Is It Over?

Whew, today was a seriously bad day of polling for Senator John McCain. Tons of new polls out, both nationally and at the state level, that show Obama ahead by significant margins (and I use that term in the statistical as well as real world sense). Most troubling for the McCain Camp has got to be these polls from Quinnipiac:

Florida: Obama 51, McCain 43

Ohio: Obama 50, McCain 42

Pennsylvania: Obama 54, McCain 39

If McCain loses these three states, there is simply no realistic way for him to win. Indeed, if he loses two of these three, his chances of winning are very slim, so this poll is very worrying for them. But I'm sure that they'd like to take comfort in the fact that this is only one poll, and that, in all likelihood, Obama isn't really up by 15 points in Pennsylvania, right?

Yes and no. It does seem unlikely that Obama is really ahead by that much in PA. On the other hand, how do you explain this:

Franklin and Marshall College (9/23-28/08) Obama 48, McCain 43
FOX/Rasmussen (9/28/08) Obama 50, McCain 42
Muhlenberg (9/26-30/08) Obama 48, McCain 41

Three other polls out today all showing Obama with leads of between 5 and 8 points. Yikes.

The story is the same with Florida. Even if you don't believe the Quinnipiac polls, it's tough to ignore these other polls:

CNN/Time (9/28-30/08) Obama 51, McCain 47
Suffolk (9/27-30/08) Obama 46 , McCain 42

The story is a bit more complicated in Ohio where one other poll out today showed a slim Obama lead, while a third showed a slim McCain lead.

Leaving Ohio aside for the moment, I think we can say with near certainty that if the election were held today, Obama would win both Pennsylvania (comfortably) and Florida (narrowly), as well as the national popular vote (comfortably - as mentioned, there have been, like, a kabillion polls out today showing Obama leads of at least 5 points) and thus the Presidency. That brings me to the title of this post. Is it over?

Short answer: no. As I've argued before, I think that Pennsylvania is in the bag for Obama. I thought that even before his big move in the polls. But Obama needs more than PA to win the election. Conservatively, he needs some (at most two) of the following states: Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri. He is close or ahead right now in all of these states, putting him in very good position. But let's not forget that one of the big reasons Obama is polling so well in places like North Carolina is the recent economic news. When Americans are focused on economic issues, Obama does better. There is no guarantee that the economy will remain issue #1 from now until the election. In fact, it is likely that there will be some news that redirects the public's attention. Indeed, John McCain's campaign will try to do whatever they can to help American's focus on something else (expect some really nasty ads).

In addition, history suggests that all races tighten to some degree as election day draws near. Even though Obama is likely enjoying his largest lead of the year, it is unlikely to remain this big all the way until election day.

All of this is to say that Obama supporters should steel themselves for some, as yet undetermined, point in the next five weeks when it appears that the race has gotten "too close to call" again.