A Close Race?

There's been a lot of talk recently about how close of a race the US general election is between Barack Obama and John McCain. It isn't. In fact, a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that revealed a 6-point lead for Obama was characterized as revealing a number of weaknesses for Obama that he would need to overcome to win in November. Buried later on in the WSJ article was the point that Obama has actually doubled his overall lead since the last poll and is walloping McCain among most key demographics. In any case, the popular vote is more or less meaningless, so it is more important to focus on the states. And what do the latest polls there say? Here is the latest swing state polling for the general election (recent poll averages from RCP):

• Ohio: Obama +4
• Pennsylvania: Obama +6
• Wisconsin: Obama +7
• Colorado: Obama +5
• Iowa: Obama +8
• Minnesota: Obama +9
• Oregon: Obama +9
• Washington: Obama +13
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• Virginia: tie
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• North Carolina: McCain +4
• Indiana: McCain +2
• Michigan: McCain +2
• New Hampshire: McCain +1
• Florida: McCain +8
• Missouri: McCain +6
• New Mexico: McCain +1
• Nevada: McCain +1

This may appear at first glance to be fairly even, but it isn't. First of all, Obama is way ahead of McCain in electoral college votes for states that are considered safe for both sides. So McCain will need to beat Obama soundly in the swing states in order to win. That is not happening. Secondly, virtually every trend line I saw on RCP revealed a pronounced shift toward Obama. Indeed, states like Oregon, Washington, Iowa and Minnesota are not even considered swing states anymore. And states that were formerly safe for McCain are now in play, like Virginia, North Carolina and Nevada. McCain's lead in battlegrounds like Michigan and Indiana is down to two points. Just about the only good news that McCain can take from the polling is in Florida and Missouri, where he still enjoys fairly large leads. But even there, he's in trouble. The latest poll in Florida has him leading by four points and that was taken in May. And McCain's lead in Missouri has shrunk in four successive polls, from +15 to the latest poll from June 3 that actually has Obama leading by one point. In fact, among the swing states where McCain is leading the poll of polls, the latest polls in all but three states have Obama winning. So, if you were to bet on the trend lines as they stand today, McCain stands to win only three of the 17 swing states.

A lot can change from now until Election Day, as the old cliche goes, but if you are in the Obama camp, you have to pretty darn happy with these numbers. At this early stage of the race, McCain is way, way behind.