Pollster.com

Bleh. Missouri numbers are a bit surprising, but overall good news I guess.

Great news for John McCain.

No surprise. IA is in the bag. If MO goes for Barack, he wins with 390+ EV, which is too optimistic. MO is about 4-5 points redder than US on average.

Mason-Dixon is a Republican-leaning pollster so these numbers don't tell us anything new. Obama's crushing McCain in Iowa, McCain is about five points ahead in Georgia and Missouri is pretty much a toss-up, perhaps slightly leaning towards Obama.
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mysticlaker:

Great news for John McCain.

That' right. Only 11 down in that Bush '04 Iowa. The R's have Obama exactly where they want him ... in the white house???

This poll shows McCain up 1 in MO which I think is generous to McCain and in his wisdom he is doing events in Iowa.

GA and MO are in the margin of error. Sure, no one really expects Obama to win either state. Yet it does appear he has a fighting chance. If the race is basically tied, doesn't it come down to ground game?

Keep in mind that M-D, according to 538.com, has a fairly consistent pro-McCain house effect. So these are pretty decent numbers for them even if the effect is 2 points. We would have:

IA +13
MO +1
GA -4

I'm not complaining.

Do these polls reflect the fact that African Americans are turning out in much bigger numbers right now? 36% in GA and 28% in NC. It may go down in the next week OR on election day but it may also increase! what are the pollsters assumption?

I can't even remember when was the last time Obama visited Iowa. McCain and Palin have campaigned vigoriously in the state, and then trailing by 11%? You never know, but more and more McCain seems to totally deny reality. Sounds a lot like Guliani :-)

Mason-Dixon hasn't polled in MO before, so we have comparison point. Ras had Obama at +5 a week ago. I'm quietly optimistic.

I think Obama was supposed to campaign in Iowa this week, but it was one of the stops cancelled so he could go to Hawaii. It might be in his best interest to go through there one more time. He should also spend some more time here in PA to offset Palin's numerous visits.

Please , how can we know , where the candidates will make stop in the next days ???

should be "so we don't have a comparison point"

Obama is going to win Georgia for two reasons:

1) The AA turnout will be off the charts (evidenced by hard data in early voting and anecdotal evidence from volunteers in GA).

2) This is Bob Barr's homestate and he will siphon off 4-5% from McCain.

@NextAmericanChapter

I agree with you. I keep wondering if i should put some money on Intrade on Georgia. at 30% right now it would be a good payback come election day...Thoughts?

hotline

O 50%
M 42%

@NextAmericanChapter

I agree. I think you're right.

Obama was supposed to be Iowa but he sent Palin instead. Oooopps! I let is slip. McCain isn't supposed to know that Palin is secretly in support of the Democratic Ticket. How else could her astonishingly inept behavior be explained?

im going to fund intrade tomorrow (pain in the ass)...the real buy is NC. Look at the early vote.....That state is going blue

Just watched 3 clips of McCain on Meet the Press this morning...he didn't come off too well. I kinda thought Brokaw would let him slide.

I think these are pretty accurate. MO is in play but my no means a slam dunk. McCain is toast in IA and has been for quite some time. GA will be close but no cigar for Obama (although I'd like to be pleasantly surprised on Election Day).

@WhereisMitt:
I believe Obama is suppose to campaign in PA tomorrow.

Guys, the reason Obama took the luxury of suspending his campaigning in IA was because his lead in the state is strong. Believe me, you don't do that unless you feel OK about it. McCain's campaigning in IA has to do with evangelical vote, Remember who won the Iowa caucus on the Republican side? Huckabee :-)

Obviously that the McCain campaign is betting on Palin to galvanize those evangelical voters to come out and vote for the ticket. Remember that these voters delivered the state for Bush in 2004. Will it work this year against the "next door guy" Obama? We don't know; however, judging for Mason-Dixon's numbers, Obama is doing much, much better than Kerry or Bush for that matter.

Look at Mason-Dixon numbers in Iowa in 2004:

Mason-Dixon|10/15-10/18 Bush 49 Kerry 43

Bush ended up winning the state by 1%, 10,000 votes.

Anyone have a link to the McCall morning tracker poll for PA?

I hate to admit it, but in 2004, around the same time as now, Mason-Dixon hat the race in Missouri Bush 49, Kerry 44, and it became Bush 53.4, Kerry 46.1 (well... according to my numbers - but they might be wrong...), so I guess in the case of Missouri, M-D is actually worth a look.

BUT!

Rasmussen had the 2004 race at 50:45, which is about as good as M-D, and Ras in 2008 still shows MO with Obama ahead, afaik...

A horserace worth watching... ;-)

Here is the link:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/Release_10_25_08.doc

PA (Muhlenberg)

O 53
M 41

This one's been over for months, folks

PS: In the case fo Iowa, M-D had it Bush 49, Kerry 44. And Iowa went Bush 49.9, Kerry 49.2 according to http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2004&fips=19&f=1&off=0&elect=0

PJ_FFM said...
"[In 2004] it became Bush 53.4, Kerry 46.1"

According to Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (http://uselectionatlas.org), the final MO election results were Bush 1,455,713 (53.30%), Kerry 1,259,171 (46.10%), Badnarik [Libertarian] 9,831 (0.36%), and Other 6,649 (0.24%).

tar_heel:

PA (Muhlenberg)

O 53
M 41

This one's been over for months, folks

----

Additionally, Obama will be in Pittsburgh Monday at the Mellon Arena. Gates open at 3PM.

Obama will win MO by 1.5%, Mason Dixon has a definite repub bias (Ford down 12 in TN in 06, he lost by 3; Whitehouse down by 1 in RI in 06, he won by 7, etc.)

Iowa is probably not quite double-digits for Obama in the end; Georgia could go either way but I expect McCain wins it in the end.

Everyone!

Pollster.com just turned Georgia YELLOW!!

UNDECIDED!!!

Take that, boomshat.

Georgia is yellow

The turnout in GA is fantastic. Look at the numbers,

The turnout so far 29.2% during the early voting period, in 2004 total early voting was 20.1% . So far 967,210 people have voted in GA, out of 3,317,336 who voted in total in 2004.

Race
White 60.7%
Black 35.4%
Other/Unk 2.8%

Sex
Men 41.0%
Women 56.1%
Unk 1.8%

Let's be realistic. Ahead by one in Missouri is not "great news for John McCain." It is, at best, not terrible news for him. In a state that has trended more conservative than average over the last two elections, being up by one is not a position that speaks well for his overall odds. Georgia and Missouri are not states Obama was counting on. They are not part of his victory strategy. They are bonuses that, if he takes them, turn the election from a win to a decisive win, and then to a thrashing.

At best these numbers are good news for Congressional Republicans, who might have something resembling an argument that Democrats lack a mandate.

I definitely agree that the M-D has a Republican lean. I feel certain GA is nearly a tossup and that MO is Obama by 3-5%.

I really wonder about Mason-Dixon. They come in at the end of the campaign and drop "polling bombs" without any series where one could look at trends or compare to other earlier polls as to relative position.

This prevents them from being examined for "house bias". And we can't determine trends for one candidate or another using the same methodological parameters within the polls.

Kinda tricky...no?

lhtk - Now, on the other hand, let's not overstate the case for Obama. Only one poll has shown an Obama lead in Georgia. It's at best close, and most of the hope for Obama there comes in how good the early vote numbers have been for Obama. Will those hold? It's tough to say. You get diminishing returns - there is a degree to which disproportionately AA turnout in early voting necessitates less turnout in the general.

Missouri is closer - it's certainly favored Obama in the last few polls, but 3-5 is optimistic. I could see Missouri by 1-2 for Obama, but I'd certainly not bet on it.

M-D has a republican lean relative to other pollsters, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. I'm hoping the actual numbers are more favorable to Obama, but we won't know until election day.

That being said, McCain is up 1% in a poll with a 4% margin of error in a state generally not considered a swing state and from a pollster that leans more Republican than most. This cannot be considered excellent news for John Sydney McCain III.

As a Dem living in Georgia, it's heartening to see the state turn yellow, even if it's just because its within the margin of error and there's not a great chance of Obama carrying the state.

538 stats without these M-D polls:

Iowa: Projection Obama +11.8, percent win 99%
Georgia: Projection McCain +4.3, percent win 87%
Missouri: Projection Obama +1.5, percent win 67%

So ... as several have said above, Iowa is going to Obama, Missouri is a toss-up slightly leaning Obama, and Georgia leans McCain.

As to those who see this as good news for McCain, I say how --- Bush won all three. Further, Obama does not need Missouri nor Georgia (he does need Iowa).

What are the sample sizes in these polls? Mason Dixon dont release them?

Obama will win Missouri.

BO must win missouri, click on the like (it's wikipedia) to know why :)

rami - You seem to be confusing historical precedent with some sort of necessary reality. Yes, Missouri is historically a bellwether. But that's because, historically, it stayed very close to the national average. Except that's increasingly less true:

1988: Missouri was +4 Bush in an election he won by 8 nationally.
1992: Missouri was +10 Clinton in an election he won by 5 nationally.
1996: Missouri was +6 Clinton in an election he won by 9 nationally.
2000: Missouri was +3.5 Bush in an election he lost by .5 nationally
2004: Missouri was +7 Bush in an election he won by 2.5 nationally.

And thus far, Missouri's polling average is +1.5 in an election he's winning by 8 nationally.

So over the last 18 years, what we've seen is Missouri go from favoring Democrats by about +5 to the national race to favoring Republicans by about +5 to the national race.

Historically, Missouri's status as a bellwether is pure luck - it was a Democrat leaning state in the 80s during elections the Republicans dominated, and its swing to a Republican leaning state happened to coincide with the rise of a candidate who dominated. But in neither case was it a "at margin" state. It is, at this point, a fairly Republican state that a Democrat can pick up in a strong year. Which is what we're seeing now.

@carl29:

Race
White 60.7%
Black 35.4%
Other/Unk 2.8%

For comparison, the 2000 Census data on GA is:

White 68%
Black 29%

If somebody has the voting patterns/turnout from 2004 for whites/blacks, that would be helpful, as well.