I call it a closing argument. The ad is a 30 second spot and running nationally.

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Preface: Over the next week, I am going to gauge the size of Senator Obama’s victory in a series of nightly posts by delving into the numbers behind the numbers. The polls are very conflicted as I am sure you have noticed. Gallup has Obama by two in its traditional voting model and by four in its likely voter model. Rasmussen Reports has been pointing to a consistent five to six point Obama lead based on 40% Democrat/32.8% GOP/27.2% Independent model. IBD/TIPP (a conservative pollster) has it Obama by under three and the non-partisan Pew has an Obama 15 point landslide. The reason for all this variation is of course the pool of those being polled. The sample matters. I don’t pay much attention to the national polls especially since it is possible to garner more votes and still lose, though my sense is that Obama leads by near double digits if not low double digits. My approach has been to really focus on the various states polls and try to divine the race from the data within those polls and build out an Electoral College model. By looking at hundreds of polls (I’m averaging 30 poll posts a week and I look at some 20 more that I don’t post on), you can see trends and look at demographic behaviour and make predictive assumptions. In short, I approach it from the bottom up.

Obama Will Win, But By How Much?
A political hurricane is gathering and threatening to remake the electoral map that has governed the US since 1968 and storm Washington with change, change and more change, little of it very well-defined. So will this be a Category One political remaking of political landscape where Senator Obama gains a modest victory by holding the states that the Kerry-Edwards ticket won in 2004 plus Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada and Virginia or a Category Five 50 State + DC swipe or something in between? My sense a week out having watched some trends develop and frankly surprise me is that Senator Obama seems headed for a Category 3 decisive win (350+ ECVs) or a Category 4 landslide transformational victory (425+ECVs) still not out of the question.

McCain’s Pennsylvania Gambit
A McCain win seems very unlikely. His best scenario is the Pennsylvania gambit I laid out last week. This scenario affords McCain the ability to lose a few states that Bush carried and still win the Presidency. The problem right now, other than McCain is trailing by seven in the Keystone State, is that McCain is also trailing in Indiana, Ohio, North Dakota, Florida, and Nevada.

McCain wins PA and 27 other states

In short, McCain trails in too many states for Pennsylvania’s 21 ECVs to make a difference in the final analysis. The assumption, of course, that the McCain campaign is making is that if they can pull the upset in Pennsylvania then McCain is likely to have held similar demographic states like Indiana and Ohio. A reasonable assumption no doubt.

Hispanics Remake the West
The problem for McCain is the demographic shift in the Mountain West is running against him and the GOP. Hispanics nationwide are polling strong for Obama, 3:1 to 4:1 depending on the state. That’s certainly one of the surprises of Election 2008. In 2004, George W. Bush won 40% of Hispanics and it was widely believed that McCain’s long support for comprehensive immigration reform that was fair and humane would at the very least win him a near split. It is not happening and with that states like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada are likely turning blue this cycle and perhaps blue for quite some time to come. Even in Florida, McCain isn’t doing as well among as Hispanics as might be expected. The last few polls show McCain gaining among Hispanics in Florida but still trailing 3:2. Bush won 56% of Florida’s Hispanics in 2004 with Hispanics accounting for 15% of the vote then. Hispanics in Florida seem likely to surpass that threshold only further complicating the situation for McCain.

So why have Hispanics turned on McCain? I am not sure that they have, at least not personally. He is still seen favourably by most Hispanics. The problem for McCain is that the Republican brand has become toxic among Hispanics, not just over immigration but moreover on the economy. In one poll of Hispanics from about three weeks, I was surprised to learn that among Hispanic Pentacostals that Obama led by some 20 points. Ethnicity trumps religion. Given that Obama will win African-Americans who represent some 12% of the electorate nationwide by 9:1, McCain losing Hispanics who also now represent 12% of the electorate by 3:1 or 4:1 is not a good place to start. Almost a quarter of the vote and you’re down 85% to 15%. That’s a lot of ground to make up.

If I were Senator Obama come November 5th, I would send Congressman Tom Tancredo a thank you note. More than anyone, Tom Tancredo made Hispanics turn on the GOP and by extension on John McCain.

Tomorrow, more numbers behind the numbers. Next Tuesday, this forecaster predicts a Category 3. That may develop into a Category 4.

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As I noted yesterday with the Rasmussen Reports poll, Senator McCain’s once vaunted 21 point lead not even a month ago in his home state of Arizona (link is to US Census demographic data) has dwindled to single digits. That poll put McCain’s lead in the Grand Canyon State at five points. Today, the respected local Arizona pollster Bruce Merrill released his Cronkite 8 Arizona poll that puts the race in Arizona in the dead heat category. Over the past three weeks, Merrill has noted a steady decline in support for McCain from ten points up to now just two.

Presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama are running in a statistical dead heat in Arizona, according to two surveys released Monday, a troubling development for the home-state senator.

And a third survey scheduled for release today will offer a similar assessment. With just a week to go before Election Day, and weeks after early voting began, Arizona is too close to call, according to research directors who oversaw the surveys.

This is how the numbers stacked up:

A poll conducted for Project New West, a Democratic advocacy group, had McCain ahead by 4 percentage points, with a margin of error of 4 points for each candidate.

The survey of 600 likely voters was conducted Thursday and Friday by Myers Research & Strategic Services of Springfield, Va., and Grove Insight of Portland, Ore.

A survey conducted by the independent polling firm Rasmussen Reports had McCain up by 5 percentage points, with a margin of error of 4.5 points for each candidate.

The poll of 500 likely voters was done Sunday, according to Rasmussen of Vienna, Va.

A poll conducted by Arizona State University/KAET-TV 8 and set for release today will also project the race as a tossup. “It’s dead even in Arizona, which is consistent with the other two polls,” ASU/KAET research director Bruce Merrill said Monday.

(more…)

The McCain campaign has recycled an ad from earlier in the cycle and brought it back for another round. The old spot was longer and Internet-only, this version is a 30 second spot and running in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.

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A new radio 30 second spot running across the United States in small markets focusing on Senator Obama’s “bitter” comments and featuring Hank Williams Jr.

While I focused on the television ads, there is real battle going on radio that has largely gone unnoticed.

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In the latest Rasmussen Reports poll for Pennsylvania (link is US Census demographic data), Senator Obama’s lead has narrowed by five more points over the past week and it’s now down to seven points. That’s good news for Senator McCain, the bad news is that he still trails by seven points. Obama leads 53% to 46% in the Keystone State. The gain for McCain is coming from undecided voters (breaking 3 to 1 for McCain) and a drift back among white men (a shift of ten points to take a seven point lead overall among whites) and among independents. In Pennsylvania, Obama is winning just 80% of Democrats about seven to eight points below his national average. It’s still a tough hill to climb for McCain but he is running ahead of Obama in southwestern Pennsylvania and about even in the Scranton area. Obama leads by a wide margin in Philadelphia and in the main-line suburbs. So far that’s the difference. This represents the closest McCain has been since he trailed by eight points back on September 28th.

In Pennsylvania, John McCain has pulled back within single digits of Barack Obama.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state shows Obama with 53% of the vote while McCain picks up 46%. That seven-point margin is half the 13-point advantage Obama enjoyed early in October.

Not coincidentally, Obama’s current lead is matched by a seven-point advantage on the question of which candidate is trusted more on the economy.

However, while McCain has closed the gap, virtually all the movement comes from an increase in his support rather than a loss of support for Obama. This is the third straight poll showing Obama’s support at or above the 50% level.

Still, the tightening poll results help explain why the Obama campaign has been paying so much attention to the Keystone State this week. Obama and Biden are both campaigning there along with major campaign surrogates.

(more…)

A new poll for Nevada published today from Rasmussen Reports shows Senator Obama maintaining his lead over Senator McCain at four points. The previous poll for Nevada from October 20th had given Obama five a point lead, 50% to 45%. This poll puts Obama’s lead at 50% to 46%.

With one week until Election Day, Barack Obama’s lead in Nevada remains steady, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state.

Obama leads John McCain 50% to 46% in the findings from Monday night. Ten days ago the Democrat had a five-point lead, 50% to 45%. He took the lead in Nevada – by four points – at the beginning of this month, the first time he’d been out front since July.

Forty-nine percent (49%) of Nevada voters say Obama is the candidate most likely to carry Nevada next Tuesday, while 35% say McCain will win.

Obama made two appearances in Nevada on Saturday, his 19th visit to the state where he also battled Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. McCain has not been in the state since August, although his running mate, Sarah Palin, staged a rally there last week.

(more…)

The Republican National Committee has released this ad focusing once again on Senator Obama’s comments on “spreading the wealth” now intersped with his comments from 2001 talking about the Warren Court and the failure of the Civil Rights movement to seek an economic redress of social inequality in the 1960s. The ad is 60 second spot.

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Here are six articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.

McCain Needs to Win Left-Leaning Florida
By Jonathan Martin writing for Politico.

Florida and its 27 electoral votes are essential to John McCain’s hopes of winning the presidency — but with a week until the election even some Republicans in the state say it is tilting toward Barack Obama.

Even if Obama doesn’t take Florida — and most Republicans still believe McCain can win there — the Democrat’s decision to compete so aggressively in the Sunshine State has hampered the Arizona senator’s national campaign by forcing him to scramble to spend time and money late in the race on a state thought to be safely in the GOP column as late as the two national conventions.

With flush coffers, Obama was able to test that conventional wisdom by flooding the sprawling state’s 10 media markets with $10 million in TV ads this summer — spots that were unanswered by McCain until Labor Day.

Now, with McCain constrained by his decision to take federal funds and poll numbers showing a dead heat or an Obama lead in the state, the Illinois senator is doubling down. Obama is investing even more money on TV and matching it with personal attention in hopes of landing a death blow to Republican hopes by taking a state that went comfortably for President Bush in 2004.

That McCain needs Florida is a given but what caught my attention about this post is the strategy that the Obama campaign employed over the Summer.

G.O.P. Puts McCain Ads Up in Montana
By Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times.

Montana, a usually, reliably red state that is rarely ever considered in need of defending for Republicans during presidential campaigns. Democrats who monitor advertising spending report that the “independent expenditure” unit placed a new buy today, totaling between $300,000 and $400,000. Republicans confirm.

Obama is remaking the map. He may win North Dakota as well.

Joe Biden Starts Final Campaign Push in Florida
By Beth Reinhard, Breanne Gilpatrick and Lesley Clark in the Miami Herald.

Eight days out from an election that could turn on Florida, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden began Monday to deliver the campaign’s ”closing argument” and set the stage for overlapping visits by the nominees of both parties in this final, frenetic week.

Campaigning on Republican turf that hasn’t seen the Democratic ticket since Jimmy Carter, Biden compared the GOP offensive against Barack Obama to attacks hurled against famous American presidents, saying “defenders of the status quo have always tried to tear down those who would change our nation for the better.”

Thomas Jefferson faced allegations that he wasn’t a ”real Christian,” Biden said, while critics said John F. Kennedy would be “a dangerous choice in difficult times.”

”Sound familiar?” Biden asked a crowd of about 3,000 people in the first leg of a three-day tour. “New ideas and new leaders are often met with new attacks, negative attacks built on lies, lies that are the last resort when you have nothing else to offer the American people.”

The political onslaught will escalate this week as the National Republican Trust PAC unleashes an ad in Florida and other battleground states that bashes Obama for following a ”preacher of hate.” John McCain has said he would not use Obama’s former pastor in Chicago, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a campaign issue.

Ol’ smokin’ Joe, get thee to a historian. While that’s true that Thomas Jefferson was accused of not being a Christian in the Election of 1800, it’s also true that he didn’t deny the accusation either.

(more…)

The Obama campaign released this ad late yesterday pushing back over a Chicago Public Radio interview of Senator Obama from 2001 which the McCain campaign is touting as some proof of Obama’s nefarious intentions. The ad is a 30 second spot.

Just seven more days to go.

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