Some of you may be wondering why I am so confident of victory in the upcoming elections. For the congressional and senate races, the reason is the polls (see, especially, the latest from Carville and Greenberg’s Democracy Corps). In the presidential, it goes beyond polls to the Obama groundgame and the results of early voting in several key states.
But, sticking with the polls, Obama currently has an 8% or better lead in enough states to claim 277 Electoral College votes (269 are needed for Obama to prevail, 270 for McCain). Kos has a post up that explains this in a little more detail, but it comes down to this. The McCain campaign has all but conceded that Obama will win Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado. That’s enough to put Obama over the top unless McCain can win a Kerry state. McCain originally thought Michigan and New Hampshire were good pick-up opportunities. Then they set their sights on Wisconsin and Minnesota. But they now realize that their ambitions in the Upper Midwest are hopeless. So, even though the polls show Obama with a 52%-40% advantage in the Keystone State, McCain’s entire strategy now depends on winning Pennsylvania. Of course, he also has to avoid losing Florida or Ohio, where he currently trails, and avoid losing a mish-mash of states like Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, North Dakota, and Nevada that could, in some combination, overwhelm any gain he’d make in Pennsylvania.
Obama is so confident about holding the Kerry states, that he has canceled a scheduled appearance in Wisconsin and has no plans to campaign in any Kerry state, including Pennsylvania, in the next two weeks. Of course, the Bidens will probably spend some Blue-time, but you get the point.
Obama will be pressing to win in Nevada and Virginia and West Virginia and Ohio and Florida and Georgia. But he really doesn’t need to win any of these states. If he holds the Kerry states and wins states that McCain has already conceded, he’ll be the next president.
That doesn’t mean you should relax. Hell, I live in Pennsylvania and now that I know McCain has placed all his chips here, I feel more pressure than ever. But it does mean that, in most states, you should see what you can do to help the whole ticket. We could see a narrow victory or a large one. But I am confident we’ll see victory if we just execute the plan that has been put in place.
Sheesh- no pressure on us Coloradans, eh? Palin’s supposedly giving an interview to 9 news tonight, the Denver Post gave a tepid endorsement of Obama (better than Bush in ’04) and the more hateful Mc/P become the more of their signs I see.
Could just be my area though; Musgrave wins here.
I’m going to be phone banking here for the next couple weeks. Wish me luck.
Not going to believe we’re going to win until Olbermann calls it November 4th.
Y’all had better destroy him in Penn. Whole campaign rests on you guys now (not to put too much pressure on ya).
In all seriousness, this gamble by McCain doesn’t seem likely to win him the election even if it works. Let’s assume the Armageddon scenario for Obama in PA. Say McCain runs the Pastorgate ads, and the wackos in the T and the Philly ‘burbs somehow go for it.
Great, but that probably means McCain has lost Virginia. In fact, they probably know that already. Virginia is second only to Penn in terms of an Obama lead.
With that, all Obama needs is Nevada or Missouri or NC, and I kinda think he’s going to get all three while holding Pennsylvania by a fairly strong margin.
In fact, I’ll say this: I think Obama has a better shot in Georgia — much better — than McCain has in Penn.
If there was early voting in Pennsylvania, and the results look like they do in Georgia (but reversed), I’d be panicked. Georgia is going to be close.
I’ve thought all year Georgia would be close. The math was always there to do it, and it’s not even that tough if you can crank the AA vote up above 30% of the electorate. It’s running at about 36% for now, which implies that Obama’s winning this in a walk so far. I suspect a good few of those white votes are Obama people — young professionals in Atlanta, the Georgia State and Georgia Tech crowd, etc — in those early returns, given the country-by-county breakdown.
Now, the AA share of the vote will likely fall as we get to Election Day. But anything above 31% suggests a very tight race with a slight lean towards Obama.
If the Yeldarb Effect shows up again among blacks and whites, as we saw in the primaries, he’s almost definitely got it.
It really depends on whether there is any depressed turnout for McCain on election day. If the national and battleground polls don’t close, and it seems hopeless, the enthusiasm of the black community and the Obama ground game will drag him over the top in Georgia and many other states. But if McCain’s voters turnout, even if only on election day, we’ll have a lot of toss-ups.
Yes, and I’m betting on at least a slightly depressed turnout combined with some pretty mind-blowing figures on black and youth turnout. Right now, the national polls actually seem to be expanding back out slightly — keeping in mind that almost all, if not all, of the movement in recent days is probably noise — to where it was a week or so ago.
That’s going to weigh on McCain, especially given his pathetic ground game. And it’s going to make him prone to making mistakes in the last couple weeks that piss off his base and encourage some to stay home or simply vote the downticket candidates.
I’m watching the news and they just showed a Missouri poll that shows McCain 45% and Obama 44%. Which is kind of a bummer.
But then I read this analysis and I feel a lot better. I wouldn’t say “confident”, but better. 🙂
i think Obama will win Missouri, maybe because of the Gov. race here where Nixon is literally defeating Husholfe or whatever his name.
75k in KC, 100K St. Louis, sez a lot. Plus I accurately predicted Obama would beat Hillary in Missouri.
Nixon is blowing Hulshoff away. I was hoping he’d drag Obama along with him. But it’s starting to look like Obama could do it on his own.
Link
“…it goes beyond polls to the Obama groundgame and the results of early voting in several key states.“
To this admittedly unsophisticated person, that seems like a shaky reason to be confident. Isn’t it true that the biggest push for early voting is for Obama supporters? That’s going to skew the data enormously.
I’m in NC and so far I’ve gotten 3 robocalls urging early voting for Obama and 3 robocalls urging early voting for McCain. So the early vote push is even, in my personal experience.
Maybe in terms of robocalls, at least in your area, but I know there are big campaigns specifically to urge early voting especially by Blacks and other minorities, and in districts where heavy caging is likely. It is part of a “protect your vote” campaign.
it looks like mcworse is letting his tactics dictate his strategy, which is arse-backwards, if he’s decided to put all his chips in pa.
specifically, it looks like he’s letting his negative campaigning dictate where he makes his stand, instead of letting the map dictate the style and tone of his campaign.
so if his endgame is in fact to go long on wright, he obviously thinks there’s still a big enough bloc of receptive undecideds in pa. to turn the race around.
well, if he’s finally committing himself entirely to the smear tactics, i guess we can’t really attack him for being inconsistent anymore …
Obama is now comfortably ahead in NH…yesterday’s polling. 50-43%
That news on VPR (VT) was followed by the item
Moose season has opened in NH… a VT man bagged a big (800 lbs) bull.
No word that Sarah Palin was invited for the hunt.
McCain returns on Wednesday.