Snapshot of the presidential race

As of this evening, in the RealClearPolitics national polling average, John McCain has a 2.9 point lead over Barack Obama. That’s within the margin of error, of course, but still, it’s a pretty good bounce.
Much depends, of course, on whether the bounce is transitory or hangs around for a while, but there are reasons to think it might stick. One is that the huge edge in voter identification that Democrats enjoyed—it was 6% in November 2006 and had climbed over 10% this past May—has been steadily eroding; by last month it was down to 5.7%. Now, according to the Gallup/USA Today poll, that edge has dropped to just 1%, which is less even than the Democratic Party had in 2004. Another is that according to the Rasmussen tracking poll a higher percentage of McCain voters than Obama voters are certain about their vote (41%-38%); not only is Sen. Obama behind in the polls, more of those who say they plan to vote for him are open to changing their mind. It’s also worth noting that the ABC poll reports a 20-point swing in Sen. McCain’s favor among white women; Gallup finds a smaller shift among all women, but a huge shift in support among independents (now 52%-37% in his favor). As well, after all the talk about Sen. Obama reaching beyond the Democratic base, pursuing a 50-state strategy and drawing votes from Republican evangelicals, the focus is back on swing states and he’s doing no better with evangelicals than Kerry did.That said, if you take RCP’s electoral map with every state projected one way or the other, they do still give Obama/Biden the win in electoral votes, 273-265:
That’s somewhat misleading, however, because most of the state poll numbers they’re using are pretty old. Thus, for instance, New Hampshire:
As you can see, their average gives Sen. Obama a paper-thin lead—but the newest poll there was finished on the 18th of August, and the others are one and three and a half months older. Given that Sen. McCain has gained a fair bit on Sen. Obama in that time, it would seem likely that New Hampshire is now leaning the other way; and if you flip them and leave everyone else the same, you get a 269-269 tie.Other interesting cases to consider include Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado:


In Michigan and Pennsylvania, Sen. Obama’s decent lead in the poll average is based largely on old polls; in the one up-to-date poll in each state, his lead is razor-thin—one point in Michigan, two points in Pennsylvania; when the other polls catch up, they will likely show the effects of the McCain bounce. At this point, while you’d have to say both are leaning toward him, the tilt would seem to be very slight; both states are very much in play. As for Colorado, there we see no such pattern, but there is a poll not included in this average, commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which shows Sen. McCain up by two. Given that Rasmussen in Colorado shows no signs of a bounce for the McCain campaign, there doesn’t seem reason to expect the other polls to move significantly in his direction, leaving Colorado also leaning slightly against him.Others might ask, what about states that could flip the other way? What about Ohio? Well, take a look:
At this point, the numbers on Ohio don’t look promising for the Obama campaign; yes, the average is quite close, but the only recent poll, Rasmussen, gives Sen. McCain a seven-point lead, whereas even after the Democratic convention, Sen. Obama was only up two. Virginia‘s more interesting, though:
There, we have two polls which are up to date, and both show a two-point lead for Sen. McCain. He ought to be able to carry the state, but he’s not going to be able to take it for granted—it appears that the Old Dominion could readily go either way.So what does this all mean? Well, on my read, the truest picture of the race is this:
Looking at that, I tend to think there’s more opportunity for the GOP to pull states out of the Democratic column than vice versa; the momentum is going their way, and Sarah Palin looks like someone who will have particular effectiveness appealing to blue-collar Democrats in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sen. Obama doesn’t have a similar advantage to help him go after states like Ohio, Virginia, Missouri and Florida.That, of course, is as of now; we need only look back at the serpentine course this presidential election has already taken to be reminded how quickly—and strangely—things can change. Certainly there’s no room for overconfidence on the part of the GOP; they’re in a dogfight, and at best have an even shot at coming out on top. But when you consider that most pundits expected them to be all but writing the concession speech at this point of the campaign, an even shot looks pretty good.