"Real" America Looks Different to Palin, Obama

Yesterday, at a fundraiser in Greensboro, North Carolina, Sarah Palin said the following:

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.

Palin refers to the fact that the cities and towns she has gotten to visit represent the "real America". So what exactly do these places look like?

Since her coming out in Dayton, Ohio on August, 29th, Palin has held (or is scheduled to hold) public events in 44 cities according to the Slate.com candidate tracker. These include all events described as "rallies", "town halls", "gatherings" or "discussions", but not things like press availabilities, fundraisers or debates.

I looked at the racial composition of voting-age (18+) population in these 44 cities as according to the 2000 census.** They are, on average, 83.3 percent non-Hispanic white, 7.5 percent black, 5.2 percent Hispanic, and 4.0 percent "other". By comparison, the US 18+ population in 2000 was 72.0 percent white, 11.2 percent black, 11.0 percent Hispanic, and 5.9 percent other. Thirty-four of Palin's 44 cities were whiter than the US average.



Over the same interval, Barack Obama had public events scheduled in 48 distinct cities. The racial composition of these cities was 69.8 percent white, 17.4 percent black, 8.9 percent Hispanic, and 4.0 percent other. The percentage of whites very nearly matches the US average 72.0 percent; 22 of Obama's cities were whiter than average, and the other 26 were less white than average. Obama, however, has visited cities with a relatively larger fraction of blacks than in the US as a whole.



Obama's cities have also been a bit poorer than average, with an average median household income (as of 2000) of $37,743, as compared with the US average of $42,100. The average income of the Palin cities is $42,500, very close to the national norm.

Since white voters have historically turned out at higher rates than minorities, and since there are probably proportionately more swing voters among whites than among minority groups, one can argue that Palin's choice of locales reflects optimal strategy. Still, the difference between her geography and Obama's is fairly striking.

** In three cases, the candidates held rallies in townships that did not have city-level data available per the Census Bureau. In these cases, county-level data was used instead.

Also, note that some of the figures posted originally were incorrect (for Palin, they reflected the entire population rather than the voting-age population as we intended). They have now been corrected.

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Today's Polls, 10/18

John McCain has once again improved his position in the national tracking polls, having gained ground in 4 of the 5 6 trackers that published today (Rasmussen and IBD/TIPP were the exceptions).** Our model now perceives that Obama has come somewhat off his peak numbers, which were realized perhaps 5-7 days ago.

At the same time, McCain's improved position in the trackers is a little bit difficult to reconcile with certain other pieces of evidence. In the Research 2000 tracking poll, for instance, while McCain has gained 5 points worth of ground in 48 hours in the topline numbers, the candidates' approval ratings over that period are completely unmoved. In the Gallup tracker, while McCain has gained ground among likely voters since the debate, he has lost ground among registered voters. Lastly, every poll conducted on the debate itself suggested that Obama won the event.

What I think we may be seeing are some improvements in Republican enthusiasm. Prior to the debate, McCain was having a very rough go of things in the media, as the only stories seemed to be the ineffectiveness of his attacks on Bill Ayers, and the nonresponsiveness of his campaign to the economy. In the polls that measured these things, there was evidence that enthusaism was very low among McCain supporters. A conservative voter, having little real message to latch on to, and seeing McCain far behind in the polls, might have been telling pollsters that he wasn't sure if he was going to bother to vote, and therefore might have been screened out by likely voter models, which all of the tracking polls are now using.

Between "Joe the Plumber", "spread the wealth", "I'm not George Bush", etc., however, McCain at least now seems to have a few somewhat more constructive talking points (in that sense, the fact that the Ayers attacks went over like a lead balloon at the debate might have done him a favor). So some of those crestfallen conservatives might have moved back into the likely voter universe.

What I don't know that McCain is doing, on the other hand, is actually persuading very many voters, and particularly not independents or registered Democrats. If that is the case, than McCain is likely to run into something of a wall very soon here, brought about the Republicans' substantial disadvantage in partisan identification. People sometimes misunderstand the nature of "momentum" in presidential campaigns. If McCain was down 8 points yesterday, and is down 6 points today, that does not mean that he is likely to be 4 points down tomorrow. On the contrary, polling in the general election seems essentially to be a random walk, with the minor stipulation that the polling has had some tendency to tighten slightly during the stretch run (as our model accounts for). That is, the polls are essentially as likely to move back toward Obama tomorrow as they are to continue to move toward McCain.

McCain's other problem is that the polls in battleground states have not really tightened at all. Obama gets good numbers today, for instance, in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida. Obama presently has something like a 3:1 advantage in advertising, and most of that advertising is concentrated in battleground states. As such, this may serve as a hedge against any improvements that McCain is able to make elsewhere in the country.



** EDIT: I had originally missed the IBD/TIPP poll, which apparently does publish on weekends, and shows Obama gaining ground. It is not accounted for in today's simulation run.

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Road to 270: Connecticut

Today we continue our Road to 270 series with the Nutmeg State, Connecticut.

HOME OF JOE LIEBERMAN, Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the nation on a per capita basis. Christopher Shays is the lone Republican House member in New England's delegation, and Democrats are targeting this seat in a year that isn't seeing a close Presidential race or any statewide races. In another wave year, with Barack Obama on the ballot, this is a race to watch. The state's seven electoral votes are safe for Barack Obama.

Key Demographics



Note: Factors colored in red can generally be thought to help McCain. Factors in blue can generally be thought to help Obama. Factors in purple have ambiguous effects. Except where otherwise apparent, the numbers next to each variable represent the proportion out of each 100 residents in each state who fall into that category. Fundraising numbers reflect dollars raised in the 2008 campaign cycle per eligible voter in each state. Figures for seniors and youth voters are proportions of all residents aged 18+, rather than all residents of any age. The figure for education reflects the average number of years of completed schooling for all adults aged 25+. The figure for same-sex households reflects the number of same-sex partner households as a proportion of all households in the state. The liberal-conservative index is scaled from 0 (conservative) to 100 (liberal), based on a Likert score of voter self-identification in 2004 exit polls. The turnout rates reflect eligible voters only. Unemployment rates are current as of June 2008.

What McCain Has Going For Him

As with several other blue states, John McCain's solace comes from statistics that don't happen to favor Barack Obama as forcefully as they do in other states. Youth population, for example, is 3d lowest by percentage in the nation. And McCain's fundraising is 2d highest per capita of anywhere. There are relatively more elderly voters in Connecticut, and about a third of the voters in this blue state are independents. That's about where it stops for John McCain.

What Obama Has Going For Him

Obama's statistical edges are numerous. Low gun ownership, low "American" ancestry, relatively higher same-sex household percentage and Starbucks:Walmart (even in this Dunkin' Donuts state) and not many military veterans. On the religious front, very few white evangelicals, very many Catholics, and not a lot of Mormons. Only five states went for Kerry by bigger margins, it's the 5th most liberal state on the Likert scale. Obama has very strong fundraising here, and the state is well-educated. Except for the age factor, nearly every demographic edge Obama could want in his favor, he has in Connecticut.

What To Watch For

The post-election expulsion of Joe Lieberman from the Democratic Party caucus, and whether Harry Reid has the balls to do it.

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On the Road: Western Pennsylvania

“I walked five miles to get out of Pittsburgh, and two rides, an apple truck and a big trailer truck, took me to Harrisburg in the soft Indian-summer rainy night. I cut right along. I wanted to get home…. That night in Harrisburg I had to sleep in the railroad station on a bench; at dawn the station masters threw me out. Isn’t it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under your father’s roof?”

– Jack Kerouac, “On the Road”

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. How is John McCain going to win if he can't win those voters? John Murtha's "racist" western Pennsylvania district, where this story takes place, is some of the roughest turf in the nation. But Barack Obama is on the ground and making inroads due to unusually strong organizing leadership.

In Washington County, a bellwether in this traditional swing state that John Kerry carried by a mere 552 votes out of over 96,000 cast, the Obama campaign's mood is optimistic but very cautious. The campaign has registered over 4,000 new voters in this county, and enough statewide since the primary season to push the Democratic registration edge to over 1.2 million.

Still, Barack Obama wasn't competitive in the primary, and getting volunteers, knocks and phone calls was tough over the summer. "After the primary many of the Obama supporters were tired and were enjoying their summer," according to longtime resident and Obama Neighborhood Team Leader Greg Roth, whose house was used as a staging location during the primary. "Also, it took some time for some of the Hillary supporters come around."

As the campaign shifts into GOTV (get out the vote) mode, its universe of targeted voters begins to change. "We know who our voters are," said Roth. "Now we just have to go get them to vote." Asked if the racism resistance to Obama would inhibit volunteer effort here, "We had probably 200 people last night show up to our GOTV training in Washington, and it's a complete 180 from the tough summer months."

Over in Indiana, PA and Northern Cambria, PA, volunteers fielded complaints of a massive wave of ugly robocalls both paid for by John McCain's campaign and those paid for by third parties. The third party call was interactive, and purported to be from Barack Obama himself. The call starts out reasonably, and then "Obama" asks what the listener thinks is the most important issue. Whatever the response, "Obama" then launches into a profane and crazed tirade using "n***er" and other shock language.

From what we've seen, this IS the McCain ground campaign. Robocalls count as "touches" on voters, as do direct mail pieces such as this one. As David Plouffe said in today's fundraising letter to supporters, "These tactics are all that the McCain campaign and their allies have left."

In Pittsburgh, we attended Michelle Obama speech at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial on Pitt's campus. The crowd received her with adoration, and she didn't disappoint, delivering a 45-minute speech to an assembled group of roughly 2,000 on the personal nature of the economic crisis, education, costs of the Iraq War, and health care. She urged the audience not to get complacent, even as polls in Pennsylvania showed a widening race. Work "as if we're 20 points behind," she said.

"Barack Obama, as far as I'm concerned, was always the underdog. He is still the underdog, will be the underdog until the day he's sitting in the Oval Office. We take nothing for granted."

Strongly directed from the candidate himself, Obama's campaign organizers are taking nothing for granted, and the relentless organizing beat goes on. To accommodate the more spread out nature of the turf in west-central PA, over in the more rural upper half of Cambria County, Obama's aggressive campaign has organized its volunteers to improvise with phonebank and canvass staging locations out of apartments and offices after-hours.

"Our first night about a month ago," said volunteer Jim Sabella, "about four of us huddled around a one-bulb lamp to make calls." The apartment the volunteers used for the phonebank hadn't even had the electricity turned back on yet, and so they had to improvise. "We patched it through from the neighbors with an extension cord and just decided, we will do whatever it takes. Enough is enough, and we can't take another four years like the last eight." Now well-lit, the phone bank hosts several volunteers nearly every night of the week.

Eighteen days. Philly burbs, here we come.

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Today's Polls, 10/17

In Chuck Todd we trust; all others must bring data. And right now, we're in something of a holding pattern, waiting to see the next turn in the race. Obama's momentum has possibly stalled out, but has probably yet begun to reverse itself. It's also possible that Obama's momentum was on the verge of reversing itself before Wednesday night's debate, but that the debate was enough to hold McCain off or perhaps even shift things further in Obama's direction. Furthermore, it's possible that the numbers will simply flatline until November 4 as Obama runs out McCain's clock (with no more major events on the campaign calendar, this may in fact be the most likely possibility). We will probably know a lot more about this race by Sunday or Monday, once the impacts of the debate are fully accounted for.



At the state level, we have some interesting numbers on both sides. SurveyUSA is the first pollster in a couple weeks to give McCain in Florida; they have him ahead there 49-47. On the other hand, SurveyUSA has yet to show Obama with a lead in Florida all year, so this may not be as newsworthy as it seems at first glance.

Obama, meanwhile, had a very good day in the Rasmussen polling in Colorado, Nevada and particularly Missouri. As Chuck Todd said on MSNBC a moment ago, Obama may have something of a firewall in Colorado and perhaps Nevada between his strength among Hispanics and the fact that this is probably the weakest region of the country for McCain's ground game. Missouri, meanwhile, has been working itself up the tipping point state list, as Obama's numbers has been improving recently in what we call the "Highlands" region spanning the Ozarks and Appalachians. At a gut level, I think Missouri is one of Obama's tougher states, but remember that Claire McCaskill closed strongly there in 2006, and that Obama closed strongly there on Super Tuesday.

Oh -- and another poll shows a dead heat in North Dakota. Our model remains a bit skeptical as Obama has not gained particularly much ground elsewhere in the Prairie region, but it's probably time for both the public pollsters and the campaigns to get out in the field and take the state's temperature.

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Busy, Busy, Busy

There's a lot going on!

The impact of Wednesday night's debate is hard to gauge given the tracking polls that are out so far. McCain moved up in the Research 2000 and Battleground polls. Obama moved up in Diageo/Hotline and IBD/TIPP. Zogby, Gallup and Rasmussen were essentially unchanged. IBD/TIPP hasn't published yet.

The best number for McCain comes from the daily sample in the Research 2000 tracking poll, which showed McCain down by just 6 points in interviewing conducted yesterday. I say 'just' because the R2K poll has generally had pretty good numbers for Obama and it's been a couple of weeks since McCain was as close as 6 points. Small sample size caveats apply.

On the other hand, it appears to me from analyzing the cross-tabs in the Rasmussen debate poll, that Obama had quite a strong day in Rasmussen's tracking yesterday, winning the daily sample by 9-10 points. If I'm right, then Obama's number in the Rasmussen poll is liable to improve over the weekend.

In other news, the Supreme Court overrulled the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and determined that Ohio need not verify the names of newly-registered voters against Social Security databases. (Actually, this is not quite what they ruled; they ruled that the Ohio Republicans did not have the standing to be a plaintiff in the case). I've been resisting commenting on this stuff because the impact is hard to assess; off the cuff, I'd guess that it makes a smaller rather than larger difference, probably less than one full point.

And is Colin Powell about to endorse Obama? The Obama campaign certainly isn't doing anything to tamp down the speculation. For our part, we've been hearing rumors of a Powell endorsement for a long time now -- specifically, we'd heard that Powell might endorse Obama immediately following the Republican convention. But it would be typical of the very deliberate Obama campaign to hold an endorsement until now, when it can be used to run further time off McCain's clock. Mostly, endorsements serve to win news cycles rather than win over voters, although Powell is probably the biggest 'get' there is in this election (unless perhaps Ross Perot decided to endorse).

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Bad Spin Watch: Drudge Touts Weeks-Old, Web-Based Poll

For his latest trick, Matt Drudge is touting the results of an AP-Yahoo poll that shows a two-point race between Obama and McCain.



You may never have heard of the AP-Yahoo poll before. This is for good reason, since a look at the fine print reveals that it's not really intended for its horse race numbers (the AP uses a separate agency, GfK, for those).

For one thing, the poll is not timely. It entered the field on October 3 -- two weeks ago -- and left the field on October 13, which was this Monday.

For another thing, it's an internet-based poll:

The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanelSM, a probability-based Panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. Initially, participants are chosen scientifically by a random selection of telephone numbers. Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone to participate in the webenabled KnowledgePanelSM. For those who agree to participate, but do not already have Internet access, Knowledge Networks provides at no cost an Internet appliance and Internet service connection. People who already have computers and Internet service are permitted to participate using their own equipment. Panelists then receive unique log-in information for accessing surveys online, and then are sent emails three to four times a month inviting them to participate in research.

For a third thing, it has no likely voter screen, and the horse race question does not even appear to have a registered voter screen ... it's a poll of all adults.

Go, Drudge! Go!

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Scrap the Squigglys

I'm with Mike Murphy on this one. The presence of on-screen results from dial-testing groups is something that needs to be reconsidered during future presidential debates.



It's not that the squiggly lines aren't fun to watch. Rather, they're too much fun to watch. It's hard to avert your eyes from them. It's hard to separate your own, independent reaction from theirs. And it's certainly hard to integrate back into to the non-squiggly universe once you've gotten hooked on the squigglys.

It was only a matter of time before one of the networks figured this out and started carrying the dial-testing results with their live debate feed. That network turned out to be CNN, which made a terrificly smart programming decision, and was rewarded with ratings comparable to the major networks. (Which channel do you think I watched last night?)

The problem is that the squigglys may give thirty random strangers from Bumbleweed, Ohio just too damned much power to influence public perception. The squigglys influence the home viewers, the home viewers participate in the snap polls, the snap polls influence the pundits, the pundits influence the narrative and -- voilà! -- perceptions are entrenched.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about the post-debate snap polls really, like the ones that CNN and CBS conduct. I'd certainly rather look at those numbers than watch the pundits babble for hours on end, especially as pundits tend to watch for all the wrong things during the debates.

But whereas the snap polls are scientific instruments with sample sizes of 500 or more, the probability of getting an unrepresentative reaction from a 30-person dial-testing group is much, much higher. First and foremost is the matter of sample size. You'd never see a poll conducted with just 30 respondents, because the margins of error would be around 18 (!) points.

In addition, as Mark Blumenthal points out, these focus groups depart significantly from truly random samples. Let me quote from him at length:

Focus groups do have important limitations that are not well understood. Although focus group recruiters try to make the participants as representative as possible, the focus group is not a projective random sample, like a poll. Participants usually live near the facility. As the response rates are miniscule given the time commitment, participants usually receive monetary incentives (usually $50-$75) to encourage participation. Recruiters also seek to fill specific quotas for specified demographic characteristics (a mix of ages, for example). Thus, we simply cannot count answers in a focus group to estimate the reactions of a larger population. In other words, if 20 of 30 "undecided voters” react a certain way to the debate tonight, we cannot conclude that 66% of all undecided voters nationally feel the same way.

A second limitation is what researchers call "group dynamic.” In a focus group, participants are often influenced or cowed by the opinions of others in the group. If one dominant personality loudly stakes out a position, others tend to hide or modify their contradictory views. [...]

Finally, the artificial nature of the focus group is often a poor way to judge how the information from advertising (or the fallout of a debate) will be processed in the real world. For example, focus group participants often express genuine antipathy for negative advertisements and reject the information contained in them as false and unfair. Yet in the real world, as the recent campaign has demonstrated powerfully, such advertising can still communicate negative information with ruthless effectiveness. Also, People no doubt watch advertising much more closely and critically in focus group than in their living rooms.

Mark is talking about interactive focus groups, which are a slightly different beast from the squiggly-line groups that CNN and the other networks use, but most of the criticisms carry over. You're not really getting a random sample when everyone has to be sitting in the same physical location at the same time; maybe voters in Ohio were really grooving on Obama's message last night, but voters in Florida weren't. Moreover, people may react differently when they feel as though they're being watched, and that their reactions are being broadcast in real time to 9 million Americans on CNN. The dial-testing groups may also be paying too much attention to the debate to mimic real-world conditions ... they're sitting there in a room with absolutely nothing else to do but watch the debate and twiddle their knobs. That's not how most people watch the debates. Most people are flipping channels between the debate and Dodgers-Phillies, or trying to put their kids to bed, or are chatting on the phone, or are four beers into a six pack, or all of the above.

What I'd suggest is that the CPD ask the network to refrain from including focus-group reactions in their live broadcasts of the debates. If the networks want to include the squigglys in their re-broadcasts of the debates, or perhaps on their Internet streams, I'd be all for that. But I think the viewer should be entitled to formulate her own, independent reaction to the debate, rather than having to share her television with Joe the Plumber and some guys from his neighborhood.

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On the Road: Morgantown, "West By-God Virginia"

"The following midnight I took the Washington bus; wasted some time there wandering around; went out of my way to see the Blue Ridge; heard the bird of Shenandoah and visited Stonewall Jackson's grave; at dusk stood expectorating in the Kanawha and walked the hillbilly night of Charleston West Virginia."

-- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"

As we write this post, John McCain is projected to win West Virginia by 0.1%. Where did that come from? We had heard Joe Scarborough tell us the night of the West Virginia primary that Barack Obama couldn't win states like this. So once we were in Marietta, right across the river, we had to find out.

We stopped in the college town of Morgantown, on the first day of West Virginia early voting. Obama has six main offices, 14 satellite offices in the state, and Obama for America State Director Tom Vogel told us that during the GOTV phase, all 55 counties in the state will have early voting and weekend GOTV rallies. In Charleston on the 25th, for example, the campaign is holding a live music street fair just two blocks from an early voting location.

We met Beri Fox, a small business owner from Paden City, West Virginia, who voted for Bush twice but is supporting Barack Obama this time. Fox, who owns a glass manufacturing company in her Ohio River town, told us that her industry had been decimated by overseas competition. "Do you know how many glass manufacturing companies there used to be? 250. Then it dropped to 100. Today," she paused, "there are seven." Fox is supporting Obama because the economic trickle down policies Republicans have promulgated for thirty years haven't worked.

When we asked Vogel why he was confident about Obama's chances in a state nearly everyone had written off until the recent surge in polling, he pointed out that Democrats had 20 open offices, over 30 paid staff and thousands of volunteers. (McCain, by contrast, has one Charleston office open and one paid staffer.)

Vogel pointed out that West Virginia had voted for Dukakis and that was considered blue until Al Gore ignored the state. You have to show up here and meet the voters, Vogel noted. "Just eight years ago we were a blue state that suddenly went red. Now we're a red state going blue."

As for what to watch for on Election Night, Vogel said that Obama needed big turnout in the southern portion of the state, and that if Obama is even close to even in Putnam and Berkeley Counties, two traditional Republican strongholds, he would win the state. Putnam, just west of Charleston, went for George Bush by 25.5% in 2004, and won Berkeley, home of Martinsburg, by 26.8%.

By chance we stumbled upon a Nader/Gonzalez office in Morgantown, and thought we might've had a real story to report. Peering in the locked office front, it looked as if nobody had been inside in weeks.

Whatever happens in West Virginia, it is clear the campaigns are taking the state seriously. Sarah Palin visited the state the other day, defending a state that was supposed to be John McCain's 190th electoral vote. Joe Biden, for his part says, "We're gonna win West by-God Virginia."

Even if West Virginia, whose polls close at 7:30 eastern on Election Night, is too close to call right out of the gate, John McCain is in for a long night.

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Today's Polls, 10/16

With seven different daily tracking polls to work with -- one of which releases three separate versions of its model each day -- there is a lot to choose from for those who might seek to cherry-pick results.



Slow news day, Matt? If this is a two-point race right now, I'll eat Drudge's fedora. None of the dozen or so other polls that were in the field this week shows a race that close. Nor do either of the alternate versions of Gallup's model, including the so-called Likely Voters II model that I find most credible. (Drudge, of course, had no interest in featuring the Zogby poll, as he had for the past several of days on his site, but which today showed Obama gaining ground.)

Let me be clear: I don't blame Drudge for trying to drive the narrative. Unlike certain other folks, it's not as though he's made any claim to being objective. With real news -- which polls aren't -- he generally has excellent and entertaining instincts.

I do, however, blame those of who allow yourselves to have your day ruined when Drudge moonlights as some kind of polling analyst.

A fairer way to analyze tracking polls, in any event, is something like this: McCain gained ground in three of the seven trackers today (Gallup, Rasmussen, Battleground). He lost ground in one (Zogby). Three others (Research 2000, Hotline, IBD/TIPP) were unchanged.

That could indicate a slight tightening toward McCain, who also had gained ground on average in the tracking polls yesterday. It could also indicate statistical noise. What it probably does not indicate is any dramatic shift in the momentum of the race.

Our model, indeed -- crunching all of this data along with the state polling -- does think Obama's momentum had stalled out about a bit, and pegs his national lead at closer to 7 points rather than the 8-point advantage it had given him a couple of days ago. Why? I don't know. Conventions are not the only events that produce bounces. Debates can too; if a candidate picks up, say, 3 points as the result of winning a debate, he might keep 2 of those points but give one of them back after a handful of days. To the extent that Obama has lost any steam, I sense that it is more something like that than anything constructive the McCain campaign has done.

And of course, there was another debate last night, which most observers concluded that Obama won, and which may give him another momentum boost. That debate will begin to be reflected in tomorrow's numbers and will be fully rolled in by Sunday or Monday.

Looking very quickly at the state numbers:



Anything interesting here? Not really; even the notoriously erratic Zogby Interactive polls seem fairly well behaved. Rasmussen has Ohio moving back into a tie after Obama had led by 2 there earlier in the week. On the other hand, that 2-point lead represented the first time that Obama had led any Rasmussen poll of Ohio, so relative to their envisioning of the state, this remains a decent result for him.

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Road to 270: Montana

Tonight we continue our Road to 270 series with the Treasure State, Montana.

THE LAST, BEST PLACE, Montana's vast blue skies and fierce independent streak make it one of the more fascinating political venues in the nation. A state that spent the 80s and 90s and early part of this decade turning deep red, Montana now has an incredibly popular Democratic governor and two Democratic Senators. Max Baucus' opponent is an 85-year old who ran against Conrad Burns and Jon Tester as a Green party candidate in 2006. Republicans still have Dennis Rehberg, who has his House seat for likely as long as he wants it. He may challenge Tester for his freshman Senate defense in 2012, but Tester's popularity and the national landscape at the time will likely determine whether that happens.

Key Demographics



Note: Factors colored in red can generally be thought to help McCain. Factors in blue can generally be thought to help Obama. Factors in purple have ambiguous effects. Except where otherwise apparent, the numbers next to each variable represent the proportion out of each 100 residents in each state who fall into that category. Fundraising numbers reflect dollars raised in the 2008 campaign cycle per eligible voter in each state. Figures for seniors and youth voters are proportions of all residents aged 18+, rather than all residents of any age. The figure for education reflects the average number of years of completed schooling for all adults aged 25+. The figure for same-sex households reflects the number of same-sex partner households as a proportion of all households in the state. The liberal-conservative index is scaled from 0 (conservative) to 100 (liberal), based on a Likert score of voter self-identification in 2004 exit polls. The turnout rates reflect eligible voters only. Unemployment rates are current as of June 2008.

What McCain Has Going For Him

John McCain leads in head-to-head polling in Montana, and the state is generally still a red state, as highly libertarian ex-Perot voters lean Republican when given a choice between two candidates. Only 12 states went by bigger margins for George Bush, who won by over 20 points in 2004. Although there is no partisan voter registration, self-identification pegged Republicans with a 7-pt edge in 2004. More Montanans own guns per capita than all but two states, and only one other state has more military vets by percentage. McCain also has the NRA spending money on direct mail pieces calling Obama the worst candidate ever on gun rights, and Montanans are especially sensitive about their guns. McCain has a fair number of older voters, especially in conservative eastern Montana, as well as a more male-heavy voting population than the median.

What Obama Has Going For Him

Barack Obama has a revitalized Democratic Party and a better base of organization on his side. He also has Ron Paul on the ballot. Montanans vote at high rates and are more educated per capita than citizens of all but ten states. Gas prices in this state that often requires huge drives are a source of deep unease. The Native population is high in Montana, and Obama's groundwork and outreach has been effective here. Obama has also had an opportunity to visit the state, even late into the spring, as Montana's primary ended the primary season.

What To Watch For

Ron Paul is on the ballot here, and Gov. Brian Schweitzer thinks that Paul will get 5-8 points and cause the Obama-McCain race to be a tossup. We're a little more skeptical that Paul will pull that many more votes from McCain than Obama, but we see Brian's point, even if he thinks we (and Jon Tester on MSNBC, apparently) were "nutjobs" for suggesting he might be a strong VP candidate back in early June.

Here's a fascinating dynamic to watch in Montana as pertains Brian Schweitzer and his future ambition. Having spent a lot of time researching the incredibly weak Republican bench in Montana, I'll report there's only one thematic point of concordance: roadblocking Schweitzer. The highly popular Schweitzer will win easy re-election, but what kind of legislature will he have to work with: an obstructive Republican-controlled legislature or one with at least one Democratic-controlled chamber? In the last legislative session, things got so bitter between Schweitzer and the bullying, unhinged Republican caucus led by Mike Lange, Scott Sales, Corey "Negro caucus" Stapleton and John Sinrud (a piece of work who once unsuccessfully tried to bully me into not videotaping a public appropriations hearing he chaired) that the legislature had to call an unprecedented special budget session.

Therefore, a lot hangs in the balance with the statewide races. The House stands at 50R-49D-1 Constitution Party (who caucuses with Rs), and the Senate stands at 26D-24R. In truth, one of Brian's weaknesses in 2006 was recruiting across-the-board strong candidates to run for state legislature. Montana's house flipped blue-to-red in 2006, the only state legislative body to flip in that direction during the massive Democratic wave. If Dems face the same troubles this year (which is why the early flirting with the Clinton camp, having her at the top of the ticket in Montana, seemed especially crazy), Schweitzer will have trouble implementing many of his policy ideas, which in turn will leave him with a rougher resume for the future.

Thus, for those inside baseball political junkies who want to know if Schweitzer has national possibilities after his second term ends in 2012 (Energy Secretary, then 2016?), watch the local legislative races in Montana.

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538's Battlegrounds as of Mid-October

As we've done on the sixteenth of every month since June, FiveThirtyEight presents the our final update of battleground states, now a mere 19 days before the election. It is not a pretty scene for John McCain. For Barack Obama, the view looks pretty sweet.

Senator Barack Obama now holds states totaling 286 electoral votes outside the battleground zone. We project 78 more electoral votes to go blue on Election Night, for a total of 364 in Obama's column. West Virginia's 5 votes are pure tossup, and states totaling 169 electoral votes for Senator John McCain.

Again, when you look at the pie chart on the upper left of the page, you see a decimal point to one place on the electoral vote projection. That number comes from the 10,000 daily simulations the model runs. Essentially, it's the final outcome simulated 10,000 times and then divided by 10,000. This monthly snapshot says, if we give 100% of the electoral votes for each state we project into one candidate's column, the final tally would be:

Senator Barack Obama, Democratic Party: 364 electoral votes
Senator John McCain, Republican Party: 169 electoral votes
Undetermined: 5 electoral votes.

Battleground States:

This list has changed dramatically from mid-September. Not only are Virginia and Colorado no longer on John McCain's side of the battleground list, they're in Barack Obama's Penumbra State territory.

Obama Penumbra States:

Due to both movement in the numbers and heavy African-American turnout in southern states, John McCain's Penumbra States are ones he'll need to cross the 150 electoral vote barrier:

McCain Penumbra States:

You'll notice that Nebraska's first congressional district actually appears closer than Nebraska's second district, which we visited at the end of September. In the absence of much public polling data at the specific district level, we may see unexpected predictions like this, but hopefully the district will see more polling.

It's important to notice that New Hampshire is the closest Kerry state, and it's 8.9 points in Obama's favor, barely holding onto the Penumbra State. Iowa, which George Bush won in 2004, is projected at 15.0 points.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Wisconsin, which were battlegrounds in our mid-September projections, are now all double digit spreads. Every one of Obama's penumbra states from that report is now double digits. The red states moving into McCain's penumbra zones are moving there as the newly registered voters begin to get polled. When the Travis County, Texas Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign registers 30,869 new voters in a cycle when Texas isn't supposed to be on the map at the presidential level, something seismic is happening.

The debates are now over. Nineteen days, and America will have a new President-Elect. From every bit of available evidence, that person looks to be Barack Obama, distinguished Senator of Illinois.

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On the Road: Marietta, Ohio

When local field organizer Christian Lund took the stage just prior to Joe Biden's appearance on Tuesday night in Marietta, he asked those in the attendant crowd of about 4,000 to look at the sheets in their hands. Each sheet held four names, and each name had a phone number and a bar code for later data scanning. Lund asked the people in the crowd to make four phone calls to this targeted group, and then he demonstrated.

Lund got voicemail. Over the microphone, he left a message informing his phonee about where and when to early vote, as well as where and when the Obama volunteer office was located in town and what it's hours were. After he was finished, it was the crowd's turn. "We even got extra cell tower juice just for tonight" Lund told the crowd, so go ahead and make four quick calls on Barack Obama's behalf. They did.

The other day at Obama's rally in Toledo, the local organizer asked everyone in attendance to (1) early vote; (2) make 40 phone calls or knock 40 doors; and (3) take Election Day off to help the volunteering effort. This is routine practice at every single event the campaign holds, even at Denver's Invesco Field acceptance night speech. The largely Democratic crowd is given concrete, practical and manageable field tasks to accomplish.

The goal is gathering a larger and larger volunteer base. A whole night's shift of phone calls may seem intimidating to a lot of people, particularly introverts, but it's pretty hard to say no to four calls. Cleverly, Obama's campaign reasons that the most difficult part of volunteering is the first four calls or knocks. The first part is always the hardest, particularly for volunteers who've never worked for a campaign before. Once over the comfort threshold, a potential shift volunteer now feels invested in the work.

Here in Marietta, on the Ohio River in the heart of steel country, the Obama organization is as strong as anywhere. Southeast Ohio is the swing area in one of the great swing states. Marietta, Athens, Zanesville, Steubenville, New Philadelphia... these are the places in the southeast counties where Barack Obama needs to perform well in order to carry the state. During our stop in Columbus, Deputy Communications Director Tom Reynolds pointed to the recent Washington Post Ohio poll that showed Obama ahead of John Kerry's performance four years ago in southeast Ohio. Joe Biden's stops in St. Clairsville, Marietta, Athens and Lancaster show how seriously the Obama campaign is taking this region.

Though some very smart people such as Chuck Todd thought Biden's convention speech was uneven, I thought it was pitched to the right emotional level, particularly for steel towns in southeast Ohio where pundits endlessly pointed out that Obama wasn't making inroads during the primaries. Indeed, Marc Ambinder reported that Biden's convention speech "broke the dials" with a steelworker focus group down here when he delivered the line, "Joey, go bloody their nose so that you can walk down the street." And that feels about right, because Biden connected down here.

Though clearly worn from weeks of solid campaigning and long days with multiple stops, Biden spoke to the assembled crowd with gusto. As has been the case for weeks, the dominant topic was the economy.

Look, at the end of the day, there is a fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama, Governor Palin and Joe Biden, and it can be distilled to one thing. How we measure progress in America. Barack Obama and I measure progress in terms of the dignity and respect for the middle class, the working people of America. Whether you have a job. Whether you have the ability to afford health care for your family. Whether or not you can fill your gas tank. Whether or not you can send your kid to college. And whether, whether or not as my dad used to say you can look your kid in the eye and say ‘honey, I promise you, I promise you, it’s going to be okay.’

Well it will be okay with us! We will keep that promise.

Biden got local, talking about his and Obama's support of the Delta Queen. "And folks, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one thing; Barack Obama reminded me to remind you of. He’s also working to save the Delta Queen. The job security that it generates. That steamboat brings a lot of money here."

Speaking of John McCain's recent economic proposals, Biden joked that McCain had had "what Catholics call an epiphany" about the shift from "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" to acknowledging a serious crisis. "He didn’t all of a sudden acknowledge or realize that the economic policies of the last eight years had driven us into this hole," Biden said. "That the reason why this crisis was occurring was because of the policies supported. John didn’t see the light; John saw the Presidency receding from his grasp."

As for the Republicans, we made every good faith effort to get a story, but in the end they knew and we knew and they knew that we knew that they knew they were running out the clock on us. We stopped into the Columbus HQ on Saturday and spoke with Deputy Communications Director Jason Levine, explained in detail who we were and the story we were looking for -- asking for experienced and first-time Republican volunteers who could educate us and our readers about how the McCain campaign is working on the ground in Ohio.

Levine was cautiously friendly, and told us several times that we should probably be able to get a story, but they wanted to set something up so they could give us volunteers who would be on message. (That, in itself, is a complete contrast to the Obama campaign, who implicitly vests its volunteers with great trust, as they own this grassroots campaign.) After speaking with Levine twice and sending repeated emails, he ran out the clock.

It's fair enough. We're not their biggest priority. They probably assume if they haven't heard of us, how much exposure could photos of their huge phone banks with 40 phones and one lonely caller at their state headquarters three weeks before the election really get?

As for the field offices themselves, we told you about the closed one in Troy. We were ushered out by rent-a-cops in Toledo (the second time I spoke with Levine), and there was a pencil-thin mustachioed rent-a-cop in the HQ where we got that picture.

We'll keep trying in good faith to speak to communications directors and stop into field offices, and if they're fair with us, we'll be fair with them. The problem the McCain folks have is that their offices are empty, and why would you want reporters to do a story on that, or on obviously manufactured volunteer conversations? So, we're not optimistic, but we're not quitting. They'll have to say it to our face.

As we mentioned in the liveblog last night, we stopped in West Virginia yesterday before the debate, so there'll be a Mountaineer State report, and we're at Michelle Obama's speech in Pittsburgh right now.

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Where McCain Lost It

Tonight's debate is not going to do John McCain any favors. On the contrary, it was the most lopsided of the four events in the post-debate snap polls.

McCain was winning the debate early on, responding with surprising vigor and detail on the economy. But then came this:

SCHIEFFER: All right. We're going to move to another question and the topic is leadership in this campaign. Both of you pledged to take the high road in this campaign yet it has turned very nasty.

Senator Obama, your campaign has used words like "erratic," "out of touch," "lie," "angry," "losing his bearings" to describe Senator McCain.

Senator McCain, your commercials have included words like "disrespectful," "dangerous," "dishonorable," "he lied." Your running mate said he "palled around with terrorists."

Are each of you tonight willing to sit at this table and say to each other's face what your campaigns and the people in your campaigns have said about each other?

And, Senator McCain, you're first.

MCCAIN: Well, this has been a tough campaign. It's been a very tough campaign. And I know from my experience in many campaigns that, if Senator Obama had asked -- responded to my urgent request to sit down, and do town hall meetings, and come before the American people, we could have done at least 10 of them by now.

When Senator Obama was first asked, he said, "Any place, any time," the way Barry Goldwater and Jack Kennedy agreed to do, before the intervention of the tragedy at Dallas. So I think the tone of this campaign could have been very different.

And the fact is, it's gotten pretty tough. And I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns. But the fact is that it has taken many turns which I think are unacceptable.

What if McCain had stopped right there? He gets in a marginally compelling talking point about the town hall meetings, but then steps back and shares the blame.

Instead, McCain continued as follows:

One of them happened just the other day, when a man I admire and respect -- I've written about him -- Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful.

And, Senator Obama, you didn't repudiate those remarks. Every time there's been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them. I hope that Senator Obama will repudiate those remarks that were made by Congressman John Lewis, very unfair and totally inappropriate.

So I want to tell you, we will run a truthful campaign. This is a tough campaign. And it's a matter of fact that Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history. And I can prove it. And, Senator Obama, when he said -- and he signed a piece of paper that said he would take public financing for his campaign if I did -- that was back when he was a long-shot candidate -- you didn't keep your word.

And when you looked into the camera in a debate with Senator Clinton and said, "I will sit down and negotiate with John McCain about public financing before I make a decision," you didn't tell the American people the truth because you didn't.

And that's -- that's -- that's an unfortunate part. Now we have the highest spending by Senator Obama's campaign than any time since Watergate.

McCain's implication that Obama was principally responsible for the negative tone of the campaign was simply not going to be credible to most voters. Certainly, the Obama campaign has been negative at times -- more often than either the Al Gore or John Kerry -- and on several occasions explictly misleading. But voters came into the debate thinking by 2:1 margins that McCain was running a negative campaign and Obama a positive one. To try and fight against that tide was a significant mistake.

And as though to prove the point, just a few moments later, McCain attacked Obama on Ayers and ACORN, using particularly hyperbolic rhetoric in the latter case:

MCCAIN: Yes, real quick. Mr. Ayers, I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist. But as Senator Clinton said in her debates with you, we need to know the full extent of that relationship.

We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy. The same front outfit organization that your campaign gave $832,000 for "lighting and site selection." So all of these things need to be examined, of course.

And then, just a few moments after that, came this:

MCCAIN: And it's not the fact -- it's not the fact that Senator Obama chooses to associate with a guy who in 2001 said that he wished he had have bombed more, and he had a long association with him. It's the fact that all the -- all of the details need to be known about Senator Obama's relationship with them and with ACORN and the American people will make a judgment.

And my campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America. And that's what my campaign is about and I'm not going to raise taxes the way Senator Obama wants to raise taxes in a tough economy. And that's really what this campaign is going to be about.

Could that sequence possibly have been any more awkward? Mere seconds after reminding America that Willie Ayers was a terrorist, McCain flatly asserted that his campaign was all about the economy. You might expect to see two paragraphs like this interspersed through different parts of the transcript. You certainly do not expect to see them back to back. It's as though you could see avatars of Steve Schmidt and John Weaver perched atop John McCain's respective shoulders, wrestling for control of his message.

Obama, it should be noted, was not particularly effective during this exchange (especially considering that he should have prepped for this kind of sequence days ahead of time), eliciting a lukewarm response from the dial groups. But it turned out that he didn't have to be, as McCain was left with just enough rope to hang himself. And from that point forward, the dials looked like the S&P 500 every time that Obama finished one of his responses and McCain began his. The voters had been pleasantly surprised with the McCain they saw in the first 20 minutes of the debate. But after that disingenuous sequence on negative campaigning, they basically gave up on him.

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Say It to My Face Debate Post-Mortem

11:34 EDT: [Nate] Daschle was also sporting the SJR glasses in the Frontline special on the candidates last night. (Which you really all should watch right now).

11:24 EDT: [Nate] SurveyUSA California debate-watchers: Obama 56, McCain 28. Among California independents: Obama 55, McCain 29.

11:23 EDT: [Sean] Holy mackerel, what's with those glasses on Tom Daschle? Did Daschle lose a bet with Sally Jesse Raphael?

11:15 EDT: [Nate] I consider John King to be among most astute commentators out there, but he's a little bit out of line in critiquing his own poll, which he's said is skewed toward Democrats (the sample was something like D40, R30). It's skewed toward Democrats because America is skewed toward Democrats! The party ID split in the country right now is very close to 40/30. There's no doubt that Obama is going to find it a little bit easier to win these post-debate polls, simply because he has more support to begin with. But when he's winning every poll and every focus group by 2:1 margins, there are no excuses for McCain ... he's winning his base and just about nobody else. EDIT: Among independent voters in the CNN poll, Obama won 57-31, essentially matching his advantage from among all viewers.

11:04 EDT: [Nate] MediaCurves independents: Obama 60, McCain 30.

11:02 EDT: [Nate] CNN poll from the tee-vee: Obama 58, McCain 31.

11:00 EDT: [Nate] CBS undecideds: Obama 53, McCain 22.

11:00 EDT: [Sean] Hillary Clinton on CNN sounding pretty good. The Clintons need to get their butts to southeast Ohio, West Virginia, and southwest PA. (And Arkansas, dude! -- Nate).

10:55 EDT: [Nate] At the end of the day, one of McCain's problems is that he simply doesn't own the negativity very well. During the John Lewis sequence, during the ACORN and Ayers stuff, he came across as uncomfortable, insincere, overcoached. In certain ways, his "straight talk" brand plays against him when it seems as though he has trouble believing his own talking points.

10:48 EDT: [Sean] Ohio undecideds on CNN hated Joe the plumber.

10:45 EDT: [Sean] Looks like the Luntz group went Obama. Greta van Sustererereren crestfallen. We'll get the official numbers momentarily.

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Say It to My Face Debate Liveblog #4

10:31 EDT: [Nate] Congratulations, President Obama.

10:30 EDT: [Sean] McCain's final answer was strong, but it was: "I'm a humble servant of America like a long line of McCains, so hire me." Obama's is about policies to grow the economy and the middle class. As Nate says...

10:26 EDT: [Sean] McCain keeps saying Palin's son has autism, but it's Down's Syndrome.

10:24 EDT: [Sean] John, Obama's wife is named "Michelle."

10:19 EDT: [Nate] McCain is treating this debate as though all the undecideds were Fox News viewers. Bet he'll win the Luntz focus group, though!

10:17 EDT: [Sean] Who's in charge of toweling off Roland Martin after this debate? He's hitting that button like he's fighting Mike Tyson at the end of Punch-Out.

10:15 EDT: [Sean] Obama's answer to Nancy Reagan: "Just say no to cavalier sexual behavior?"

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Say It to My Face Debate Liveblog #3

10:12 EDT: [Sean] Massive gender gap on the dials in many answers. In short: women are thinking Obama's winning in a landslide. Men: mixed.

10:09 EDT: [Sean] McCain is looking at Obama a LOT. So much for not acknowledging your opponent.

10:04 EDT: [Sean] "Gold-plated Cadillacs?" McCain really is Ronald Reagan's heir.

10:00 EDT: [Nate] Sorry I've been so quiet. I thought McCain was winning this debate 20 minutes in. But the second time that McCain brought up Lewis still feels like the turning point in the debate to me. From there forward, he's pretty much played into all of his worst stereotypes.

9:53 EDT: [Sean] McCain: Angrily sarcastic, eye rolling, McCain just feels contempt for Obama. Body language is mocking.

9:49 EDT: [Sean] Obama's talking directly to the viewing audience. McCain seems to be looking to the in-person audience more.

9:48 EDT: [Sean] Well, the server errors are back. Publishing problems. Please bear with us. We were told this was fixed, they weren't happy that we mentioned how bad it was during the VP debate. Well, whatever they call Nate up and say, I'm finding this a major problem.

9:45 EDT: [Sean] That was fun. McCain starts ripping Joe Biden. I say, "here comes a tongue jut, watch." Then McCain does it. You can predict the really dishonest answers get the juts.

9:41 EDT: [Sean] Where's McCain's lapel flag pin? And Roland Martin is a spaz with those numbers. Did Gergen leave? No, there he is. He just docked McCain for something Obama said.

9:40 EDT: [Sean] McCain's: "My campaign has been about the economy and jobs" doesn't pass the laugh test for Obama.

9:39 EDT: [Nate] These last fifteen minutes have been fascinating television. I think McCain had been on his way to winning the exchange until he overplayed the John Lewis card.

9:36 EDT: [Nate] This debate is beginning to resemble a typical comment thread at FiveThirtyEight.

9:35 EDT: [Sean] McCain finally gets around to Ayers and Acorn. Then major tongue juts as he finishes his attack.

9:30 EDT: [Sean] Wow. Obama calls out the Palin-McCain crowds, and Palin for not stopping it. Says it to McCain's face, I guess.

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Say It to My Face Debate Liveblog #2

9:29 EDT: [Sean] McCain wussed out. Didn't say it to his face. Wonder what kind of man Sarah Palin thinks McCain is now. She laid down the gauntlet before the debate.

9:27 EDT: [Sean] Re-maverickize? Now who needs to lay off the sauce?

9:26 EDT: [Nate] I think Obama needed to get a response in there to McCain's trying to re-maverickize hismelf.

9:25 EDT: [Sean] McCain was strong with his line about Obama should have run four years ago if he wanted to run against Bush. Obama gave a strong answer in reply, citing issues like clean coal, merit pay for teachers, and tort reform. McCain: "unconvincing."

9:21 EDT: [Sean] Major tongue jut after McCain lied on the $42,000 a year income he claims Obama taxes.

9:18 EDT: [Nate] Big gender gap in the dial tests tonight.

9:17 EDT: [Sean] Tongue jut! But seriously, this is a good strong answer for McCain, even if he continues to lose Iowans.

9:16 EDT: [Nate] ..and I think McCain sold his corporate taxes message pretty well, given that it's inherently a pretty tough message to sell.

9:14 EDT: [Nate] I'd somewhat disagree. I think McCain seems more even-keeled tonight than the last couple of times around.

9:13 EDT: [Sean] McCain looks like he's struggling to contain his rage. Maybe it's the hi-def.

9:12 EDT: [Sean] Joe the plumber is getting a really big ego right now.

9:11 EDT: [Sean] I'm not drunk, just kinda dumb.

9:10 EDT: [Nate] "Confrontative"? Lay off the beer, dude.

9:09 EDT: [Sean] This is gonna be a confrontative debate, you can feel it in McCain's whole bearing. Eyes blinking like crazy.

9:07 EDT: [Nate] Much stronger start for McCain tonally than in the last couple of debates. But he still didn't mention "jobs" or "middle class".

9:00 EDT: [Nate] I'm going to be watching the debate with a number of national security experts. This should be interesting. You get the sense that both sides are quite a bit more tense than in the first couple of engagements.

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Say It to My Face Debate Liveblog #1

8:56 EDT: [Sean] It is going to be really hard not to watch CNN HD. If only for this weird crowded set they have with 12 people jammed together like clowns in a car. And John King's makeup.

8:50 EDT: [Sean] Oh yeah, guess where we went today? That's right, West Virginia. Morgantown. Bet you didn't see that coming. We saw Joe Biden last night in Marietta and we know Joe said "We're gonna win West By-God Virginia!" Which the model is telling Joe. So we went. We'll have a report tomorrow, and our report from Southeast Ohio will come after the debate tonight.

8:40 EDT: [Sean] So, what channel should we watch? We have options. Can't decide between CNN with the reaction lines and C-Span. What should we use?

8:35 EDT: [Sean] Incidentally, we're in Murtha's "racist" district tonight. We're staying with a guy -- I'm not making this up -- named "Sean Paul," and he lives on "Li'l John" street. Well, technically it's "Little John."

8:29 EDT: [Sean] So the gauntlet is thrown down on all sides. Biden says, in my neighborhood you gotta say that stuff to my face. Obama says the same thing. Palin says "So we'll see tonight if John McCain does that." McCain actually said he would "kick [Obama's] you know what" tonight. So much for the Republican expectations-setting memos.

8:25 EDT: [Sean] Maybe a decent time for a little housekeeping. I am overwhelmed with emails, and I get a fraction of what Nate gets, so if it takes us time to get back to some of our readers, we apologize.

We were thinking Nate's model needs a name, as he did with PECOTA. Brett piped up with "CBAFOGM," apparently short for "Click Brett's Ads For Our Gas Money." Nice, Brett. I see what you did there. Add your suggestions in comments.

8:22 EDT: [Sean] All right, baby, let's do this thing. Brett and I were going to head to Hofstra tonight, but the model predicted we'd have a better time hanging out with a buddy of ours in Western PA. We have cold beers, unbelievable fall foliage and a full moon, 20 nights before America elects its next president. We're in a fun and feisty mood tonight, so let's have a great time.

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Today's Polls, 10/15

The polls take a back seat to tonight's debate -- we'll be liveblogging, of course -- but let's give you the numbers and then touch upon a couple of high-level themes:



Still lots of blue in that table. But this was at least a day in which things did not appear to get any worse for John McCain. McCain improved his position in three of the seven tracking polls; Obama gained in one, and the other three were flat. In most of the state polling -- like the set of CNN polls for instance -- the trends were basically flat from the last time in the polls were in the field. That's certainly better for McCain than Obama continuing to gain ground. (By the way, we use the version of the CNN polling with third-party candidates included, which is why our numbers may differ from other sources).

Meanwhile, our model is starting to make some decisions about just where it thinks Obama's momentum is manifesting itself. Specifically, it thinks that he's gained the most in states with lots of white, working class Clinton voters -- a result which might be intuited by the huge numbers that he's posting in Pennsylvania, or the fact that there's now another West Virginia poll out that shows the race nearly tied.

As a result, we're now coloring West Virginia white (toss-up) rather than pink (lean McCain). The model also thinks that Arkansas could be quite interesting the next time that it gets polled. The flip side is that Obama doesn't seem to have quite as much momentum in the Western half of the country, where Clinton generally performed poorly during the primaries.

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Road to 270: Maryland

Today we continue our Road to 270 series with the Old Line State, Maryland.

CHESAPEAKE BLUE, Maryland and its ten electoral votes are among Barack Obama's safest. This is one of the most liberal states in the nation, with every statewide office Democratic-held and both state legislatures holding Democratic super-majorities. Six of eight House seats are Democratic, with only the 1st and 6th CDs held by Republicans. After a series of four single digit elections (Carter '76, Carter '80, Reagan '84, and Bush '88), Maryland has broken Democratic by double digits each of the last four elections beginning with Bill Clinton.

Key Demographics



Note: Factors colored in red can generally be thought to help McCain. Factors in blue can generally be thought to help Obama. Factors in purple have ambiguous effects. Except where otherwise apparent, the numbers next to each variable represent the proportion out of each 100 residents in each state who fall into that category. Fundraising numbers reflect dollars raised in the 2008 campaign cycle per eligible voter in each state. Figures for seniors and youth voters are proportions of all residents aged 18+, rather than all residents of any age. The figure for education reflects the average number of years of completed schooling for all adults aged 25+. The figure for same-sex households reflects the number of same-sex partner households as a proportion of all households in the state. The liberal-conservative index is scaled from 0 (conservative) to 100 (liberal), based on a Likert score of voter self-identification in 2004 exit polls. The turnout rates reflect eligible voters only. Unemployment rates are current as of June 2008.

What McCain Has Going For Him

Honestly, not much. Unemployment is relatively low, the youth population ranks on the lower end of states, and McCain's Maryland fundraising ranks it in the top third of states. In the Appalachian areas of Maryland, the "American" ancestry responses start getting high, but there isn't anywhere near enough population there to compensate for the huge Democratic margins in the BWI corridor. Only four states went for John Kerry by bigger margins, and unfortunately for John McCain it'll be just as tough for him in this blue mid-Atlantic enclave.

What Obama Has Going For Him

Barack Obama has extremely high per capita fundraising in the state, given the number of DC-proximal residents. It's also the 4th highest percentage of African-American vote, the 2d highest percentage of female vote, and the single most-educated state (good job hitting the books, Maryland). It ranks 10th most liberal on the Likert scale, and has the 2d most self-identifying Democrats. Same-sex households by percentage rank in the upper quartile, and there are many more Starbucks than Walmarts. The high education rates lead Maryland to be the 2d highest per capita income state, which doesn't directly correlate with Democratic voting. Obama's favorite TV series, the legendary show The Wire, was set in Maryland. Ah, McNulty, Omar and Stringer Bell, wherefore art thou?

What To Watch For

With no statewide races and the presidential race not dramatic this year, the race to watch is Maryland's 1st district, the Eastern Shore/Baltimore suburban open seat held by Wayne Gilchrest until the Club for Growth primaried him. That primary, against eventual winner Andrew Harris, was so bitter that Gilchrest actually endorsed Frank Kravotil, the Democratic challenger. Gilchrest is not a happy camper, and the race is considered anywhere from lean Republican to toss-up.

“Let's see, the Republican Party, or my eternal soul?" Gilchrest said.

"Party loyalty, or integrity?”

Not a big Andrew Harris fan, is Gilchrest. Every other House seat in Maryland (six Dems, one Rep) is considered safe.

*_*

Here's another fun one from last night in Marietta, Ohio:

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Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States

SurveyUSA has a lot of good habits as a pollster, and one of them is breaking out the results of early and absentee voting in states where such things are allowed. So far, SurveyUSA has conducted polling in five states where some form of early voting was underway. In each one, Barack Obama is doing profoundly better among early voters than among the state's electorate as a whole:

...    Poll    % Voted                  Non-Early
State  Date      Early   Early Voters   Likely Voters
====================================================
NM     10/13     10%     Obama +23%     Obama +6%
OH     10/13     12%     Obama +18%     Obama +4%
GA     10/12     18%     Obama +6%      McCain +11%
IA     10/9      14%     Obama +34%     Obama +10%
NC     10/6       5%     Obama +34%     McCain +5%

We should caveat that these are not hard-and-fast numbers. Estimates of early voting results are subject to the same statistical vagaries as any other sort of subgroup analysis, such as response bias and small sample sizes.

Nevertheless, Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.

Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it's not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry. In the past, early voters have also tended to be older than the voting population as a whole and more male than the population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama or most other Democrats.

Now certainly, early voters tend to be your stauncher partisans rather than your uncommitted voters -- just 1-2 percent of early voters in 2000 and 2004 reported that they would have voted differently if they'd waited until election day. So it's unlikely that John McCain is actually losing all that many persuadable voters to the early voter tallies.

What these results would seem to suggest, however, is that there are fairly massive advantages for the Democrats in enthusiasm and/or turnout operations. They imply that Obama is quite likely to turn out his base in large numbers; the question is whether the Republicans will be able to do the same.

Keep in mind that there are veteran pollsters like Ann Selzer who think that most of her colleagues are vastly understating the degree to which youth and minority turnout is liable to improve in this election; Selzer's polls have been 5-6 points more favorable to Obama than the averages in the states that she's surveyed. So while these early voting numbers could turn out to be something of a curiosity, they could alternatively represent a canary in the coal mine for a coming Democratic turnout wave.

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Road to 270: Louisiana

Today we continue our Road to 270 series with the Pelican State, Louisiana.

CAJUN BAYOU TABASCO RED, Louisiana appears this year to be on pace to break its streak of supporting every presidential winner since 1972. Since 2004, Huey Long's home state has been ravaged by hurricane damage and lost a significant segment of its population. It's also seen political scandals and widespread graft in the FEMA rebuilding effort, so the relationship with politics may be a little skewed and hard to be certain of how the effect will play in Louisiana, land of Avery Island red gold.

Key Demographics



Note: Factors colored in red can generally be thought to help McCain. Factors in blue can generally be thought to help Obama. Factors in purple have ambiguous effects. Except where otherwise apparent, the numbers next to each variable represent the proportion out of each 100 residents in each state who fall into that category. Fundraising numbers reflect dollars raised in the 2008 campaign cycle per eligible voter in each state. Figures for seniors and youth voters are proportions of all residents aged 18+, rather than all residents of any age. The figure for education reflects the average number of years of completed schooling for all adults aged 25+. The figure for same-sex households reflects the number of same-sex partner households as a proportion of all households in the state. The liberal-conservative index is scaled from 0 (conservative) to 100 (liberal), based on a Likert score of voter self-identification in 2004 exit polls. The turnout rates reflect eligible voters only. Unemployment rates are current as of June 2008.

What McCain Has Going For Him

In Louisiana, site of his infamous June 3 Lime Green Speech, John McCain actually led Barack Obama in fundraising, and the white evangelical vote is strong here, as is customary in Southern states. Louisiana ranks in the top third of gun-owning and "American" ancestry states and factors that would ordinarily favor Obama -- high unemployment, high education, or even the vaunted Starbucks:Walmart ratio -- are all lagging near the bottom in Louisiana. The state ranks on the conservative end of the Likert scale, and indeed voted for George Bush twice, the second time by double digits. McCain should continue the Republican trend in the state by taking its 9 electoral votes.

What Obama Has Going For Him

Louisiana has the 2d highest percentage of African-American voters, and a high percentage of female voters. However, Louisiana lost a significant number of black voters after Katrina forced relocation, and this small but significant shift in demographics doesn't help Obama. Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in 2004, and in fact Dem registration was the 5th highest of any state in the nation. Louisiana has the 7th highest percentage of voters under 30. The Catholic vote is high and there aren't as many military vets, a factor that would tend to favor John McCain if it were higher. Obama organized here in the primary, which gave his campaign a head start.

What To Watch For

John McCain has been over 50 in nearly every public poll conducted in Louisiana, and though our projection for the state keeps getting closer, Barack Obama will only win the state if he gets into the 400 EV territory. Originally, Mary Landrieu's Senate seat was seen as the most vulnerable Democratic Senate seat, but it's clear she will cruise to re-election and Republicans will not add seats. The guy with the hookers isn't up for Senate re-election until 2010. But William "Cash Bricks" Jefferson is, and will likely continue to be an embarrassment for Democrats.

In Louisiana's 6th district, Don Cazayoux will try to hold on to the seat he won in the spring during one of those portentous special elections Democrats swept in deep red districts. Despite guilt-by-association-by-association attempts (Cazayoux-Obama-Wright), voters rejected the negative campaign and Cazayoux won by less than 3%. Will he win again in a regular election?

*_*

This has nothing to do with Louisiana, but Brett loves his teasers:

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Today's Polls, 10/14

Perhaps the CBS poll that shows Barack Obama with a 14-point lead among likely voters (12 points when third-party candidates are included) is a modest outlier. But if so, John McCain has more and more outliers that he has to explain away these days. There are now no fewer than seven current national polls that show Obama with a double-digit advantage: Newsweek (+11), ABC/Post (+10), Democracy Corps (+10), Research 2000 (+10), Battleground (+13), Gallup (+10 using their Likely Voter II model) and now this CBS News poll.

These are balanced by other results that show the race a hair tighter. Our model now projects that, were an election held today, Obama would win by 8.1 points. It also expects that the race is more likely than not to tighten some.

Nevertheless, we are a full month beyond the Lehman Brothers collapse in mid-September. Obama has enjoyed quite a remarkable run, turning a 2-point deficit into an 8-point advantage. What's especially remarkable about it is that Obama's lead has continued to increase with an eerily consistency. The collapse itself precipitated an almost immediate 3 or 4 point gain in Obama's poll numbers, moving him from a point or so down to a point or so ahead. But since then, Obama has won news cycle after news cycle, adding another two points or so to his national lead every week.

It's fairly unusual for a candidate to have such a sustained run of momentum so deep into the campaign cycle. And it does appear to be real momentum, with some real feedback loops: the worse McCain's poll numbers become, the more desperate his campaign looks, and the more desperate his campaign looks, the worse his poll numbers become.

McCain now has to go on a run of his own, a large enough run to wipe at least 8 points off of Obama's lead, and perhaps more like 9 or 10 to cover his inferior position in the Electoral College and the votes that Obama is banking in early and absentee balloting. It is imperative that McCain does not just draw tomorrow night's debate, does not just win a victory on points, but emerges with a resounding victory, the sort that leaves the spin room gasping for air. Failing that, we are getting into dead girl, live boy territory.

Let's look at the polls:



The state polls don't present a much brighter picture for McCain. In particular, the Quinnipiac set of polling, showing large leads for Obama in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, is bad news for him. Note that Quinnipiac conducted two separate sets of polling both before and after last week's debate, with the debate only seeming to consolidate Obama's advantage.

Pennsylvania, meanwhile, where SurveyUSA has Obama sustaining a 15-point lead, may be joining Michigan as a state which is completely out of reach to McCain. Ohio is still within reach -- and the fact that it's lagging a couple of points behind Obama's national numbers is reason for McCain not to give the state especial concern -- but clearly now seems to lean toward Obama. The Suffolk result in Colorado is a little better for McCain than the Quinnipiac numbers, at least, and PPP has Obama moving slightly off his peak in North Carolina, although that may only be because McCain has finally started to invest resources there that he'd rather be spending everywhere else. The Tarheel State, in other words, has served its purpose for Obama, whether or not he ultimately wins it.

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CBS/NYT Poll Preempt

If Andrew Sullivan is right and the CBS-NYT poll to be released this evening shows a 14-point lead for Obama, we shouldn't actually regard this as all that shocking a result.

Presently, our best estimate is that Obama has about an 8-point national lead. However, CBS polls have leaned about 3 points more Democratic than the average this year. In other words, our baseline expectation is that a CBS poll should be showing about an 11-point for Obama right now.

You wind up to the Obama side of the +/- 3 point margin of error, and that's how you get to 14 points.

Not that this is good news for McCain exactly -- the balance of polling over the past 48 hours indicates that Obama's true lead is probably more like 8 points (maybe even inching upward toward 9) than 6 or 7. But it's not quite as bad as it will look on the surface.

UPDATE: Yes, the topline number is indeed Obama 53, McCain 39, although the version that we prefer -- with third party candidates included -- gives Obama "only" a 12-point lead.

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On the Road: Toledo, Ohio

“In the misty night we crossed Toledo and went onward across old Ohio. I realized I was beginning to cross and recross towns in America as though I were a traveling salesman – raggedy travelings, bad stock, rotten beans in the bottom of my bag of tricks, nobody buying.”

– Jack Kerouac, “On the Road”

Most of her life spent as a Republican, Debrah Harleston volunteered heavily for George Bush in 2004. As she threw herself into helping Barack Obama in Toledo, one of her first questions to her organizer was, "why are we canvassing so soon?"

Accustomed to the template she'd experienced with the Bush 2004 campaign in New York State, it seemed strange that Democrats would want to go talk to people at their doors many weeks in advance of an election. Phonebanking, sure, but the final weekend and final stretch was the customary time to knock doors.

Now that Debrah has settled into her role as one of Obama's Toledo Community Directors, she's amazed at the sophistication of the Obama structure. As a Community Director, she oversees three Neighborhood Team Leaders, volunteers who comprise the heart of Obama's volunteering infrastructure. Each neighborhood team, in turn, has up to five different coordinators: (1) the canvass coordinator; (2) the phonebank coordinator; (3) the volunteer coordinator; (4) the data coordinator; and (5) where applicable, the faith coordinator.

In Ohio, Campaign for Change State Director Jeremy Bird told us, there are 1,231 defined neighborhoods, as of August 25 there were about 800 in place, and as of Saturday approximately 1,100 NTLs had been tested and were up in operation. By "tested," Bird said, each NTL had undergone and met a series of specific challenges the field organizers had presented.

First, can the potential NTL organize a group of people? Whether by hosting a house party, a faith forum with a church group, or some other type of organizational meeting, the potential NTL needs to show they can lead the organization of their neighbors.

Second, can the potential NTL pass the voter contact test? Can he or she lead a canvass, can he or she build a group phonebanking night? It's a leadership test, built around voter contact.

Third, are they willing to make the final commitment by attending specific training for their role? Debrah Harleston smiled as she told us about the imminent blooming of satellite offices throughout the Toledo area so that neighborhood teams can begin running right in the neighborhoods autonomously. They've been trained, they've registered their voters, and now it's time to see how this baby runs.

After Barack Obama's major economic address to 3,500 people in Toledo, the office several blocks away swelled to capacity with newly-fired up volunteers. One of the volunteers who'd come into Obama's office in recent weeks is Debrah's husband, such a staunch Republican that he'd long been donating monthly like clockwork. He'd even gone into the nearby Toledo McCain office, but when he visited it had been nearly empty. The explosive energy difference, Debrah told us, particularly in the past few weeks, made an impression on her husband, who planned to vote for Barack Obama.

Obama's organizers, the younger workers that the hacktastically uninformed Michael Barone fingers-crossingly dismisses as orange-stockinged Deaniacs merely waving visibility, spend much of their time recruiting and training NTLs, monitoring their progress, coaching them when they run into trouble. The key is, Bird noted, that the organizers have time to coach NTLs and their coordinators with reporting and accountability.

To that end, the Obama campaign is doing something remarkable: rather than keeping their vote goals close to the vest and internal, they trust their NTLs with those numbers. "If we tell a team leader that the vote goal for this neighborhood is 100 votes, and we give them a list with 300 names of supporters and persuadable voters on it, they respond with, 'Wow, I can make this happen!'" Empower is not just an empty word emblazoned on Obama field office walls.

As to how to get buy-in from volunteers who may be used to different campaign practices, "they see it working," Bird says simply. A lot of the volunteers are first-timers so they have no baseline to compare it to, and the veteran volunteers have seen other campaigns try different programs... and fail.

Volunteers direct and train other volunteers, in turn directed by the coordinators under the NTL. The coordinators report numbers to the NTL, who in turn report to people like Debrah, the Community Directors, who in turn report to the field organizer. The field organizer reports to the deputy regional or regional field director, who reports to the state field director. The numbers are off the charts. Debrah estimated that in the central Toledo field office this past weekend, at least 2000 folks had streamed through to volunteer.

In Columbus, Bird told us that the long primary had taught the campaign incredibly valuable lessons. Sometimes one regional would have 32 field organizers, an incredible number of organizers for a given region, but it didn't work operationally because that's too many FOs for an RFD to manage. With the primary process, the campaign learned the right proportions and ratios of NTLs-to-FO, and FO-to-RFD. "It was a very conscious decision" for field organizers to have no more than about 10 neighborhood teams, Bird said.

It's why Obama for America State Director Aaron Pickrell told us, "Nothing about the structure worries me, which is weird," referring to comparisons with past campaigns he's experienced.

For some outstanding work on the Obama side of the ground game, check out Zach Exley's series as well as Al Giordano's blog, The Field. For organizers and any reader who wants further and deeper looks at the ground game, these folks are doing tremendous work that should get recognition.

We're in southeast Ohio tonight and tomorrow morning, between Marietta and Athens, where we finally come across Joe Biden. The southeast area of the state is a huge swing area, within this still-tight swing state, and we're still hoping to be permitted to talk to McCain volunteers so we can bring you that perspective. We're working on it.

After Ohio: Pennsylvania.

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