer again. It is still early. Anything can happen. But the recent poll results are ones that the McCain camp should be very worried about. They have some work to do.
Two category changes today. First, Minnesota slips from a “Strong Obama” state to a “Weak Obama” state. Still in Obama’s column, still not a “leaning” swing state, but now with a small enough lead (less than 10%) that McCain might want to consider putting resources there to try to put it into play. Second, and probably more significant at this point, North Carolina moves from “Weak McCain” to “Leaning McCain”… putting the state very much into play as a potential swing state and improving Obama’s best case scenario. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 272, McCain 266 There were also additional new polls yesterday that got quite a bit of blogger coverage showing positive trends for Obama, most notably in Ohio and Florida. I am not ignoring these. My “last five poll” averages simply did not have either one of these move to a new category based on those new polls. Both states are near the edge of a category boundary though, so if new polls confirm what today’s polls show, they may flip soon. But that will all depend on what the next polls in those states show. The same was true of North Carolina before today. There was blog talk for a couple weeks now about how it might be a swing state now based on one or two polls. I did not shift the category until there were enough polls so that the 5 poll average showed a McCain lead of less than 5%.
Today’s update includes a new poll which moves Nevada from “Leaning Obama” to “Leaning McCain”. The state is of course still in the “Leaning” category which means it is really too close to call. But now McCain has the slight edge. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 272, McCain 266 Do you see how close that is? Wow. Close. Actually, if everybody got their leans, but DC (where we still have no polls) went for McCain, we’d have a 269-269 electoral college tie. Which would be awesome. Of course, the odds of McCain winning DC are probably about the same as me spontaneously quantum tunneling to the moon. So I don’t think we have to worry about that. :-)
New polls push Obama’s leads in both Massachusetts and New Jersey to more than 10%. This basically means these states are not only not in play, but are probably not even worth McCain putting time, effort and money into trying to put them back in play. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261
A new poll in South Carolina… only the second poll there so far this election season… moves McCain’s lead in South Carolina to more than 5%. This moves it from my “Lean McCain” category to “Weak McCain” and takes it out of the swing state category. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261
New polls have Missouri weakening from being a “Weak McCain” state to being a “Leaning McCain” state… meaning McCain is ahead by less than 5% based on the last five polls in the state. This puts the state in play as a potential swing state and improves Obama’s “best case” scenario. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261
New polls push Obama’s lead in Washington State over 10% moving it from the “weak” category to “strong”. Just as a review, “leaning” states are ones where the lead is less than 5%, so they are very actively in play as swing states. “Weak” states are ones where the lead is between 5% and 10%… they are not really currently in play, but there is the possibility that events or heavy campaigning might put those states back into the game as we go on. “Strong” states are ones where one candidate has a lead of greater than 10%… meaning absent major changes in the state of the race, those states are “safe” and are very unlikely to be actively “in play”… absent, of course, very major changes. We do have many months until the election. These charts and graphs and numbers really should NOT be viewed as a prediction of the actual election results. We are too far out. They should be viewed as a snapshot of the state of the campaign RIGHT NOW. And looking at the historical charts you can try to look for trends as time goes on. But we do have a LONG WAY until the actual election. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261
Quick since I’m running late. Obama is now leading by more than 10% in New York, McCain is now leading by more than 10% in Texas, putting both states in the respective “Strong” categories which makes those states very unlikely to be in play this election. Since both states were already “weak” and neither were in the could go either way “leaning” categories, this leaves the overall summary the same… which is of course still that there are so many states “too close to call” that either candidate could easily win if the election was held today. Of course, the election is not today, so this just gives us a snapshot of now, which will likely change quite a bit before November. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261 |
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