The Polls with 4 Days to Go!

North Dakota Rocks!
by Charlie Leck

This is my penultimate polling report. The final one will come on Monday morning.

Obama’s lead has steadily increased in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. It looks more and more like each of those states will go blue. If so, it is a huge nail in the coffin of John McCain’s campaign.

Each of these three states were counted on in the McCain victory strategy.

North Carolina
So was North Carolina, where Obama’s cut of the pie has slowly increased over the last few weeks. It is now a dead-even (pick ‘em) tie down there.

Ohio
Remember, Ohio is a bell-weather state for Republicans. They can’t win without it. Obama has inched out in front by the tiniest bit – just outside the margin of error territory. The Republicans will do anything, including cheat, to win Ohio.

Florida
This is another state where Obama has just inched far enough ahead that he is outside the statistical region known as the margin of error.

Virginia
The experts say that Virginia is only leaning toward Obama; yet McCain has steadily lost ground here and Obama’s lead is now over 7 points. In the next couple of days, if the trends continue, Virginia will be colored blue.

Pennsylvania
This has become the heart of the McCain strategy, as I’ve explained in a couple of recent blogs. McCain is pouring all he has into this state and he has cut deeply into Obama’s lead – perhaps cutting it in half. Nevertheless, every single pollster has Obama ahead by leads of anywhere from 4 to 7 points. McCain’s ground forces will continue to work Pennsylvania hard right up to Election Day morning. All of McCain’s hopes are now placed in the Quaker State. Even if McCain were to pull out a surprising win there, he still also needs to take Florida AND Ohio AND Virginia AND Missouri OR Indiana.

It’s a tall order for McCain but not entirely impossible.
The last four days of this campaign will be very exciting. Hold on to your hats! McCain’s forces need to come up with something very sleazy (and likely untrue) about Obama over the weekend and I’m betting they will because this is the Party of the biggest sleaze-ball in America, Karl Rove.

North Dakota
This one rocks me even though there are only 3 electoral votes at stake. A month ago Obama was behind by 14 points. Today (on this Friday morning), the state is in a statistical dead-even-tie. A remarkable story by Robert Eshelmann (republished in AlterNet from Tomdispatch.com) points out that even evangelicals and rural folks are abandoning McCain and the Republican Party in very significant numbers. This might explain what is happening in North Dakota and why Georgia, which is now being called a toss-up state, is moving toward a tight race (though McCain should still win in that southern state). The Atlanta suburbs are still running strongly in favor of McCain even though several polling organizations see suburban women in Georgia moving away from the Republicans.

I’ve got both hands pinching down the brim of my fedora.