Some of you have quite rightly cried "irrelevant!" when I have passed on national polls, seeing as how the POTUS is not chosen by a national popular vote. I have said I would pass on info on battleground states as I run across it. The WashPost today brings the following to my attention:
A new poll by Washington Post, Quinnipiac University and the Wall Street Journal shows that the presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama in four key battleground states remains remarkably stable despite a month of politically significant developments, with the Illinois senator running ahead of or even with his Republican rival.
In Colorado, Obama takes 49 percent to 45 percent for McCain while in Michigan Obama stands at 48 percent as compared to 44 percent for McCain. The contest in Minnesota, once considered a lock for Obama, is also quite close with Obama at 47 percent and McCain 45 percent. Only in Wisconsin does Obama have an edge — 49 percent to 42 percent — outside the statistical margin of error for the poll.
Those results are remarkably similar to data from July Quinnipiac polls in each of the four states and suggest that despite the massive media coverage surrounding the two parties’ national nominating conventions as well as the vice presidential selections — especially that of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, which many presumed would alter the campaign’s dynamic — little has changed in the race for the White House.
Here’s a link to the story in the Post. And here’s the Wall Street Journal version.
I have only two things to say about this:
- So much for Sarahmania, which has boosted traffic on this blog significantly, but apparently has left voters in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin unmoved.
- I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve ever heard of Quinnipiac University.
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Most surprising to me is this Rasmussen poll in today’s State which only has McCain up by 6% in SC. Not that I expect Obama to win SC but a strong showing would show that times are indeed a-changin’ here.
I have a feeling that the red and blue “blocks” of states will get chopped up a bit this November, that is to say, McCain may peel off a couple of states usually considered blue while Obama may do the same with NC and Virginia.
Seems that the three states in the west, Nevada, Colo, NM, are key, but if Obama cannot hold onto both Michigan and Pennsylvania he is toast.
YES, that struck me, too! I had forgotten it by the time I got to my laptop, though. Thanks for bringing it up, and providing the link.
I bet you say that about Quinnipiac every four years.
Actually, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll regularly surveys residents in Connecticut, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and nationwide about political races, state and national elections, and issues of public concern, such as schools, taxes, transportation, municipal services and the environment.
Known for its exactness and thoroughness, the Quinnipiac poll was selected a “winner” by the New York Post for the most accurate prediction on the Schumer-D’Amato Senate race in 1998, and results are featured regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and on national network news broadcasts.
Student interviewers use a computer-assisted telephone interviewing system to collect data from statewide and national residents. For a typical public opinion survey, a randomly selected sample of about 1,000 registered voters age 18 and over is interviewed over five or six days. The polls are conducted at the Polling Institute on West Woods Road, close to the main campus in Hamden, N.J.
I know all that because the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute home page told me so.
It would seem as often as you have had your nose buried in a NYT or a WSJ, you might have noticed Quinnipiac, a statistically significant university where students have phone stats.
Top Democrats in Pennsylvania are working for McCain and against Obama.
A former state attorney general is suing Obama over his lack of US citizenship.
Ed Rendell is out telling everyone what a dangerous candidate Obama is, due to his connections to radicals, terrorists, and Muslims in the Mideast.
If you don’t like hallucinations, best to avoid LSD…Lee’s Silliness of the Day.
For those interested in reality, here’s some of the latest examples of Rendell’s thoughts on Obama. Oh yeah, he uses words like “lies” and “despicable”. But he’s not talking about No-Drama Obama.
Would you PLEASE drop the citizenship/birth certificate thing? There are plenty of reasons to not vote for Obama without having to make stuff up. That has been discredited by several sources already.
The lawsuit is real.
Obama’s attorney failed to produce a legal Ceritificate of Live Birth, offering instead a JPEG image of what they claimed is his Hawaii COLB. The court appointed 2 experts from a crime lab to examine it but demanded a certified, official paper COLB by September 29.
Obama’s parents’s divorce filing lists his place of birth as Kenya.