This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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Today we have a rare day with good poll news for McCain.
Obama’s lead in Oregon drops below 10%, moving it from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”.
McCain’s lead in Kansas grows above 10%, moving it from “Weak McCain” to “Strong McCain”.
Since these are Weak/Strong changes and don’t involve moving in or out of Leaning Status, or flipping which direction a state is leaning, the summary does not change.
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 389, McCain 149
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
On July 9th we had an update that just BARELY moved Florida out of the swing state status by increasing McCain’s lead in my five point average to exactly 5%. (I call swing states the states where the candidate in the lead is ahead by LESS than 5%.) Well, a new poll today pulls McCain’s lead in Florida back under 5% (to 3% actually). And so Florida moves from “Weak McCain” to “Lean McCain” and once again Florida is looking like a swing state.
Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 389, McCain 149
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Florida is a big state (27 electoral votes) so the status of Florida is a big deal.
At this point, assuming that each candidate were to indeed win all the states where they are currently ahead by more than 5%, we are left with 11 swing states. Eight of them currently lean McCain (Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Nevada, Montana and North Dakota) and three of them lean to Obama (Ohio, Virginia and Colorado). With just the states he is ahead by more than 5% in (plus DC) Obama is only 6 electoral college votes away from winning. So he only needs to win ONE of the three states he is ahead in right now to win.
Meanwhile, for McCain, out of the swing states NINE of them are now “must win”. (He can afford to lose Montana and South Dakota but that is it.) He has to get ALL of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, South Carolina and Nevada in order to win. If he loses ANY of those states, then Obama wins. And Obama is ahead in three of those states.
As I’ve been saying… if McCain wants to actually try to win, rather than just try to avoid a landslide, he needs to start doing something… or Obama needs to start majorly screwing up. McCain should be putting major effort into Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. He needs all three of them, and Obama has the edge right now. He needs to start pulling those back in his direction.
Of course, it is still summer. Many people won’t start paying attention “for real” until the fall. So there could well be (actually probably will be) major changes to how things look as we get later in the season. But McCain can’t just take the summer off and expect to recover in September or whatnot.
McCain’s lead in South Dakota drops to less than 10%, so the state moves from “Strong McCain” to “Weak McCain”. It is only 3 electoral votes, and it is still a long way from McCain actually losing the lead, but still… the trends are still moving against McCain. One would assume that at some point this Obama “bounce” has to peak, but it doesn’t seem to have happened yet.
The summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Obama’s lead in Wisconsin strengthens to more than 10%. Thus the state is now “Strong Obama” rather than “Weak Obama”.
The summary stays the same though:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
I screwed up yesterday transcribing the results from Zogby Interactive in Iowa. Oops. Sorry, there were 36 states yesterday, I was in a hurry and got a little sloppy. The end result is that while Obama’s lead in Iowa has indeed diminished based on the Zogby results, once I corrected the numbers while they got close (5.2%) they didn’t quite fall below the 5% threshold for me to switch the state from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama” and thus into the swing state category. So I’m correcting that today. Apologies for the error. Of course, this makes yesterday’s results even more glum for McCain. More on that in a bit.
In the mean time, there was also a new poll in New Jersey showing tightening there. Obama’s lead in the state drops under 10%, moving it from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”.
New summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
OK, so now with Iowa back out of the swing state category, lets look at this again… McCain’s BEST CASE… McCain winning all the swing states… that is all the states where the leading candidate is ahead by less than 5%… he has 277 electoral votes. Of course, that is giving McCain DC since it (still) has no polls. That will never happen. So take DC away, and McCain has only 274. Ouch.
Looking at this another way, without ANY swing states (but giving him DC) Obama already has 264 electoral votes. He only needs SIX electoral votes to win. All he has to do is manage to carry any ONE of Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado or South Carolina. If he managed none of those (or Montana or North Dakota) but did win Nevada, we’d have an electoral tie.
But Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, South Carolina, and Nevada are now MUST WIN states for McCain. He needs to win ALL of those swing states in order to win. He is currently ahead in five of those states, but he is behind in three of them. And he needs ALL of them.
Of course, that is where the polls stand today. They can and will change quite a bit between now and the election. That is assured. But really, when is McCain going to start making a race of this?
There are new polls in 36 states today. 34 of them are from a massive dump of new polls done by Zogby. Of those 36 states, 9 states changed status in the way I group states. Of those, 6 moved in or out of the leaning “swing state” status. None actually changed who was in the lead in my “last 5 polls” averages.
Of the 9 states, 2 states (with 34 electoral votes) moved in McCain’s direction, 7 states (with 85 electoral votes) moved in Obama’s direction. On balance, this is a good result for Obama. The specifics follow.
Good for McCain:
- 27 EV – Florida – Lean McCain to Weak McCain (no longer swing)
- 7 EV – Iowa – Weak Obama to Lean Obama (now swing)
Good for Obama:
- 34 EV – Texas – Strong McCain to Weak McCain
- 17 EV – Michigan – Lean Obama to Weak Obama (no longer swing)
- 10 EV – Arizona – Strong McCain to Weak McCain
- 8 EV – South Carolina – Weak McCain to Lean McCain (now swing)
- 7 EV – Oregon – Weak Obama to Strong Obama
- 5 EV – New Mexico – Lean Obama to Weak Obama (no longer swing)
- 4 EV – New Hampshire – Lean Obama to Weak Obama (no longer swing)
All of this leaves us with this new summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 284, Obama 254
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Now, one interesting thing here. Obama’s total in the case where he gets NONE of the leaning swing states (McCain’s best case scenario) still gives Obama 254 electoral votes. Give him DC (a near certainty) and he has 257. That is only 13 electoral votes from winning. If either Ohio or Virginia… currently Lean Obama states… strengthen into Weak Obama states… then Obama would have enough states where he leads by more than 5% to win WITHOUT ANY SWING STATES. In my averages right now, Obama is ahead by 3.4% in Virginia and 4.6% in Ohio. It wouldn’t take all that much to push him over the 5% threshold.
Leaving Ohio and Virginia as swing states for the moment, it leaves us with 11 swing states with 105 electoral votes. Obama only needs 13 of those electoral votes to win. Taking any of Ohio, North Carolina or Virginia alone would do it. Various combinations of the smaller states would also do.
McCain’s lead in Florida climbing back up to 5% (exactly, barely putting it back in the Weak category instead of Lean) is good news for McCain. So is Iowa weakening for Obama and coming into play. But…
McCain really needs to start doing something here. It has been a month now since Obama wrapped up the nomination. This has been a pretty huge bump. It may start to fade a bit, but McCain has to start actually DOING something if he wants to make a race out of this rather than just slowly going through the motions of a loss.
At this point it almost looks like McCain just trying to prevent an Obama landslide, rather than McCain actually trying to win.
Important – Added 10 Jul 2008 15:25 UTC – A correction. I’d made a transcription error on the Iowa poll numbers. The race there is closer than it was, but did not actually dip below the 5% threshold (although it is close). Iowa therefore remains a “Weak Obama” rather than a “Lean Obama” and should not have changed in the update above. It will be corrected on further updates.
The bounce continues. Surely at some point things will start heading back in McCain’s direction, right?
In any case, a new poll in Montanta. We’ve had very few polls in Montana. This is only the third since November 5th, 2007 (one year before the election). This one moves the state from “Weak McCain” to “Lean McCain”. (Obama is actually ahead in the newest poll, but McCain keeps the lean on the strength of the two older polls.) This effectively makes Montana a swing state. Of course, Montana is only 3 electoral votes, so it only has a small effect on Obama’s best case number. But little states do add up. Oh, and it looks big on the map. :-)
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235
Obama Best Case – Obama 381, McCain 157
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
It is very much a swing state, the margins being very close at the moment in the “last five polls average”, but Virginia now flips from “Leaning McCain” to “Leaning Obama”. This doesn’t change either candidate’s “best case” numbers in my summary, since I allow for leaning states to go either way. But this does push Obama’s lead in the “everybody gets their leans” number further ahead.
The bounce continues.
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Obama’s lead in that metric is now bigger than McCain’s was at his peak from May 15th to May 20th, but not yet larger than the lead McCain had from March 8th to March 10th when we first had polls in all 50 states.
Still just good news for Obama and bad news for McCain. This time around Minnesota moves from “Weak Obama” to “Strong Obama” while Kansas moves from “Strong McCain” to “Weak McCain”. This may tempt Obama to try to make McCain defend Kansas. And it means McCain shouldn’t even bother with Minnesota.
The summary doesn’t change though, as none of this effects the inventory of swing states.
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 293, McCain 245
Obama’s bounce continues as Michigan moves from Leaning McCain to Leaning Obama. Obama’s lead is less than 5% of course, so it is still a swing state.
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 293, McCain 245
That “if everybody gets their leans” set of numbers is getting more unbalanced. Obama now leads in that metric by more than he ever has since March 8th when we first had polling in all 50 states. His lead is however still not as big as the lead McCain had in that metric in mid-May, and that evaporated after only a couple of weeks. The polls are very fickle things.
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