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Poll: Obama Still Ahead In Iowa, But McCain Makes Up Ground
A new Rasmussen poll of Iowa shows that Barack Obama's lead is starting to slip in this Midwestern swing stat,e though he does maintain an overall advantage.
The numbers: Obama 49%, McCain 44%, with a ±4% margin of error. A month ago, Obama had a healthier 51%-41% lead, in a state that voted narrowly for Al Gore in 2000 and then switched to George W. Bush in 2004.
Reclaiming this state for the Dems is a cornerstone of Obama's electoral strategy, so don't be at all surprised if he steps up his visits here in order to hold on to his lead.
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And in June his lead was: 49-45.
August 11, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric, no offense, but you need to learn what 'Margin of Error' refers to. This poll falls exactly in the range of recent Iowa polling, with the last Ras poll appearing to be an upper limit outlier.
August 11, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"±4% margin of error"
In other words, NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
You do good work on this site Eric, but please stop reporting on polls as if the margin of error is some sort of irrelevant technicality.
This isn't play-by-play sports reporting - you don't need to say things simply for the sake of filling up time.
August 11, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, TPM would do itself a lot of good by being one of the few blogs honest enough to say: "Nothing has really changed."
August 11, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the title is correct.
McCain has made up ground just like in just about every other poll being released.
August 11, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric is a parrot. I feel like we are wasting our breath trying to get him to understand the most basic things about polling. No doubt this is a sign that he will have a promising journalistic career.
At some point you have to conclude that (a) he is too stupid to understand what is so wrong about his characterization of movement in polls results from one sample to the next; (b) he understands the correct interpretation but thinks his readers are too stupid to know (c) doesn't really care because it let's him pretend that there is actually something exciting happening that he can narrate (breathlessly no doubt).
I tend to think it's a combination of (a) and (c), but maybe (b) and (c). He has caught the fatal bug of journalism, that a good story beats a true story any day.
Too bad.
August 11, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric, I hate to pile on, but ...
I have edited newspaper articles for longer than you have been alive.
A cardinal rule, learned early on, is that polls -- no matter how wide the the apparent gap -- never "show" anything.
You write, "A new Rasmussen poll of Iowa shows that Barack Obama's lead is starting to slip ..."
Margins of error aside, polls don't claim that kind of relation to reality.
It may not sound sexy, but at most the new poll "suggests" Barack's lead "may be" starting to slip.
That phrasing is accurate; your version is wrong.
August 12, 2008 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
McSame is making up all sorts of things. Ground ain't one of them.
August 11, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was in Des Moines on Saturday. The picture on the front page was of John McCain at the Iowa State fair holding a pork chop on a stick. (Hint: State fairs are a big deal in the midwest and politicians at state fairs in August are as traditional as food on a stick).
I believe Obama is in Hawaii? Is that a swing state?
August 11, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Barack is visiting his granny instead of eating pork chop on a stick.
All is lost!
August 11, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
He better find some long lost cousins in swing states.
August 11, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark Penn, please stop posting about meat on sticks and such. It's really just like --- *gag*
August 11, 2008 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wouldn't it be cannibalism for Mark Penn to eat a pork chop?
August 11, 2008 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I truly do not understand why so many media outlets put so much emphasis on these polls. Has anyone visited the Rasmussen site lately? A few days ago I went to check on the size of the polling sample they were using to stress McCain's gaining in some states (and nationally)...it was less than 800 "likely" voters..which means absolutely nothing. Not to mention the fact that the site was full (top, bottom, and side bars) of McCain campaign advertisements...even the now infamous "tire gauge".
Rasmussen polls should be used to line bird cages, for packing material, or better yet...toilet paper if you're in a pinch.
August 12, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink