Presidential election minus 29 days

As much for personal amusement as anything else, I will henceforth be doing my own polling aggregates for swing states. To account for the fact that state polling lags behind the nightly national tracking polls, each result is adjusted according to the change in the Real Clear Politics national average since the date of the poll (if the polling period was more than one day, the last date is used). For example, the only poll from Indiana was a 46-all result from October 3: the RCP average has since had Obama up 0.6 and McCain up 0.2, so into the Obama column it goes. The results are also adjusted so that greater weight is given to polls with larger samples. I’ve only been doing this for a few days, so at present the only polls used are those ending October 1 or later. This means I have no data for Wisconsin, which Electoral-Vote says was most recently polled on September 23 (I’m following their lead and giving it to Obama). As you can see, Obama currently has a clean sweep of the swing states: I’ll have to reconsider which ones to include if this keeps up. (UPDATE: I’m progressively updating this as new polls come in, so much of what I’ve just said is now out of date).

October 1-8 Obama McCain Sample D-EV R-EV
Pennsylvania 51.3 40.6 2552 21
Michigan 51.1 41.3 531 17
Washington 53.0 43.6 700 11
New Hampshire 52.6 43.3 2160 4
Minnesota 51.1 42.2 3073 10
Wisconsin 51.2 44.3 1531 10
New Mexico 46.8 42.2 1159 5
Maine 51.0 46.6 500 4
Ohio 49.3 44.9 6622 20
Virginia 49.6 45.4 2891 13
Nevada 49.9 46.2 1768 5
Colorado 48.5 45.2 2110 9
Florida 49.3 46.0 2250 27
North Carolina 48.6 46.0 3113 15
Missouri 49.7 47.5 1000 11
Indiana 45.5 48.7 1477 11
Others 182 163
RCP/Total 49 43.9 364 174

As was the case last week, tomorrow I will have an open thread for discussion of the presidential candidates’ debate, which will run independently of this one.

UPDATE: Polls from Time/CNN shift Indiana to the McCain column.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

760 comments on “Presidential election minus 29 days”

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  1. American Research Group
    600 likely voters in each state, margin of error +/-4
    Mode: Live Telephone Interviews

    Minnesota:
    Obama +1 (steady)

    Obama 47 (down 1)
    McCain 46 (down 1)

    Missouri:
    McCain +3 (down 2)

    McCain 49 (down 1)
    Obama 46 (up 1)

    Montana:
    McCain +5 (up 3)

    McCain 50 (up 1)
    Obama 45 (down 2)

    New Hampshire:
    Obama +9 (up 12!!!)

    Obama 52 (up 7)
    McCain 43 (down 5)

    Ohio:
    Obama +3 (up 9)

    Obama 48 (up 4)
    McCain 45 (down 5)

    West Virginia:
    Obama +8 (up 12!!!)

    Obama 50 (up 5)
    McCain 42 (down 7)

    http://www.pollster.com/blogs/arg_mn_mo_mt_nh_oh_tx_wv.php

  2. [The Washington Times reports that in 1986, John McCain wrote a note on House stationery to Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association who went to prison in the late 1980s. In the letter, McCain apologized for listing Keating as part of his Senate campaign finance committee. Keating wrote in response: “You can call me anything, write anything or do anything. I’m yours till death do us part”:]

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/09/mccain-keating-letter-im_n_133377.html

  3. With what the Dow is doing at the moment – down another 6% overnight – this economic crisis is almost certain to be front and centre in the news right up to election day (and unfortunately, far beyond, one suspects).

  4. Obama quoted in the Melbourne Herald/Sun today:

    {I can take four more weeks of John McCain’s attacks, but the American people can’t take four more years of John McCain’s Bush policies]

    How good is that? Hope they make it into an ad..

  5. PA is even worse. Obama is ahead by 13.8% there. McCains gonna have to pull out of there. VA is now 5.1% to Obama and McCain still won’t campaign there. He’s really lost the plot.

  6. Probably good news for Obama I would think

    [The Bush administration appears poised to provisionally remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, sources close to the administration said.

    The move would keep alive a faltering effort to eliminate Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs. President Bush had promised to delist North Korea last June but never took action after U.S.-North Korean talks on a plan to verify North Korea’s claims on its nuclear programs broke down. ]

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100901290.html?hpid=topnews

  7. Saw McCain’s latest one minute gutter attack on Obama’s patriotism and integrity. I reckon in Australia both McCain and Palin could be charged under our vilification laws with their none too subtle insinuations that Obama is not much more than a terrorist in disguise. Sooner or later, if they keep it up, one of their loony red neck supporters will start thinking he/she has to save the country by blowing Obama away. What could be more patriotic than that? Disgraceful.

  8. There are two Senator B Nelsons in the Senate – Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Ben Nelson (D-NE). They are not related but are frequently confused.

    (Are they possibly Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcF9JSxkUSE
    We don’t know.)

    Next year there will be two new Senators, Mark Udall (D-CO) and Tom Udall (D-NM). I’m pretty sure this will be the first occasion on which two cousins with the same surname have been simultaneously elected to the Senate, in place of retiring Republicans, from adjoining states – but I could be wrong. Mark is the son of the late Mo Udall, longtime liberal Dem Congressman and presidential candidate. Stewart Udall, Mo’s brother, was Interior secretary in the Kennedy Administration. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), who may well lose his seat this year, is a Udall on his mother’s side. They are all Mormons by the way.

  9. Adam

    That must be pretty rare, two Democrat senators who are Mormons. Utah is the reddest state in the US. Perhaps they are not as unelectable as we thought. I’m betting we find out in four years when Romney gets the Repug nomination running on the economic manager ticket during a recession/depression.

  10. [Romney is such an utter phony, I can’t believe the Repubs would nominate him. But who else will they have in 2012? Palin? Condi Rice?]
    I know who they will want:

    Petraeus, D.

  11. Adam 679

    [Romney is such an utter phony, I can’t believe the Repubs would nominate him. But who else will they have in 2012? Palin? Condi Rice]?

    Let’s hope it’s Palin. That would be four more years for Obama for sure..

  12. Palin has a lot of natural political talent, so I wouldn’t write her off. She was obviously seriously underprepared to run this time. But by 2012 she might be a much better candidate. AK has a Senate seat coming up in 2010, currently held by the heavily damaged Lisa Murkowski. Maybe Palin should run for it.

  13. Petraeus will be irrelevant when the US leave Iraq. Palin has been burnt too badly by her interviews. Condi is a relic of the past. Mike Huckabee is still positioning himself for another run. Rudy has been rejected too resoundingly to bounce hack. Maybe Pawlenty will put his hand up, although he doesn’t seem ready yet. The country could be in such a mess that the Dems brand stinks as much as the Repugs do now. This isn’t the world’s best election to win IMHO.

  14. Um, W H Harrison, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S Grant, Dwight Eisenhower – none of them were irrelevant once their wars were over. Successful generals are hot polutical property in the US. Several others could have been president if they’d wanted, Sherman and Colin Powell being the obvious ones.

  15. I don’t think you will see Palin for dust after this election. She was aprt of a tactic that seemingly has backfired badly, even before the meltdown. People aren’t taking her seriously as a possible VP. As a possible POTUS, hardly.

  16. If Obama wins and pulls out of Iraq, Petraeus can run on the line of “we were winning in Iraq but the cowardly traitor Obama stabbed our troops in the back.” It’s a powerful line and it’s worked before.

  17. I actually think Palin appears to be a lot smarter a politician than George Bush is. I imagine she’d do a decent job at getting people to show up to vote at least. She will be damaged goods after this election however and I don’t imagine she’ll ever be a serious contender for presidential nominee after this campaign.

    Colin Powell is actually a fairly interesting proposition.

    I’m actually a little surprised at the resilience of the Republicans in current polling given the stench of the Bush Administration. I would’ve though anyone could beat the Republicans at this election and it’s not as if John McCain is a particularly exciting choice.

  18. [She was aprt of a tactic that seemingly has backfired badly, even before the meltdown. ]
    To be fair to McCain, she wasn’t his idea. The Republican Right went out of their way to kill the best chance they had to win, siding McCain with Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Arlen Spector. or even Mitt Romney. Some other centrist with some economic credibility.

    I see this as their pay back for McCain’s “Maverick” years.
    [If Obama wins and pulls out of Iraq, Petraeus can run on the line of “we were winning in Iraq but the cowardly traitor Obama stabbed our troops in the back.”]
    Even if Obama says the U.S. is going to pull out of Iraq on the day of his (probable) inauguration, logistically it would take 1.5 – 2 years to get that many people out of there safely.

    By that time a bigger security problem for the U.S. will probably be what is happening in Afghanistan / Pakistan.

  19. [Obama leading in West Virgina?!?]
    Wasn’t West Virginia formed by North supporters in Virginaia during the Civil War?

    Maybe it makes sense 😀

  20. No, it’s not insane; just ARG, although the two could be easily confused. I won’t believe it unless I see some other reputable polls showing something similar.

  21. If Obama makes a reasonable fist of guiding the US out of these difficulties he will be re-elected easily in four years time. The American people are not going to forget very quickly which party they blamed for this current mess.

  22. [If Obama makes a reasonable fist of guiding the US out of these difficulties he will be re-elected easily in four years time. The American people are not going to forget very quickly which party they blamed for this current mess.]
    Furthermore, the fact Bush got $700 billion out of congress means that at the start of his first term Obama would have extreme authority to get a huge cheque as well, i.e. the mother of all stimulus packages.

    The old rules of the Government being the problem have been thrown out the window. (Which is why I think McCain’s campaign is running a completely counter-intuitive message).

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