In case you have missed it, the basic story is that McCain's campaign seems to think that along with Iowa and New Mexico, Colorado is also essentially out of reach for them. The problem, then, is that if Obama wins all the Kerry states along with those three states, that gives Obama 273 electoral votes and thus the Presidency. Note that this map would mean an Obama victory even if McCain won Ohio and Florida and Virginia and North Carolina and Missouri and Indiana. What has finally become clear to the McCain campaign is that if this election is allowed to play out entirely in "Red" states, then McCain cannot realistically hope to win the election. Unfortunately for the Republicans, there aren't many Kerry states where they both have a realistic shot at winning and are big enough to make a difference. Pennsylvania, I guess, is the state that comes closest (although if you'd asked anyone two months ago, everyone would have said Michigan was their best bet).
If you've read this blog before, you know that I think Pennsylvania is out of reach for McCain due in large part to the huge registration advantage the Democrats now have. Combine that with available polling which shows Obama ahead by double digit margins and it leaves one wondering how McCain thinks he can win there.
There is some suggestion that the internal polling from both campaigns shows a much closer race than the public polls do. That's possible, but there's no logical reason why internal polls would be inherently more accurate than public polls. Both suffer from the same sources of error (random variation, response bias, etc). This being the case, even if internal polls show a 4 or 5 point margin, compared to the 10 or 12 point margin the public polls, that still means a substantial Obama lead.
I do think that Obama is very unlikely to win Pennsylvania by more than, say, 6 or 7 points. But don't forget that Obama is competitive, maybe even ahead, in places like Virginia and Indiana. Kerry lost those states by big margins (8 and 20 points respectively). Even though Kerry won PA by only 2 points, there's no reason to think that Obama can't improve on that margin by some significant amounts since he's clearly besting Kerry's showing in other places.
Nevertheless, if McCain and Governor Palin begin spending much, even most, of their remaining time in Pennsylvania, do expect to see the polls reflect that attention. Will it be enough? I don't think so, but given the electoral map and the dwindling number of days left before November 4, I can certainly understand why the McCain camp is hoping they can pull off a big upset.
1 comment:
I like how you keep writing "Kerry state".
That's the state I'm in all the time.
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