Pollster.com

First. :-P

Looks like Ohio is a confusing state with a lack of agreement on polls. Seems to be SLIGHTLY leaning blue, but could turn easily.

Safest bet for Obama is to seal the victory via other paths and not count on Ohio too much...

Paint OH light blue!!!!

Data on the low early voting in Ohio? Anyone?

OHIO has to be at least light blue now.... the national tide confirms this is no outlier.

In the last four Presidential elections, Ohio has been within about 2 percent of the national vote percentages, as follows:

Ohio's percent deviation from national:

2004: R 0.1

2000: R 2.1

1996 and '92 Average: R 1.5

With Obama up 7 nationally, I would expect Ohio to have Obama up by about 5 to 6 points.

So long as Obama is up by at least 3 nationally, I would expect him to win Ohio.

Lech

This poll, showing Obama up 6-8 points in OH, is the 2nd poll of the state released today; the first, from right-leaning Rasmussen, had McCain up 1 point. Judging from its narrative, the Rasmussen poll slightly over-sampled men and slightly under-sampled women, thus giving McCain his slim lead and saving him from an 0 for 5 round of polls. Also, Rasmussen polls of OH have consistently been more favorable to McCain than have other polls of the state. (Note that Rasmussen over-estimated Bush's margin of victory there in 2004 by 2 points.) In the last 10 OH polls, 6 have shown Obama ahead and 4 have shown McCain ahead; 3 of McCain's 4 leads have been in Rasmussen polls.

4 of the last 5 OH polls have shown Obama ahead, including this ABC poll. This poll's narrative reveals a huge enthusiasm gap that will help Obama's GOTV efforts:

"Among Obama’s advantages, though, is sheer energy: Fifty-eight percent of his Ohio
supporters are 'very enthusiastic' about his candidacy, compared with just 30 percent of
McCain’s."

Unlike in 2004, GOP GOTV efforts will not be aided by a gay marriage measure on the ballot in OH. Also, the OH AG is now a Democrat, which should limit the GOP's voter caging efforts.

Today's Research 2000 tracker has Obama up in the Midwest, a region that includes OH, by 18 points. And one other recent poll of OH shows how much stronger Obama is running in OH than Kerry did; in this poll, of OH-02, McCain only leads Obama by 11--Bush beat Kerry in the district by 28. See:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3299

Obama has 3 campaign stops in OH on Thursday.

PPP should be releasing another poll showing Obama ahead in OH tomorrow.

Bottom line is Obama is outperforming Kerry and Gore just about everywhere. These are starting to look more like Clinton numbers, though in both his races he had a strongish 3rd party candidate screwing with things.

If McCain does pull it out, it sure would be an epic comeback.

Na na na na,
Na na na na,
hey hey hey,
GOODBYE!

Reports here in Ohio are that early voting turnout was well below what was expected. About 20% of what the expected, and there was also reports that Obama organizers were very dissapointed. The vaunted Obama ground game is overrated.

HOWEVER, Obama is very far ahead in the polls right now. So far ahead the electoral college doesnt matter at all. If Obama wins nationally by 8, he gets 350+ simple as that.

But all this talk about Obama's amazing ground game is very overrated. The early voting in Ohio flopped.

SurveyUSA released another poll out of California that shows Obama up by 16 points (their last one was less than two weeks ago). I know that California isn't in danger, but it does show that Obama's gain isn't just restricted to the swing states:

Survey USA 10/4-5 (9/23-24)
Obama 55 (53)
McCain 39 (43)

6 point swing for Obama

Paint them blue !!! Paint all of them blue !!! )))

according to who's ahead by the pollster trend map, Obama would win by approx. 350 EV. I know it won't be that big, but still...

i get worried that too many people are counting the chickens before they hatch. Early voting in OH has turned out to be a flop. I've always been skeptical of this supposed Obama ground game advantage. And a new Zogby daily tracking poll with show a 3 point advantage for Obama today.

For fear of complacency and gloating, I would assume that McCain's attack ads are going to have a positive affect on the race for him. I'm not saying that that will necessarily be the case but for the sake of this campaign I'd go on the assumption that they will work.

My biggest fear in all of this is Obama's supposed ground game. Looks like so far, considering OH, it's been a big old flop. Which I suspected it might be. It's sort of like the 2004 magical cell phone vote that didn't materialize enough for Kerry to win like so many people said it would.

As for Obama's ground game, well what happened in OH? And how many emails and text messages can the Obama campaign send out before people just start tuning them out? I live in CA and I must get 4-5 a day between text messages and emails. I just fear that the ground game is what everyone is relying on to win this for Obama and right now it don't look too good (the ground game that is).

Ohio is next followed by Virginia. PAINT THEM BLUE!!!

Oh Oh McFailin,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_iran_contra;_ylt=Ai3M8HMMRfXJ6.qa7esyxWOyFz4D

And NH also deserves the Blue ribbon (better than my applesauce did at Deerfield County Fair).

I second nick-social's caution against premature celebration or irrational exuberance at this point.

Though the poll numbers look decent, much can happen in the next 28 days to change the mood of the country. Wright or Ayers can say something stupid, an "incident" with Iran may occur, Russia may send "peacekeepers" into another country, Al Qaeda may release another tapes, etc. Precisely because Obama is ahead in the polls, he has more to lose in the next four weeks, whereas McCain will play like he's got nothing to lose. And keep in mind that the leads Obama has in the key swing states are not overwhelming. There are still an odd poll or two out there that shows the races really close or even McCain ahead (polls we blithely ignore or dismiss). This is a time to be cautious and vigilant, not overly joyous.

The most disconcerting thing is the slow start in early voting in OH. At this point, all polls are theoretical in that they hypothesize that the election takes place now. For early voters, this hypothesis is actually true, and we can indeed take the poll numbers as an accurate reflection of how people may really be casting their votes. So if more people are "locking in" the votes now while the polls look good, we can be more confident that the votes are going Obama's way. But from what we've been hearing, early voting is going nowhere near the level we'd like it to be. That should be a cause for concern.

By the way, one must wonder what in the world was in the mind of whoever came up with McCain's strategy/tactic. Why in the world would he waste money and time in Kerry states when keeping the Bush states would be good enough? It is pretty obvious that offense consumes much more time and money, which McCain does not have in abundance. It just doesn't seem wise to trade shots with Obama when his resources may not sustain the effort.

We are one month away, and these are just polls. Remember one month ago, when the tide was turning in McCain's favor. For those relying on Zogby's numbers, don't believe them. Zogby predicted Bush to lose twice (Gore in a landslide). Let's see how the next debate pans out.

@joesix pack and nick social?

What is your data on early voting?

Are you really going to rely on one poll for your argument of a close race? zogby? If you have learned anything for trolling polling sites, the only reliable thing to do is look at trends and as many data points as possible. If you don't like pollster, look at RCP.

Cherry picking polls is what us Dems did in 2004, and look what happened...

McCain needs a game changer, that's for sure.

R2K/KOS 52-41 0bama +11 from +12 yesterday insignificant movement to McCain. Obama has been over 50 for more than a week and the last 4 days with 52.

The graph on this poll does not look like Rasmussen's which has 25 consecutive days without backwards movement in Obama's support. This poll has 12 consecutive days!

The light early voting is in no way a reflection of the Obama ground game. This makes no sense.

In Ohio and other important states the focus for the past several weeks has been to register as many people as possible before the deadline. This has been a tremendous focus of the Obama organization and it has been an amazing success. It doesn't mean these newly registered folks will vote Dem, but the large Dem advantage is registration certainly will make a difference.

The Obama folks have a month to get these registered voters to the polls.

OUCH! THIS CAN'T BE GOOD FOR OBAMA:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,433624,00.html

"CHICAGO — Federal prosecutors moved Monday to delay indefinitely the sentencing of convicted fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, sending their strongest hint yet that he is ready to spill his political secrets.

The filing asks for a postponement while prosecutors and defense attorneys "engage in discussions that could affect their sentencing postures."

Speculation has simmered for weeks that the key fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Sen. Barack Obama was whispering what he knows about corruption in Illinois government to federal prosecutors in hopes of getting a lighter sentence."

OBAMA GROUND GAME? WHAT GROUND GAME?

We keep hearing about the AMAZING OBAMA GROUND GAME. Well, they had early same-day registration and voting in Ohio. You may have heard of it. Obama's "ground game" was supposed to deliver 10's of thousands of homeless and drug-addicts to the polls to vote for Obama.

Well, not so much. Yesterday, Ohio announced that only 3,000 people had taken advantage of the early registration/voting. State Election Officials, hoping they had illegally engineered an Obama win were SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you!

Lol, ground game my ass.

THREE NATIONAL POLLS TODAY 48-45 OBAMA:

That's 3 National Polls now that show this a 3 point race (48-45). DemCorps, CBS and Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby.

Possible Reasons:

1) They are all flawed exactly the same way at the same time.
2) They are undersampling Democrats (no, CBS gives Dems a 9 point advantage).
3) During the debates, Palin had an emotional effect compared to Biden's cognitive effect. Emotional effects, although slower to appear, tend to last longer.
4) People are actually hearing about Ayers for the first time and they are saying "hmmmm".
5) They were willing to give Obama a chance when the economy looked dicey, but are nervous about someone who is untried if things are really bad.

Who knows. Maybe Obama peaked too soon and people are growing tired of his schtick.

IN CONCLUSION, THIS QUOTE FROM ZOGBY:

"UTICA, New York - The race for President of the United States remains far too close to call between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain as the contest enters its last four weeks, and with a pair of crucial debates immediately ahead, the first report of the fall Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking telephone polls shows.

The survey, including a three-day sample of 400 likely voters collected over each of the previous three days - Oct. 4-6, 2008 - shows that Obama holds a slight advantage amounting to 2.4 percentage points over McCain. This represents a bit of a recovery by McCain, who had been sliding in some polls before his running mate, Sarah Palin, put in a strong performance in her one and only debate performance last Thursday. Though a Zogby poll showed that Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden actually won that debate, it also showed Palin far and away exceeded expectations, and that has apparently helped stop McCain's decline in the polls.

Three Day Tracking Poll
10-6

Obama
47.7

McCain
45.3

Others/Not sure
7.0

The Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll, conducted by live telephone operators in Zogby's in-house call center in Upstate New York, included a total of 1,237 likely voters nationwide, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points."

P.S., This is no BS Internet Poll. This is a telephone tracking poll with 1,200 respondents over 3 days.

Win or lose McCain is destroying himself. I am a 60 year old political junkie and I never thought I would see what I have seen the past few days. The McCain camp is indirectly, no directly portraying Obama in a way that could but Obama in danger. The Karl Roves, McCains, with whispers by the Hannity and Rushes of the world have no business running this country. As an American I am sickened by the developments of the past few days!! If the race tightens up and I was Obama I would be tempted to tell this country to go f##k itself.

@boomshak -

1. Everyone here in Chicago knows that the prosecutors have been trying to get Rezko to roll over on the Governor. Everyone also knows that it has nothing to do with Obama. If you really want a scandal, however, just wait for Palin's indictment after the Branchflower report is released on Friday.

2. you don't seem to understand the difference between early voting and same day registration and voting. Early voting in Ohio is going quite well, but the turnout for the same day registration is below what they anticipated.

3. Stop cherry picking polls. Of all the dishonest things you do, that's one of the most annoying.

Boomshak's last hope is the liberal Zogby. What irony! LOL!!

Good Morning boomshak

R2K Indiana poll has it even today a week ago was an insignificant +1%

I am glad that you having some respite in acouple of these National polls.

It can't be easy with Rasmussen showing an unbroken 25 day trend to Obama. Well at 52% maybe it will break today.

I don't know whatelse I can report today to cheer you up. The Daily Tracker average of the 5 trackers was +8.2 to Obama. By the way this Reuters/C-Span poll is a new daily tracker. Like the GWU one we will look at the internals and ensure that it isn't flawed before collating it in the Daily Tracker Average. i am sure RCP will use this poll inits averages straightaway as it benefits their ticket!

good morning, all. fwiw, this site has become my favorite addiction, and it's not just the polls - it's largely thanks to the posters.

@ nick-socal + joe-6pack,
great points and points well taken. but just for the sake of being a contrarian, here's my take:
1. As Palin and McCain go "nukular", not only does whatever patina was remaining on the Bimbo tarnish with the undecideds, but it does amazing things to re-energize OUR Democratic base. The more she talks, the more mud is slung and racial hot buttons pressed, the more it guarantees that the Democrats turn out on the election day. The base is already hot and angry, and this only reminds all those who came out in record numbers in the primaries why "Never Again". Etc.

2) Low early turn out in Ohio.
With the market in the tailspin, with ppl working their asses off, the youth focused on college exams, I can see why some may not jump out and vote on day 1 when they have an entire month. I, for one, am not going to draw my conclusion from a single data point, if even that. You know, you can draw as many lines as you want when you have just one point.

I think Obama will win. What amazes me is that he just can't seem to put McCain away despite the lousy campaign McCain is running.

What is remarkable is that Obama has surged based upon his reponse to the Economic Crisis, which has been basically to do nothing.

This is his strong suit as he has basically been doing nothing (other than voting occasionally) for the last 12 years.

I think it will take a miracle for McCain to pull this out. Sort of like the Colts scoring 21 points in the last 4 minutes of the game against Houston to win.

@js:
@boomshak -

"3. Stop cherry picking polls. Of all the dishonest things you do, that's one of the most annoying."

I quote 3 major national polls from yesterday all saying the same thing and that is "cherrypicking"?

Maybe I just didn't "cherrypick" the polls you like?

Boomshak, you can "cherrypick" more than one poll. Of the 10 or so national polls yesterday, you only looked at the three that support your position, and ignore the rest. Whatever floats your boat, but I did the same thing myself four years ago

Comments re ground game:

I agree with Nick that we shouldn't let the vaunted Obama ground game become the cell phone voters of 2004 in 2008.

That being said, what is this 20% number I see being bandied about? 20% of whose expectations? The Obama campaign? Ohio election officials? Who?

I think there are far too many variables here to ready anything into this 20% number, and certainly it provides little evidence (either way) regarding Obama's ground game, unless of course the number was put forth by the campaign...

CNN and TIME are releasing new state polls at 6 a.m.:

IN: McCain 51, Obama 46
NH: Obama 53, McCain 45
NC: McCain 49, Obama 49
OH: McCain 47, Obama 50
WI: Obama 51, McCain 46

Does any one know anything about these?

Boom: "I think Obama will win. What amazes me is that he just can't seem to put McCain away despite the lousy campaign McCain is running."

We heard this same thing late in the primaries. "There must be something wrong with Obama because he can't *close the deal*'... and so on. Apply the same reasoning to Bush who lost the pop vote in 2000 and won 2004 by one state and we can talk.

Obama beat the Clintons. He's beating McCain by larger margins than Bush beat Gore and Kerry.

Also, If you "think" Obama will win, will you please stop criticizing the polls that show him ahead. You clearly don't know squat about polling.

Not sure what "putting it away" means in Boomshak-ese. If polling ahead in states like MO, NC, VA, FL, CO, and OH isn't putting it away, color me confused.

Also, nobody else has had the lead Obama has now at this point in the campaign and lost.

thoughtful, those are the latest #s on the CNN map. They all look about right, except I'm dubious about the NC #s as most other polls have shown a clear 4/5/6 point trend + Obama. I also think the WI spread is a little larger. But overall, I'd say those are pretty accurate.

@boomshack -

In the last 24 hours 10 national polls have been released (including trackers). You picked the three polls with the smallest lead for Obama--ignoring the other seven--and cited them as a sign of a trend. Intentionally isolating favorable data points when you know the larger data pool refutes it is the very definition of "cherrypicking."

Rasmussen is no change 52-44 +8% Obama

Hmm, the Ohio early registration/voting numbers may not tell the whole story. As I understand the 3000 in the AP story, those are 3000 people who registered and voted the same day in Ohio's 4 largest (of 88) counties.

According to the Columbus dispatch, http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/10/07/copy/Deadline.ART_ART_10-07-08_B8_2KBHLHP.html?adsec=politics&sid=101), Franklin County had 9200 early voters the first week of early voting, and 175,000 mail-in ballots requested. They are expecting 600K+ voters on election day. I have not been able to find numbers on newly registered voters. For a state that Bush won by 120K votes (I think), these are real numbers.

BTW, I don't think they are _all_ drug addicts and homeless (who after all do have a right to vote). From what we have been seeing, they are alot of students and lower income people who had checked out of the voting process because they didn't feel like it made a difference.

I live in Columbus, in Franklin county. My wife and are are volunteers for Obama's campaign. Compared with the Kerry campaign, the organization and volunteer effort is light years ahead. For example, there are 24 field directors compared to Kerry's 4. Our experience with Kerry's campaign was that it was unfocused and disorganized. Then Obama campaign is extremely focused on specific goals. They seem quite a adept at "community organizing". Of course, this is all anecdotal. We'll see how it translates on election day.

I don't know where Boom and friends are getting their Ohio early voter information. The AP is saying that early voting in Ohio is over... which is flat out not true.. it's only same day voting and registration that's over. The turnout number everyone on here is parroting is from only 4 counties in Ohio and it's ONLY the same day voter/registration numbers not the total number of people that have voted early.. AND it's only a projection. There's not a single piece of verifiable information in that AP article... but of course FoxNews and Freepers run with it.

The argument that Obama should be much farther ahead is ridiculous. Let's see, in the age of terrorism, the democratic party nominated the little-known "most-liberal senator", who is african-american, with a muslim sounding name, and little foreign policy experience.

Someone with those credentials winning a national election 4 years ago would have been unimaginable, yet he's still wiping the republican candidate all over the mat. What does that say about the ineptitude of both Mccain's campaign and the republican party?

If mccain showed any intelligence or leadership on the economy, any sign that he would break with Bush policies, i think he'd be winning.

There is actually a benefit to having big states like Ohio or Florida be close in the polls for Obama. As long as McCain continues to try to take them back he uses up a great deal of resources and is forced to let others slip. Palin is pretty much camped out in Florida instead of in Colorado. McCain will be stuck in Ohio hoping VA and NC stay close. The battleground is just too wide.

I predict cash problems in 15 days for McCain.