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Polls: Pennsylvania Slipping Away For McCain?
A new SurveyUSA poll of Pennsylvania suggests that this big Dem-leaning swing state, where John McCain has been making a major play, may have slipped away from him for good.
The numbers: Obama 55%, McCain 40%. Obama is ahead 52%-43% among men, ahead 57%-38% with women, and even leads 49%-45% among white voters.
The McCain campaign had high hopes that they could take advantage of Obama's problems with working-class whites during the state's primary. But more and more polls, such as Muhlenberg, Quinnipiac and Rasmussen, are showing Obama way ahead here.
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THIS
October 7, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
IS
October 7, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
EXCELLENT
October 7, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
TERRORIST!!
[dammit, I keep getting that wrong]
October 7, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
TREASON!
Oops.
October 7, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
FIST-BUMP!!!
October 7, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
NEWS
October 7, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
FOR ALAN KEYES!!!!
October 7, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nerds!
All in fun. I'm right with you all.
October 7, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
IS
October 7, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, uh, you know, members of the electoral college are allowed to change their mind...
October 7, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean the automatic electors?
October 7, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
IS
October 7, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
EXCELLENT
October 7, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yikes. So what's left for McCain?
Slime, slime, slime, slime and more slime.
October 7, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pretty soon he is going to have to retract his forces back down to Arizona, lest he end up so badly beaten that he cannot even win re-election in 2010.
October 7, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think he'll for the Senate again. He'll retire. I think he only stuck around in the Senate this long, because he had his eyes set on another Presidential run.
October 7, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, as I think about it, you are probably right about that. Is it perhaps time for a "Napolitano for Senate" exploratory committee to start forming?
October 7, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Arizona - where the South fought the North (and the Northeast, and the Upper Midwest, and the Mountain Central, and the Pacific Coast) to a draw!
October 7, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's left for McCain? Go home to his sugar-mommy and be a nice boy for once so she doesn't kick his sleazy saggy old ass out on the street. Maybe she'll give him one of her houses.
October 7, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
News
October 7, 2008 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The part I love the most about PA being so far out of reach for McCain is that McCain can not poll out of PA even though he has not shot in it. If he pulls out of PA like he did MI then the press would have a field day over it.
October 7, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
In 2007, Bucks County (Philly 'burbs) went from slightly red to slightly blue, but Obama's ground game here is astonishing!
We closed out new registrations yesterday, and estimates are that Dems out registered Reps by at least 2:1 and it could be significantly higher than that.
Pennsylvania will do Obama proud! Even lifelong GOPers are swinging to Obama, and McCain's latest Medicare plans are helping us greatly!
PEACE
October 7, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was in Bucks County this weekend and I agree - the ground organization is PHENOMENAL. We walked 5 turfs and got a great response. This doesn't event reflect all the new registrations.
October 7, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was in Montgomery County this weekend. At the campaign office there were over 75 volunteers on Sat. morning at 11am ready to go door to door. Most of them were from out of town. People came from NJ, DE, and NY just to canvass for Obama in a battleground state. (well, I think some came down for the Springsteen concert too) Anyway, the ground game was amazing.
October 7, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get why Repubs even try for Pennsylvania... they do it every year and it always fails.
Truth is, some 51-49 states can really swing either way, while some just have a hardened 51 against a hardened 49... PA and MI are both like that. Waste 'o cash for Repub candidates.
October 7, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will he still need VA? I'm still having a hard time accepting that one going for Obama . . .
October 7, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I won't believe Fla, NC or Va until it happens, though I am certainly hopeful. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Obama carries all Kerry states and pulls Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico on Nov. 4th.
October 7, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I truly have my doubts about all of these states as well. But here is how it could happen:
1. VA -- military types do not trust Palin. NoVa does not trust McCain and is truly motivated by Bush contempt. They actually work for the federal government and they know first hand what a mess it all is. McCain needs a lot of turn out in places that are trending blue . . .
2. NC -- Significant African American turn out, banking crisis calling the entire Charlotte economy into question, which means, all those "value" issues you thought defined you are falling away fast as you look at the "value" of your 401k and your house, and penury stares you back in the face for the first time ever.
3. FL -- Motivated AA base, older Cubans fading away, younger Cubans not so much in love with McCain, and younger Cubans, Jews, and retirees of all ethnicities completely baffled by the appeal of Palin and terrified by the economic crisis. Bonus: Many voters old enough to remember Keating 5 scandal.
October 7, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent points, all of them. I will add, in regard to Virginia, that in the last polling report that I saw, McCain was not leading in any region of the state. In the southwest, which has been the Republicans' strongest part of the state in recent decades, he is dead even with Obama. A month ago, McCain was leading Obama in southwest Virginia by more than 20 points. That he's now only dead even there is an illustration of how completely his support in the state has collapsed.
October 7, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...military types do not trust Palin."
They trust her more than Obama...you can bank on that.
October 7, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The other major state to consider there is Nevada- the difference in ground games is astonishing (I was in Reno this weekend)
October 7, 2008 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
ACORN's definately doing their part!
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/07/acorn-vegas-office-raided-voter-fraud-investigation/
October 7, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I went out door to door in Ashburn VA, which historically has been reliably red, on Saturday. I was shocked at 1) the number of Obama-Biden signs, 2) the lack of Palin-McCain signs, 3) the relatively few Republicans who were so tied to McCain they would not listen, and 4) the energy of the Democrats, who dropped what they were doing to point out persuadable neighbors.
VA will go blue by at least 6 points.
October 7, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's banking on using his red meat rallies and gutter smears to win the 2004 Bush states. That's all he has left, hoping to play to fear and racial anxieties.
October 7, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
But New Mexico and Iowa are already all but gone (and Colorado is right behind).
October 7, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What, exactly, is McCain's path to 270?
October 7, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCains one and only path to 270 is to win all the current "swing states", IN,MO,CO,NV,OH,FL,NC,VA. His only chance is to win all of those.
October 7, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then it's over - for god's sake - he has to have them ALL?
That's impossible.
October 7, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sweeping the swing states has been McCain's best shot all along. He campaigned in MI and PA because he HAD to, not because he ever really had a chance.
October 7, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just for fun, can you tell us in how many of those 8 "swing states" is McCain currently ahead?
October 7, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well RCP avg's have McCain leading in IN and thats it.
October 7, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know that he's ahead in any of them - he's even in some - isn't Nevada neck and neck? Co. was neck and neck yesterday; Obama was ahead in N. Carolina; Va, Fla, Mo -
is he ahead in any of them?
October 7, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bribing about 255 electors after the election?
October 7, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
FOR McPLAMEALIN!!!!!!
October 7, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
NICE!!!! Didn't Kerry win PA, though?
October 7, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, by the hair on his chinny chin chin, essentially.
Look: this is bad for McCain, even if PA went Democratic in 2004. The press is going to be chattering about this, thereby further cementing the theme that Obama is starting to pull away.
October 7, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree and I also agree with Thera that that kind of thing fuels a landslide - once it starts, people want on board.
and I think the polls are too pessimistic by many points.
October 7, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but he was white and had the Heinz name to run on with...
October 7, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
But still couldn't catch up . . .
*ducks*
October 7, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ketchup always gets my vote!
October 7, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, and I am happy and sad that I won't be canvassing in PA this year over Halloween weekend. I stayed with my mother and spent the entire pre-election weekend of 2004 GOTV for a hyper well-organized union.
October 7, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in PA and have done phonebanking, and I'll tell you what McCain's problem is - Palin. Lots of weak Obama supporters/leaners who are now totally carrying the flag because of the idiocy of the Palin pick.
October 7, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin pick is only for those who seriously believe God got Bush where he is (no, I know a couple of such believers in real life). Those people would support her even if she couldn't answer her own name. But it seems she has turn of moderate Republicans, even.
October 7, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
SSShhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Don't tell Pat Buchanan.
October 7, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
HAHAHA - the Republican talking heads are already on the cable news networks stating these recent polls are all tilted Democratic in who's being called.
So, when McCain was in the lead in early September, the polls were completely and 100% accurate, but now that Obama's back in the lead, they're inaccurate and partisan-stilted.
Didn't we get enough of that crap when Howard Wolfson tried this lame tactic and failed miserably in the primaries??
October 7, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Great Liberal Conspiracy.
October 7, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Disney, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch...
October 7, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let them believe that. It will only lead to an even greater defeat.
October 7, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pa is obama by 15.
GA is mccain by 7.
I'm thinking we need different state maps to the right indicating what's a battleground and what is not.
October 7, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
One really has to wonder just how many AA voters were polled in Georgia.
;)
October 7, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know about the polling, but I do know that AA have made up around 40% of the early voting here in GA. It was 25% in 2004. Nate Silver guesstimates that if AAs account for 29% of the voters than McCain's lead will be shrunk down to 2%....and that's based on voting patterns of 2004. I think this state may be closer than some people are ready to admit.
Even if Obama doesn't manage to eek out a win, it's excellent news for Jim Martin who is running against Saxby Chambliss for Senate.
October 7, 2008 1:08 PM |