"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

The Oval Office is for Closers

As Atros says, Poll Porn.

This is only one pollster, and one that's been showing bigger margins for Obama in general -- which is why sober analysts use composite averages -- but it would appear that the Obama campaign is indeed beginning to pull ahead:

State Pre Debate Post Debate
Florida Obama +6 Obama +8
Ohio Obama +7 Obama +8
Pennsylvania Obama +6 Obama +15
Pre-debate surveys ended at 8 p.m. Friday with post-debate surveys Saturday-Monday.

"It is difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung so dramatically, so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign. In the last 20 days, Sen. Barack Obama has gone from seven points down to eight points up in Florida, while widening his leads to eight points in Ohio and 15 points in Pennsylvania," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

...

"Sen. Obama clearly won the debate, voters say. Their opinion of Gov. Sarah Palin has gone south and the Wall Street meltdown has been a dagger to McCain's political heart. Roughly a third of voters, and almost as large a share of the key independent vote, say McCain did more harm than good in trying to resolve the financial crisis, and the share of voters who see the economy as the top issue has risen from roughly half to six in ten."

With the Palen/Biden debate widely expected to be a trainwreck, it's hard to see how McCain recovers without a big game-changing event or "October Surprise." He can't really capitalize on the bailout, and unless Obama stumbles badly in the next two debates I don't see what other happenings between now and Nov 4th could reverse the momentum.

That said, 20 days ago McCain/Palin was on top. Lots more than 20 days to go.

If I were the Obama campaign, I'd be focused on banking hard supporters via early voting, and start stoking sub-rosa concerns around the Bradley effect and dirty tricks to keep the sense of urgency high. It also might be real. A 5 to 10% margin in the polls might not be enough!

As the saying goes, when your opponent is drowning, throw them an anvil. Folks with an interest here should start turning up the heat. The Oval Office is for closers.

Responses

Have you seen anyone cross the Bradley effect with Sirota's race chasm? It seems to me those will be the most vulnerable states. Maybe I should write a diary. (It's probably too wonkish for my YouTube crowd) Anyway, this is what shakes out for swing states:

<6% black: MN, CO, NM, IA, NH

low borderline: WI

in the chasm: IN, PA, OH, MI, MO, NV

high borderline: FL

17%: VA, NC

My above comment is dumb because the race chasm would have a ceiling more than twice as high when you include all those white Republicans diluting the mixture.

But on the good side, fivethirtyeight just posted that Obama now has a six point cushion on 269 electoral votes, which leaves a fairly wide berth for voter misrepresentation.

Yah dude. Thanks for the "We're Winning" youtube line. I should have linked to it in my unicorn post. I went off in a different direction, but your video was part of the spark.

Without a doubt, obama is going to win this election :) it would be great to have someone like him representing the country.

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