Back to Even
Submitted by Nick D on Thu, 07/24/2008 - 4:03pm.
A series of polls released today by Quinnipiac shows Sen. Obama's lead narrowing in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, while also showing Sen. McCain pulling slightly ahead in Colorado. Combined with polls released yesterday, this has led Nate Silver, proprietor of FiveThirtyEight.com to declare that the race is back to even. Sen. Obama's post primary unity bump seems to have faded starting around the 4th of July weekend.
Why has this happened? I'll give you my two thoughts and you can discuss from there. One: because Sen. McCain has accepted public financing, he is limited to spending the $84 million in public cash he will receive from the end of the RNC to Election Day. Can't spend a penny more than that. Therefore, it makes good sense for him to spend every last dollar he has in his coffers between now and RNC. In terms of grasping the public's attentiony, because the DNC is the week before the RNC and will be sucking up all the media oxygen, and because the Summer Olympics begin August 8th and will be sucking up a lot of media oxygen themselves, realistically, McCain is well served by spending his cash between now and August 8th. So he's spending it. And that money he's spending is producing results, because Sen. Obama, at the same time, because he has declined public financing, must preserve cash now to spend during the fall campaign season.
Secondly, Obama's campaign has done an inadequate job of framing the energy issue, in my opinion. State Sen. Boicceri's campaign has a YouTube video out today (see below) that really distills the message down to basics: the Bush Administration's own energy department says offshore driling won't lower gas prices until 2030. We can't wait that long. We need to invest in conservation techonology now, and alternatives for the future. I'd lke to see the Obama camp pick up this ball and run with it. Until they do, that vaccum is getting filled with the McCain-Cheney-Gringrich nonsense of "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less," a catchy sounding lie, and the polls are reacting accordingly.
problem with sampling
Wrong sampling could be a major problem with this Quinnipiac U poll. They oversample R's in Colorado.
Here is what I found another blog:
COLORADO Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom
Obama 44% 7% 86% 47% 37% 50%
McCain 46 87 7 39 55 39
McCain and Obama each have almost identical leads among members of their own respective parties. And most importantly Obama leads 47-39 among Independents.
The only reason McCain is leading is because the poll had many more republicans than democrats. The poll has sampled 8% more R's than D's. Based on 2006 poll CO has about same percentage of D's and R's.
So the question goes to whether CO has really shifted toward Republican party ID while the rest of the country has shifted toward Democrats.
Also, in the U.S. Senate race, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, the Democrat, and Republican Robert Schaffer are tied 44 - 44 percent in the same poll, compared to a 48 - 38 percent Udall lead June 26. No freaking way! All other polls show Udall to be way ahead of Schaffer.
The Q poll of Minnesota is also strange. Rasmussen also released a Minnesota poll on the same day with following results:
MN-Pres
July 23 Rasmussen
Obama (D) 52%
McCain (R) 39%
Now, the Q poll is:
July 23
Obama (D) 46%
McCain (R) 44%
Also, the difference in the senate poll:
Rasmussen: Coleman (R) 53%, Franken (D) 38%
Quinnipiac: Coleman (R) 46%, Franken (D) 49%