Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 22:57
It appears some hearts are a-flutterin' today at the prospect that the Presidential race on November 4 may not be over by bedtime on the East Coast of the US, let alone here in Britain. Four of the eight new national polls (Rasmussen, Gallup Traditional, IBD/TIPP, and GWU/Battleground), including two of the three with the largest samples, have Obama only up three points on McCain.
This quicker heartbeat isn't just the symptom of a broadcast media hoping for more drama (and ratings) approching that of 2000 and 2004. Some colleagues, both in Britain and the US, are thinking that the Democrats --- for all their spending and push for voter registration --- haven't solidified their voting base.
All the same, I have to be a bit of a party pooper. The issue is not that those "other" polls (including the Gallup Expanded, which is more likely than the Traditional to be relevant in a year of high voter turnout) have Obama with a steady 5-7 point lead. Let's even set aside that FiveThirtyEight.com, comprehensive and by far the shrewdest assessor of what polls can and can't indicate, has the gap still holding at just under 6 percent.
To paraphrase Brother Bill Clinton's folks, it's the states, stupid. And there is little movement towards McCain in the nine battleground states (Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada) that will decide this contest. Yes, he has closed to level-pegging with Obama in Missouri and he's only 1 1/2 points out in Indiana. It's a minor yes --- even with Missouri and Indiana in his column, which we projected on Monday, the Republicans are more than 130 electoral votes adrift.
If anything, the unexpected shifts today are away from the Republicans. RealClearPolitics, for example, has excitedly moved Georgia --- yep, the red-state Georgia where my relatives live --- into the toss-up column. I hasten to add that the other top sites, including FiveThirtyEight, still have the Peach State firmly Republican --- it appears that RCP has made its move because of one poll that has Obama down only a point and on the basis of strong early voting returns in Georgia in favour of the Democrats.
That last point is important, however, not necessarily for Georgia but for other states. FiveThirtyEight has noted an unprecedented early turnout. In the states of Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina, the early returns already exceed 2004 totals. And, just as important, that surge is favouring Obama.
The trend isn't just at state level. In key counties in Ohio, the pivot state of 2004, early returns are two to three times the entire 2004 turnout. If Obama is performing as well in those returns as in the state, his lead would be more than enough to wipe out the narrow deficit that defeated John Kerry in Ohio in 2004.
That's a big if, of course, as it assumes that all other things will be equal on Election Day. Of course, McCain could surprise me with an unexpected surge. Of course, there may be some truth to the legend of the "Bradley effect", with declared Democratic voters suddenly turning Republican as they enter the voting booth.
But "may" doesn't translate into likely. A friend sounded off earlier this evening that pollsters don't seem to be mentioning "margin of error" in their reporting of samples --- given that the margin for even a medium-sized poll is 3 percent either way, it could more than wipe out Obama's putative lead in key states. It's a fair point, but when you match up an accumulation of polls with readings of other factors from organisation to high voter registration for the Democrats to the early voting patterns, the case for an Obama victory --- and an early victory --- on 4 November continues to be close to open-and-shut.
