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Poll: McCain Takes One-Point Edge In Colorado
A new Rasmussen poll of Colorado has some bad news for Democrats: John McCain has edged into a statistically insignificant lead in a state that has become a linchpin for Obama's strategy.
The numbers: McCain 49%, Obama 48%, with a ±4% margin of error. Three weeks ago, Obama held a narrow lead of 50%-47%. While the movement itself isn't significant, it is nevertheless a good sign that this whole election is going to be tightly contested to the very end.
Karl Rove wrote in The Wall St. Journal today that Colorado is set to be one of the four states that will decide this election, along with Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, and he thinks Obama is best-positioned to win this state. We'll see what happens.
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Karole Rove is a piece of shit, however, he's absolutely right, all the polls show Obama has consistent lead in Colorado, he's positioned to win the state in the fall. Nevada, maybe.
August 14, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
All polls in CO -- until now. That said, it is hard to believe that Obama gets only 83% of Centennial State Dems while McCain gets 90% of Centennial State Repubs. Obama got 87% of CO Dems in the last poll. Still, this is sobering news.
We're going to have to work to win this election. This ain't gonna be easy. Nobody ever said it would be.
August 14, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dont see how obama should be worried. this is a state that supposed to be a red state, not a blue state.
It just gets really repetitive when folks look at a narrow poll in red states and ask why isn't obama doing better.
Video: Baracky Part 2
August 15, 2008 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's in the margin on error.
It's too early. Wait for the convention bounce.
PD: New Obama's attack ad for Ohio (DHL deal):
http://thepage.time.com/new-obama-dhl-ad/
August 14, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, right. Just like the overseas trip bounce? The Brandenburg speech bounce?
Why are you guys putting so much faith into a convention bounce? If anything you should be planning for the worst case scenario.
I think the days of big bounces are over save for some earth shattering event. This is it from here to election day.
August 14, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sadly, I agree. Mostly because convention bounces usually just solidify party support. In this case, both parties pretty much have almost all their support solidified.
I think turnout is also a big deal.
August 14, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's where the ground game enters.
August 14, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hispanic voter registration can win or lose it for Obama in Colorado. More than 20 percent of the state is Hispanic.
August 15, 2008 4:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
all presidential candidates get a bounce when they announce VP, and during their convention.
gallup had a good article on it where they showed their past polls. you should check it out
August 15, 2008 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"all presidential candidates get a bounce when they announce VP, and during their convention."
"all presidential candidates" isn't Barack Obama, a candidate like no other in the past. I don't give a damn what conventional wisdom says. You'd think we could recognize by now that conventional wisdom doesn't apply to either one of these candidates or this campaign.
August 15, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great ad.
Their ads keep getting better. I can't wait until after the convention - McCain's gonna walk into a shitstorm and he doesn't even know it.
August 14, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Geez Eric ...get a life
August 14, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
My sentiments exactly. These polls don't mean anything now, because most voters aren't paying attention the election.
August 14, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, seriously. No disrespect, Eric, I generally enjoy your work, but you post this non-item, then step on your own premise in the first 'graph? Say it with me now: "statistically insignificant". That term describes just about every poll that will be taken up until about a week and a half before election day. TPM has a well deserved rep for clear-eyed political analysis. Plz leave the breathless poll-mongering to Politico. You guys are smarter than that.
August 14, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
And for fuck's sake, please don't give Rove any more oxygen than he's already getting. 10 million pundits/strategists on the 'Net, and you front this clown? Not cool.
August 14, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
to be honest..is it really??
obama lost 2 points. mccain gained 1 point.
does that really matter?
August 14, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conventions are coming. I'll be checking these polls with earnest after the Republican Convention.
August 14, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric, you suck at poll-reading.
August 14, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL
It's funny because it's true.
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
August 14, 2008 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
This will be a good number to compare the post-convention number to.
I think the Dems choosing Denver for the convention site will turn out to be a very savvy move. Obama is going to get a week's worth of exposure in the local media markets without having to pay a cent for it.
August 14, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
August 14, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because this is the first time McCain has been ahead, and we can't take this election for granted. That's why.
Now we don't want to be drama queens, but we can't call even a 1-2 point trail a good thing -- particularly in a swing state such as Colorado.
August 14, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine - that makes it statistically significant then.
It's either or with "significant" - something either matters, and is therefore news, or it doesn't and isn't.
August 14, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
A statistically insignificant lead can come from a statistically significant shift...
August 15, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unless Karl Rove just told us where they are going to steal it this time.
August 14, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
...goodness knows the Dems run such perfect campaigns that the only way Repubs can win is by stealing...(this is almost as fun as watching the Ohio State fans whine about not being #1 every year...sorry Buckeye)
August 15, 2008 8:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
It does not mean anything since it is from Rasmussen, which is supporting McBushSame.
August 14, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
True. Rasmussen Poll is a conservative leaning poll. Go to the website and read its content, its very pro-McCain and republican.
August 14, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
By way of illustrating that point, here's a funny stab at spin from the rasmussen Politics page:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/party_affiliation/partisan_trends
"Number of Democrats declines in July", LOL, yeah, and the Easter Bunny will be McSame's veep pick....
August 14, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Polls are meaningless until after the 1st debate. If Obama's behind in Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado around September 30 or so, then I will start to worry.
August 14, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in Boulder and at our precinct caucus there were 275 Dems and 9 Repugs. The Dems were crowded into the large gym and the Republicans had many empty seats in their little closet.
Boulder is a force, I think.
August 14, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a personal policy I dont put ANY significance in Rasmussen polls. They didnt a pretty bad job in the primaries.
August 14, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The bigger issue here: Why in the world does anyone give any credit/value to Rasmussen's polls??? It is a Republican poll. Period. It is not objective. Never has been, never will be. Yet people cite it as if it is equal to say Gallop or Zogby, to name just a couple. Notice there is no reference to the fact that Rasmussen is a Repub poll in this article. It is bad enough that the MSM gives Rasmussen credibility but there is really no excuse for TPM to continue to, especially with no caveats what so ever. TPM has really gone downhill fast in its handling of polls. Time after time people mention the importance of the margin of error yet there is little evidence that anyone at TPM has taken the time to comprehend it. A very poor effort.
August 14, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not bad news but a meaningless statistical fluctuation unless confirmed by future polls. If the true difference were stable and only 2 or 3 points in favor of Obama, then it is inevitable that a series of daily polls will one day show a 1% McCain lead. If that did not happen, then it would be good evidence that someone was manipulating the results. Professors do this kind of check all the time when looking at student lab reports. If one-third of the data points don't deviate by more than one standard deviation from the theoretical best fit line (e.g. all the data points lie right on top of the best fit curve), then the data points have been cooked for the lab report.
August 14, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
psmdsfc,
You're right. The Rasmussen Poll is a conservative leaning poll. Go to the website and read its content, its very pro-McCain and pro-republican. For e.g. some of the site's writers are DICK MORRIS and Mark Barone just to name a few.
August 14, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me or are all of the recent Rasmussen polls giving much better numbers to McCain than anywhere else? All of these new gloomy polls are Rasmussen...I'm not going to put any weight on them until they are confirmed by another outfit.
August 14, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. Rasmussen is a conservative leaning poll. Its pro-McCain, pro-republican, its web ads are from conservative groups like worldnet, newsmax and nro. Go its website ans check out it for yourself.
August 14, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would not automatically exclude Rasmussen results just based on his personal politics. There is too much danger of a "shooting-the-messenger" effect where one starts believing only positive poll results.
In the case of Rasmussen, one can first look at his record in the Republican and Democratic primaries. I think that his results there were not particularly bad, perhaps a 5% average margin of error compared to the actual vote. There are web sites which tabulate these comparisons.
However, it is also my impression that Rasmussen consistently has Bush job approval rates several points higher than other national polls, as much as 5% higher. That could indicate that he over-samples Republicans and under-samples Democrats compared to other polls. If he is making the same mistake in the Obama-McCain preference polls, then this might explain a systematic trend in the Rasmussen results (if such exists) to overstate McCain's numbers.
At the present time, I don't think anyone could say that Obama has a clearcut (10% or more) lead nationally, but he likely has a lead of at least a few percent. Given the inaccuracies and fluctuations of polling, confirming a relatively narrow lead is impossible with 1000 person samples.
August 14, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except that Qunnipiac showed McCain ahead of Obama in Colorado by 2%.
Rasmussen is showing Obama's lead is down to just 4% in Minnesota.
SurveyUSA shows Obama's lead is down to 7% in Washington.
What this means is that this election is close.
August 14, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
The PPP poll released on Monday has Obama up by 4 in Colorado. The point is that right now likely voter screens are pretty fluid. And most CERTAINLY do not include newly registered voters.
Either way, it's too early to watch polls this closely.
OT, Obama's camp has put out a 40 page rebuttal to Obama Nation. So far only Halperin seems to have a copy:
http://markhalperin.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/unfit_for_publication.pdf
August 14, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
But PPP is a Democratic pollster. So if you are going to discount Rasmussen (foolhardy in my opinion), at the very least you have to discount PPP. Which leaves Quinnipiac as the most recent, undisputed non-partisan poll of the state. And they had McCain ahead.
August 14, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think I've ever advocated discounting any pollster because of its perceived affiliation. My point is that it's too early to place too much emphasis on polling.
Check back in September right before the first debate (McCain's bump should be back to normal (if he gets one) and Obama's should be gone (if he gets one)). After that, I suspect things are going to get interesting.
August 14, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This troll is insufferable. Cherry-picking polls to always tell that "OBAMA IN DANGER!" tale, nevermind that he's at 50% or over while McCain is just sucking up disaffected Repubies and wallowing below 45%. Tiresome. Dumb. Get lost.
August 14, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
And everytime a poll comes out showing an Obama lead, this pathetic troll whines about partisans or likely voters or some other bullshit to 'prove' that his losing candidate is actually poised to win. Pathetic.
August 14, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not a troll, dude, paid staff. Make a better argument.
From the front page of TPM
Reporter-Bloggers
Eric Kleefeld
Kate Klonick
Josh Marshall
Greg Sargent
Andrew Tilghman
August 14, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not talking about Kleefeld, jackass.
August 14, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me or everything about this election seems to be running in slow mo?
Eric,FYI- If Rasmussen decided the eventual outcome, then there is nothing much to decide really.
Let me know when the dog barks next door, I'll take cover.
August 14, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it is not just you.
These campaigns are way too long. People spend all their time campaigning any more and not getting shit done.
Apparently, campaigning is more fun than actually working.
August 14, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently, campaigning is more fun than actually working.
No kidding, I'm writing my dissertation for over an year now, thanks to this election I'll be writing it for a few months more. LOL.
I'm getting exhausted though, both with the dissertation and the election. The race against Hillary was a LOT MORE fun than McCain, the old shit bag boring, uneventful, insipid and unimaginative as hell.
August 14, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree.
And the people I know who aren't political junkies are really tired of this campaign.
August 14, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
This means nothing soon as CNN and the MSM tell the whole truth about Georgia! People will see Iraq refolding before there eyes again with McCain at the reins.It's just a matter of when!
see the TMPCafe and reports like this...
‘Sinful Saakashvili’ or Hero?
Across the street from the Parliament building on Rustaveli Prospekt, the central street of Tbilisi, a man was sitting on the pavement in tears as his 2-year-old son hugged his father's head. Gocha Kalichava, 29, said he lost his wife, Sofika, his mother, Lyudmila, and baby son, Edik, in the Russian bombings of Gori. "I do not care what commands Putin gives," he cried. "Why did our president go on the attack?" he asked referring to Saakashvili's initial move on South Ossetia last week. "Russia has won wars for centuries. Did [Saakashvili] think tiny Georgia could survive attacks? He must have been out of his mind!"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/152353/page/2
You would have thought they learn from Iraq about selective reporting and that McCain would have learn about telling the whole truth, but as we see neither do some people in this country, so I guess my friends and I will be in wars till we reach McCain age!
August 14, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone know what's up with the second Rasmussen national track result now showing up at the top of the poll tracker? So far as I'm aware, Ras only puts out one tracking number a day, and today's was 47-46 Obama-McCain (and is listed as such further down in the tracker), not 49-45 Obama-McCain.
August 14, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
That 49-45 is actually the latest Rasmussen Minnesota poll
August 14, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was just going to say the same thing. And that's a drop from a 12pt Obama lead in Rasmussen's previous poll.
August 14, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, I'm guessing it's just a mislabeled version of the MN-Pres poll out of Ras, since that isn't listed in the tracker.
All in all, a bad day in state polling for Obama. But I agree with those who are pointing out that polls will mean much more after the conventions (both conventions, not just the Democrats').
August 14, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only polls that matter are the ones we use come nov. and they will be bring o the win!
August 14, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Given that his campaign manager is a lobbyist for Georgia.... it seems that McCain would rather START A WAR than lose a political campaign.
August 14, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Karl Rove is simply trying to make things look like 2004 all over again:
"IT'S ALL GONNA COME DOWN TO THIS ONE STATE! OMG, WHO IS GONNA WIN THIS ONE STATE, AND WITH IT, THE ELECTION?!"
Sorry, Karl. I really don't see that happening again.
August 14, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the column is fairly evenhanded. What Rove leaves out, probably intentionally, is that Obama is locking down IA and NM, and unless something changes there, he only needs to fend McCain off in MI and then pick one of CO, VA, or OH (or any two of MT, AK, ND, SD, and NV) to win.
When you look at it that way, flipping MI becomes McCain's most plausible path to victory.
August 14, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish I didn't worry about that, but I can't help it.
August 14, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Emphasis on "statistically insignificant." So much hand-wringing over so little.
August 14, 2008 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
On an unrelated issue:
Guess who's back on McCain's camp...
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/08/14/phil-gramm-attends-mccain-campaign-briefing/
August 14, 2008 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
c'mon damn there was a poll just 3 days ago having obama up by 4... ppl need relax every time a poll come out...........
August 14, 2008 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
O I don't pay any attention to the polls. I don't believe any of them.
The only reason they bother me is when they stay this close - when everything I read, see and hear tells me that isn't really the case. I get nervous because I've watched the GOP do this twice. I hate worrying about it - but I can't help it.
August 14, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know, I know, one of my kids writes newspaper headlines for a living.
Remind me again why Karl Rove is not kooling his heels in the basement of the Capitol? Instead he is dropping his Turd Blossoms from on high at the ivory tower paper. My father, an Ike guy, hated northeast intellectuals.
I prefer hot chili at 538 to this hand wringing, being a math major and all. The Orange Satan had a souffle de snark of a diary about getting breathless over one poll number after another, minute by minute, polling taken to the comedy of the absurd.
Remember that elephant in the cave with all the visually challenged dudes story any one? Trends, internals, trends.
There is hard work to do. Everyone pick themselves up off the floor, adopt a congressional critter and get to work.
August 14, 2008 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Colorado will come through for Obama. Daddy's Dobson's too lukewarm on McCain to fire up any extraordinary turnout amongst the Republican's evangelical base here, while Obama will inspire big turnout among his supporters. The convention being in town will really fire people up.
Even where I live in hardcore Republican/Tom Tancredo country, Obama stickers outnumber the McCain stickers.
August 14, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to Obama supporter Nate Silver who runs fivethirtyeight.com, Rasmussen is the third most accurate pollster in the US (after Selzer who only does Iowa pretty much, and Survey USA).
And when Rasmussen gives Obama a good number the liberals do not complain. But let him show Obama slipping in a state as he is doing in many states this week (as are other pollsters), and all of a sudden liberals denounce him as a partisan hack.
The Quinnipiac poll on 7/22 showed McCain ahead by 2 in Colorado and now Rasmussen corroborates that. The other 2 polls in the interim with Obama a little ahead were both by Democrat-affiliated pollsters KF and PPP.
With McCain now surging back into the lead in VA, CO, and NV, it is clear that his attack ads are working against the Obamessiah.
August 14, 2008 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Surging?"
McCain's statistically insigificant +1 in VA is unchanged from July.
The CO number is within the range of polls we've seen since June.
The same is true of the NV number.
What all this tells us is that the race remains fundamentally unchanged since the Democratic primaries ended, but alas, desperate Republicans are always looking for signs that McCain is doing better. In reality, Obama remains on the verge of tipping a wide range of states that McCain needs for victory. Can McCain hold all of them? The math isn't on his side.
August 14, 2008 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
But yes, Ras is a great pollster.
With that said, your claims are just as silly as those dismissals you rightly ridicule.
August 14, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude...never mock Dr. Zaius...remember Ape must never harm Ape...it's been handed down by the Law Givers...gosh!
August 15, 2008 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, you are dead wrong on this. I know from first hand experience that Rasmussen is without question a partisan hack. I was polled by Rasmussen a couple years back. It was an absurdly Republican-slanted poll. I will never forget how the questions were so loaded. No objectivity what so ever. If Rasmussen shows a Democratic ahead by a point or two, rest assured the lead is greater. No question about it. There is a reason why Fox News loves Rasmussen polls.
August 14, 2008 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no McCain surge.
What's happening is a tightening of the polls.
It's a very, very close election as of now.
August 14, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no tightening of the polls either. These numbers are all within the range of what we've seen since June.
What it comes down to is that there's a dead heat in three states: Virginia, Colorado, and Ohio.
McCain must win all three of those, and so the odds largely favor Obama.
We'll see if things change after the conventions, but right now, nothing has changed.
August 14, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those who claim that Rasmussen is more biased than other pollsters, how do you explain that Obama fan Nate Siver's objective poll rankings on fivethirty eight.com place Rasmussen ahead of every multistate pollster except SurveyUSA? None of you copmplainerd when Rasmussen showed big leads for Obama in MN, MI, WI, and IA in July, for example.
And close states by definition will poll within the margin of error so there'd be no point to following polls at all if you fixate on margins of error and only consider a candidate truly ahead if he is up by 9 points or more. It's the states where the candidates are only a few points apart in the polls that are interesting and the election-deciders.
August 14, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again you have failed to understand that if Rasmussen shows a Democrat ahead by a few points, you can be sure that it is really more than that.
And please link to where Nate is pro Obama, not that it really matters. The fact remains: Rasmussen is nothing more than a Republican slanted poll. Period. End of story.
August 15, 2008 5:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually you are incorrect. Nate Silver "has been" an Obama supporter (read his FAQ). Note his past tense.
August 15, 2008 5:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a dead heat.
With all the Republican baggage and Democratic momentum, it's a dead heat.
And Obama has peaked.
August 14, 2008 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Soetoro is roadkill.
August 14, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you a graduate of the William Crystal School of prognostication? Cause I believe you had Obama peaking in February as well.
August 15, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . and by polling 100 confirmed Republicans this is the best they could produced . . .
August 14, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is anyone familiar with Colorado Sec'y of State Mike Coffman's (R) work? Are we looking at another Blackwell here?
August 15, 2008 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink