I have no particular insight into the accuracy of Quinnipiac's polling but they've got John McCain down 12 in Pennsylvania, down 6 in Ohio, and down 4 in Florida. Obviously, with numbers like that McCain is toasty. Obama has a couple of plausible paths to the nomination that don't involve either Ohio or Florida but McCain needs them both.
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New Polls
18 Jun 2008 11:21 am
Comments (26)
Now, what happened to Matthew's prior skepticism of general election polls taken this early? Is that just reserved for polls that, you know, look bad for Obama?
In any case, Obama has approxmiately a 99.99% chance of winning the election. (How pathetic would a Democrat have to be to blow this election? Obama's not nearly pathetic enough to accomplish that - you'd have to be Kerry-level bad.) So is there really much of a point in closely following polls?
Don't you mean "paths to the presidency," instead of "paths to the nomination?"
Don't you mean "paths to the presidency," instead of "paths to the nomination?"
Not only does McCain need both OH and FL (assuming he can't pick off Michigan or Minnesota), he will need to spend precious chunks of money defending Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Georgia and Indiana, so really he's weaker everywhere.
And, MY, thanks again for keeping comments open. It seems Ambinder has once again arbitrarily decided to close comments. His loss.
Kerry was a pretty good candidate. You had a sitting president with favorability ratings around 50%, an economy not in serious trouble, and a war that, while not wildly popular, was still not something that most Americans favored withdrawing from. Given the structural situation, Kerry did a good job. (It's Al Gore who underperformed in 2000 - or Bush overperformed, either way.)
Toasty -- just the way I like McCain.
"Obama has a couple of plausible paths to the nomination that don't involve either Ohio or Florida but McCain needs them both."
I've said this all along, but McCain's math is becoming prohibitively bad. Starting with the Kerry states and allocating the likely flipped states (NM, IA and CO to Obama, and NH to McCain), it breaks down to this: McCain needs to win ALL of MI, FL, and OH.
The real kicker is that even if McCain does thread the needle and sweep these states, Obama STILL has a feasible (though probably unlikely) path to the nomination if he can take two of VA, NC, IN, MO or GA.
It's a long way off, but my guess is that it becomes apparent that Obama is going to win by a comfortable margin shortly after the convention, conservatives lose their only remaining rationale for voting for McCain (i.e., he's going to lose whether they vote for him or not), and Obama wins in a landslide that includes all of the above states and possibly a few surprises like TX and AZ.
Frankly, I think it'd be almost impossible for McCain to win if he lost either one of Florida or Ohio. There are so many other marginal states that I think Obama has a better chance of winning that if he picks up even one of these, it's over. Forget about two -- if he wins both, then it's truly impossible for McCain.
That being said, I still don't see us winning Florida. It's just been trending too strongly in the opposite direction as states like Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, and New Mexico -- and if you compare Florida to Ohio in 2006, where the Democrats made huge surges in the latter state, the Republicans were still dominant in the former. So I don't think we'll win there. But I do think we'll win Ohio this time around.
And, MY, thanks again for keeping comments open. It seems Ambinder has once again arbitrarily decided to close comments. His loss.
This is true. While Ambinder got some real losers in his comments section, he also seems inherently hostile towards them in the first place. There have also been some good discussions there. But there have been even better discussions here, so I'm glad comments are enabled.
I think what Matt's trying to tell us with his slight editing mistakes is that it's been a wake and back Wednesday over at the Flophouse. Toasty indeed!
I think what Matt's trying to tell us with his slight editing mistakes is that it's been a wake and bake Wednesday over at the Flophouse. Toasty indeed!
Don't you mean "paths to the presidency," instead of "paths to the nomination?"
Some people are just nostalgic for the exciting part of the election season.
Well, I for one will continue to say there is no direct predictive value to polls this far out.
However, they remain useful for telling you about what is happening right now. And overall, according to these Quinnipiac polls what is happening right now is that Obama is crushing McCain among women and keeping it close among men in these states. And the reason he is keeping it close among men is that young people and minorities of either gender are supporting him.
So, basically, currently McCain's only real strength is among older white men ... meaning people just like himself. And that means he is very likely going to lose the election, unless he can figure out a way to start appealing to more young people, minorities, and women.
But that is going to be a trick, because currently Obama is beating McCain both among people who care about the war and people who care about the economy. In other words, it seems that the major reason Obama's coalition is so much broader than McCain's is that people favor Obama on the most important issues.
So, McCain is looking in a pretty bad position. Obviously, though, there is plenty of time for things to change ... but the question is whether McCain has any means by which to change these factors.
"Obama has a couple of plausible paths to the nomination..."
Who'd a thunk that Matt was a secret Clinton loyalist? *shakes head and sighs*
"Obama has a couple of plausible paths to the nomination..."
Who'd a thunk that Matt was a secret Clinton loyalist? *shakes head and sighs*
Herb, can you seriously not even spell "bake" when you're baked?
Don't fuck it up Matt!
Obama's numbers similar to where Kerry was in June 2004:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/06/17/GR2008061700146.html
People now more dissatisfied with Bush, and 11% more say the iraq war not worth it compared to June 2004. Those shifts help Obama, but he's still got to close the deal.
Al's right-- it would take a pathetic, feckless candidate like Kerry to blow this one. Obama is neither pathetic nor feckless.
But he is a Muslim. Just kidding.
McCain is the only R who can even keep it close this year. We're a long way out, but odds clearly favor the Chosen One.
"Obama's numbers similar to where Kerry was in June 2004:"
This has been blogged before -- the 2004 WaPo poll was a huge outlier. The vast majority of polls at the time showed Bush with an advantage. Compare that to now where NONE of the polls show McCain with an advantage, and Obama's lead is outside of the margin of error in many of them.
Although yes, I'd like cause to feel optimism, I will not relax for one moment until Obama is actually taking the oath of office. Until then, nothing is for granted.
How pathetic would a Democrat have to be to blow this election? Obama's not nearly pathetic enough to accomplish that...
No but he's, um, black enough.
jbryan:
I'm less pessimistic on Florida than you are, partly because the new law letting ex-inmates vote there will net Democrats at least 150,000 extra votes (from the projections I've seen). Also, embracing offshore drilling is not going to warm Floridians to McCain.
Nate,
Similarly, advocating the abolition of Amtrak is not going to help McCain win in Pennsylvania.
I'm so stealing "toasty."
I don't trust polling now, but others do, and given the lateness of the RNC this year, you may see GOPpers considering the unthinkable and dumping McCain at the convention.
Wooly scenarios aside, my reading of the map still suggests that it comes down to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida--whoever gets two of those three is President. Granted, Pennsylvania looks pretty good for Obama right now, making Ohio and Florida must-win for McCain...but I suspect those three are going to be the big battlegrounds, again.
Comments closed July 02, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
This is great news>*BLAM*<
Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 18, 2008 11:27 AM