If you thought that Chris's July 7th Map of the race looked good:
Electoral College: Obama 293, McCain 194, Toss-up 51
National popular vote: Obama 48.3%-43.8% McCain
(Dark Blue (207): Obama +9.0% or more
Lean Blue (86): Obama +3.0%-+8.9%
White / Toss-up (51): Obama +2.9% to McCain +2.9%
Lean Red (104): McCain +3.0%-+8.9%
Dark Red (90): McCain +9.0% or more)
with "solid" Obama better than 2-1 over "solid" McCain (207-90), then....
How about factoring in John Edwards as VP, with his worst showings against McCain from the SUSA polls (using his average worst in states not polled):
Electoral College: Obama 309, McCain 145, Toss-up 84
National popular vote: Obama 49.9%-42.2% McCain
That's Obama better than 3-1 in "solid" category: 245-79!
Michigan solid, Montana leaning, both Carolinas, Indiana, Missouri and Alaska tossups...
Better yet, how about factoring in John Edwards as VP, with his average showings against McCain (using the average of his average in states not polled):
Electoral College: Obama 344, McCain 90, Toss-up 104
National popular vote: Obama 51.1%-40.0% McCain
Now it's better than 5-1 among "solid" states: 286-52! That's five to one!
Also with Florida, Virginia, Montana, North Dakota and Nevada leaning, and Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, Missouri, Indiana and Alaska as tossups.
Obama's FISA betrayal this week puts a different spin on the strength that Edwards has shown as a VP candidate--it contrasts sharply with Edwards' performance as a progressive. Last week, I wrote about Edwards' strength as a case of "brand recognition" rather than simply "name recognition." This week provides more evidence of this, contrasting him with local politicians in three states--Ohio, New Mexico and Missouri--and taking another look back at Iowa. Now that we have data from two sets of candidates in nine states, Iowa provides evidence that Edwards did significantly better there than his already strong showings elsewhere--a strong indication that (a) the name recognition argument is oversold, and (b) further exposure to Edwards' brand has the potential to increase his already considerable strength even further.
However, I don't just want to dwell on the fact of Edwards' brand, I also want to stress the nature of that brand, which is that of a progressive populist.
This is often missed by those who look at his support and see a lot of self-described "conservative Democrats." But, of course, this is partly because of how people have come to identify as such. In fact, many so-called "conservative Democrats" are more economically liberal than so-called "liberal Democrats". This is part of the larger overall problem of trying to characterize the electorate in terms of how people describe themselves, as opposed to what they say they want, believe and care about.
I'll be writing a more general diary about that later today, but suffice it to say that as far back as 1967 it was established that a majority of self-described conservatives are either liberal or moderate on social spending issues--the heart of New Deal liberalism. This is one of the most firmly established and significant facts in public opinion research, and yet it is routinely ignored by the punditalkcrazy, because it would totally contradict their cherished narrative of a center-right nation.
For now, however, I want to catch up on the 5 new VP polls that Survey USA released this week--Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Missouri and Ohio--do a little comparative analysis to further consolidate the care for Edwards' unmatched strength, and extend the argument that this strength is evidence of an economic liberalism--aka "progressive populism"--that is deeply disturbing to the establishment.
This is, of course, directly in line with David Sirota's argument in The Uprising. And it also suggests that Obama is not likely to pick Edwards, despite the "pragmatist" narrative about him, which, of course, also took a hit from his FISA stance.
This is not a general-purpose argument for Edwards as VP. I'll be posting that argument later today. Rather, this is a diary focused specifically on the most prominent argument against Edwards-that his consistent and impressive showing in the SUSA VP matchup polls only shows that he has name recognition, and any candidate chosen will have that, after the convention, at least. This diary is heavily dependent on comments made by two individuals late in the discussion of my previous diary, "SUSA--New VP Polls Show Edwards Still Unchallenged"-- Blue November and BruinKid.
Blue November focused on the difference between name recognition and brand recognition, arguing that what Edwards has is not simply name recoginition, but brand recognition-and that's something that can't just get overnight. BruinKid focused attention on the matchups in Minnesota, and presented an argument about why they are more revealing of Edwards' strengths than people have realized. In a separate comment, BruinKid also pointed to a DKos diary from late last year in which he shows that North Carolina was one of just three states where Bush did worse in 2004 than he did in 2000. Bush even did better in Kerry's home state in 2004 than he did in 2000-but not in North Carolina. It's a major body blow for the argument that Edwards had no impact in 2004-which in turn is part of the "it's only name recognition" argument. ("It's only name recognition, see, he didn't do anything as Kerry's running mate.")
Survey USA has released four new polls from a new round of vice presidential polling, and the big news is that there is no big news. Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California all produced basically similar results--there were no VP standouts. The VP candidates on both sides were all new, and John Edwards remains the only candidate who significantly and/or consistently helps Barack Obama. Otherwise, Obama tends to loss support--both among Democrats and independents--when shifting from head-to-head matchups to running as a team.
Oh yeah. One more thing. They tried Bloomberg out on both tickets. Turns out he does better as a Republican. Who'da thunk it? The results from Iowa (rounds #1 and #2) are as follows:
The best one can say for Webb is that his numbers don't suck. But they don't really help, either. More on all four states on the flip.
In my diary last weekend, "The Democratic Swing & Independent Swing--What The SUSA Polls Can Tell Us", I amplified Chris's point about the magnitude of the Democratic swing being larger than that of the independent swing, by presenting a state-level analysis using the Survey USA polls with different VP candidates generating the ranges used for the "swing" calculations. I did this for all voters, and for Democrats and Independents. In this diary, I want to take a look at how Edwards on the ticket changed things.
The point here is not to make the case for Edwards--I think I've already done that quite convincingly. Whether or not he would reverse himself and accept if called, his presence on the ticket clearly makes a landslide much more possible. So the point of this diary is just to get a little better fix on what his presence accomplishes in regard to the swings Chris was comparing. Because, one way or another, if Democrats can get to the point that the battlefield looks like it would with Edwards on the ticket, then we are defintely on the road to having ourselves another 1932.
From 2004 to 2006, Democrats actually made more gains among self-identified Democrats than they made among self-identified Independents. Now, in 2008, because partisan self-identification has shifted starkly in favor of Democrats, Barack Obama has much more to gain for self-identified Democrats than he has from self-identified Republicans and Independents combined.
For the past four months, according to Rasmussen, the average national partisan self-identification has been Democrats 41.4%, Republicans 31.7%, and Independents / Others at 26.8%. Even when Rounding in favor of Republicans, if the general election electorate identified 41% Democratic, 32% Republican, and 27% Independent, and if Obama held down 90% of Democrats while McCain held down 90% of Republicans, then Obama would only need 37% of Independents to reach 50% +1. To put this in perspective, in 1984 Walter Mondale received 36% of the Independent vote, 1% shy of what Barack Obama would need.
If Democrats make up 41% of the electorate in November, and Independents only make up 27%, then Obama has significantly more potential votes to gain among self-identified Democrats than he has to gain among self-identified Independents. Let's say that Obama's possible range of support among self-identified Democrats is 75% to 90%. This would represent 6.2% of the electorate. By contrast, let's say that Obama's possible range of support among Independents 40% to 60%, representing 5.4% of the electorate. As such, according to these estimates, which probably exaggerate the possible Independent range, Democrats are actually a bigger swing block than Independents.
In this diary, I want to use the recent Survey USA polls testing possible VP nominees for the purpose of taking a closer look at Chris's argument here, particularly the last sentence, saying that Democrats are a larger swing block than indendents. As we'll see on the flip, of the 15 states analyzed, this is clearly true of all but one state....
A new SUSA poll for Pennsylvania shows Barack Obama leanding John McCain 48-40, taking most regions of the state--a sharp contrast with recent press-promoted pessimism. And despite John Edwards ruling himself out as VP, he shows up as the strongest of the potential running mates tested, including Pennsylvania's own Ed Rendell, powering Obama to as high as a landslide 17-point edge. Only well-known VPs vs. unknowns for Obama give McCain any sort of shot:
While obviously a very early poll, it seems to indicate that Pennsylvania should be safe for Obama if he just does what he is expected to do in the way of raising turning and executing GOTV. No slacking, but no panic, either.
McCain would win the North East, (13% of the state), 46-46-38, and the West Central (7%) 46-23, but that's it in terms of big wins. He would eek out a statistically insingificant 46-45 edge in the South Central (13%), offset by an nearly identical 46-44 edge for Obama in the slightly larger (21%) South West. That leaves a solid 48-34 Obama lead in the North West (5%) and a cruching 58-33 landslide in the South East (41%).
A lot of tea-leaf reading possibilities with all the matchups here. But the big take-away is "Don't Panic!"
Survey USA created quite the buzz the other day when they released the results of general election polls for all 50 states. People have already feasted on the overall results; here, I will focus on the data for gender, age, income, and party.
First, the main results in a more subtle form besides the red/blue released by Survey USA, and a comparison of each candidate's performance. Red shows McCain leading, and blue shows the Democrat leading. In the comparison, green shows Clinton outperforming Obama against McCain; purple for Obama.
The sparkling wine bottles will be popping at Fletcher/Rudolph 2007 HQ today!
The August Survey USAapproval/disapproval tracking numbers are out for Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher (R), and they show that the scandal-plagued Republican's approval has topped 40 percent for the first time in over two years (the tracking graph only records back to May 2005).
Why are approval numbers that would scream nothing but political doom anywhere else in the nation sweet music to the politically tone-deaf ears of Ernie Fletcher? Well, after all, it was only a year ago this month that Fletcher's approval bottomed out at 24 percent. [Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side! Anybody got a broom for pedagogically challenged running mate Robbie Rudolph to use as a prop?]
Of course, this month's upward movement was a statistically insignificant one point (Aug:40/57; Jul:39/57), but all statistics are insignificant to the Fletcher camp, whether they're the ones showing Kentucky's sorry state of health, education, or business climate. [Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side!]
Where's Fletcher's big gain coming from? Among Republicans and conservatives.
In the last month, Fletcher's approval/disapproval went from 58/39 among Republicans to 62/35. In March of this year, Fletcher was at 46/50 with that group. So, he's consolidating his party base, but he'll need significantly more than 70 percent support from Republicans at the ballot box, especially considering that Republican turnout is likely to be somewhat suppressed, to pull off a November win. Republicans accounted for 34 percent of the latest survey.
Fletcher's popularity this month among conservatives rebounded to 57/39 from 52/46 after plummeting between June and July. Conservatives were 33 percent of this survey.
There was no significant movement among males, females, Democrats, independents, moderates, or liberals.
By region, there was no significant change in western Kentucky, Louisville, or eastern Kentucky.
There was, however, a statistically significant jump in Fletcher's approval in northern Kentucky, where the governor went from 37/57 to 45/53.
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