The Myth of a Toss-up Election
"Too close to call." "Within the margin of error." "A statistical dead heat." If you've been following news coverage of the 2008 presidential election, you're probably familiar with these phrases. Media commentary on the presidential horserace, reflecting the results of a series of new national polls, has strained to make a case for a hotly contested election that is essentially up for grabs.
Signs of Barack Obama's weaknesses allegedly abound. The huge generic Democratic Party advantage is not reflected in the McCain-Obama pairings in national polls. Why, according to the constant refrain, hasn't Obama put this election away? A large number of Clinton supporters in the primaries refuse to commit to Obama. White working class and senior voters tilt decidedly to McCain. Racial resentment limits Obama's support among these two critical voting blocs. Enthusiasm among young voters and African-Americans, two groups strongly attracted to Obama, is waning. McCain is widely seen as better prepared to step up to the responsibilities of commander-in-chief. Blah, blah, blah.
While no election outcome is guaranteed and McCain's prospects could improve over the next three and a half months, virtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed - historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months - points to a comfortable Obama/Democratic party victory in November. Trumpeting this race as a toss-up, almost certain to produce another nail-biter finish, distorts the evidence and does a disservice to readers and viewers who rely upon such punditry.
Consider the following.
Except for a few days when the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls showed a tie, Barack Obama has led John McCain in every national poll in the past two months. Obama's average margin has consistently been in the 4-6 point range during this time. By contrast, the polls in 2000 and 2004 showed much more variation over time.
State polling data have also consistently given Obama the advantage. According to realclearpolitics.com, Obama is currently leading in 26 states and the District of Columbia with a total of 322 electoral votes; McCain is currently leading in 24 states with a total of 216 electoral votes. Obama is leading in every state carried by John Kerry in 2004 along with seven states carried by George Bush: Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Nevada and Colorado.
Obama is leading in 11 of the 12 swing states that were decided by a margin of five points or less in 2004 including five of the six that were carried by George Bush. And while Obama has a comfortable lead in every state that John Kerry won by a margin of more than five points in 2004, McCain is in a difficult battle in a number of states that Bush carried by a margin of more than five points including such solidly red states as Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, and North Carolina.
And remember these June and July polls may well understate Obama's eventual margin. Ronald Reagan did not capitalize on the huge structural advantage Republicans enjoyed in 1980 until after the party conventions and presidential debate. It took a while and a sufficient level of comfort with the challenger for anti-Carter votes to translate into support for Reagan. If Obama's performance over the last eighteen months is any guide, a similar pattern is likely to unfold in 2008.
Aside from the horserace results, there is evidence of a growing Democratic Party advantage in the electorate. A recent analysis by Rhodes Cook of voter registration data in 29 states and the District of Columbia that permit registration by party shows that since November of 2004, Democratic registration has increased by almost 700 thousand while Republican registration has declined by almost one million.
Democrats now enjoy a substantial lead over Republicans in voter identification. According to the Gallup Poll, the two parties have gone from near parity four years ago to a 12 point Democratic advantage in the first half of 2008. And polling data continue to show that Democrats are more satisfied with their party's nominee than Republicans voters and more highly motivated to vote. While Republicans normally benefit from higher turnout among their supporters, that may not be the case this year.
In order to defeat Barack Obama, John McCain will have to convince a lot of disgruntled Republicans to turn out and vote for him. But mobilizing the Republican base, a strategy employed successfully by Karl Rove in 2002 and 2004, won't be enough for McCain to win in 2008. He'll also have to convince a majority of independents and a substantial number of Democrats to vote for him. That's a task that proved too difficult even for Rove in the 2006 midterm election and it may be even more difficult in 2008. That's because since 2006 the political environment has gone from bad to worse for Republicans.
It is no exaggeration to say that the political environment this year is one of the worst for a party in the White House in the past sixty years. You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find an election involving the combination of an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession. 1952 was also the last time the party in power wasn't represented by either the incumbent president or the incumbent vice-president. But the fact that Democrat Harry Truman wasn't on the ballot didn't stop Republican Dwight Eisenhower from inflicting a crushing defeat on Truman's would-be successor, Adlai Stevenson.
Barack Obama is not a national hero like Dwight Eisenhower, and George Bush is certainly no Harry Truman. But if history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson.
Abramowitz is a professor of political science at Emory University. Mann is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. Sabato is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and director of its Center for Politics.
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The American electorate probably does not look upon the Democratic Party as one that has all the answers but it seems clear to me who is responsible for the mess that our economy is in and the mess that our foreign policy is in and the mess that our security is in and I believe that the electorate will do what it is that the electorate is good at...smiti
Look for a watershed election that will remind us of 1980. Only this time the Dems will prevail.
It'd be better if it was a close race. Now that Obama THINKS he's got us progressives in line, he'll do as he pleases. I got news for him. He turned his back on us over FISA. Bad move.
Where did all of your whining and threatening get you? More favorable polls state by state for Obama. More online supporters for Obama (now 2 million and counting). More funds raised in June (52 million and counting). You FISA whiners make me sick. If Obama is your personal state senator, then you have a right to complain about his senate vote. Otherwise, you needed to talk to your own senator and challenge him/her to stand up for your position. For some reason, these "supporters" seemed to think that they could band together and form their own little "FISA special interest group" and with their vote and funds extort Obama to vote their way in the senate or else. FISA is an important issue, but that vote is done. Move on. Obama will handle the minutae when he takes office in January. Obama '08
He's not only from my state, he's from the town I live in. Springfield Illinois, at the old State Capitol, in the friggin winter time, when he announced his hat was in the ring. I was there. I've spent countless hours campaigning and knocking on doors, emailing people and generally spreading the word. I'm as close to an Obama activist you've probably ever met. Thanks, but what or what not you suggest I do has no bearing whatsoever on my final actions. And yes, he's from my state and he's my senator. And I'm greatly disappointed, not only in him, for protecting corrupt Democratic leadership (NP, HR & JR) by suppressing FISA civil lawsuits against the telcos (who would admit collusion with BUSH) but to you dunderheads that think you have to settle for this dung. When he (obama) promises to rescind all neocon laws passed in last 7 1/2 years for executive power, maybe- maybenot.
I read on another blog that there has been evidence found and a case going on in Ohio about the 2004 elections. It seems that the programmer who put the patch on the voting machines tabulation software that flipped the election to Bush wants to sing like a bird. Evidence shows that down the ticket democratic candidates received significantly more votes than Kerry. Why is that. Most folks vote straight party ticket, with that Kerry should have received the same number of votes as the other democratic candidates. Also, the story goes that in 2002 some democratic districts in Georgia got a patch to their voting machines tabulation software that affected the senate race where Sen Max Cleland lost to the republican.
If the media punditry class keep underplaying Sen Obama's lead in the polls and keep stressing how close it is there is more of a chance that the repubs can pull this computerized coup without too much notice. The punditry have to keep the fires burning on the alleged disappointment Clinton supporters feel. I think that is the reason so many of Hillary's campaign staffers are working for Fox now. To keep the fires burning.
Fellow Dems, google the case going on in Ohio. It's big.
The good news is that most of the battleground states this year, unlike Florida 00 and Ohio 04, have Democratic governors - Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico.
Also check out this website: http://www
I saw the film version on my local access channel some months ago. I was shocked at how much error and fraud is involved. You can read her book online, buy the DVD w/ proceeds going to the organization or rent the DVD from Netflix.
Check out Sen. Hagels involvement w/ voting machines. His name has been bandied about so freely as a VP choice. This might make you think twice - if his ultra conservative voting record doesn't scare the bjesus out of you.
I agree that without more accurate reporting, voting errors and fraud could go under the radar.
I would very much be interested in your evidence pointing to an Obama win at this point? As far as I know, the key states Clinton beat him up in during the primaries are up for grabs. His camp is delusional to think that in the general election, they are going to change just enough red states to blue for victory. Add to all of this, the voter fraud that promises to be more widespread than it was in 2004, and you currently have a race that is TOO CLOSE TO CALL. Obama/Clinton would change all of this of course.
I recommend FiveThirtyEight. They apply very sophisticated statistical analysis to the polling data to get at what it would actually mean for election results. http://www
All I can think of to support your view are WV, TN and KY. OH and PA are in Obama's corner, and in the disputed states of MI and FL, MI is solidly pro-Obama and the last poll I saw of FL indicated that Obama had the southern part of the state. Obama either leads, is tied, or runs only a few points behind McCain in many red states. In addition, Bob Barr is going to hurt McCain as Nader has hurt the Democrats in the past. Case in point: Nevada. The Republicans in that state are very divided over supporting McCain and will open the door for Obama.
I have liked Obama since he started, but it's not only Republicans that like people like Ron Paul. I do and I've been democratic my entire life. I like for what some people stand for, you know, like telling the damned truth once and again... things like that. Ron Paul says turn those ships around right in the Gulf. Outta here. Simple. We don't because we actually have no say. The oil companies and Dickless run this joint. I don't know much about Barr and right now, don't care. But that pretty much is the picture for all of em. I might write in John Edwards name. Whatever will make me feel better after being betrayed on the FISA debacle. That really sucked.
I am 46 years old and have NEVER been as excited about politics as I am now and it has EVERYTHING to do with Obama's candidacy. Thank you for this analysis.
My husband is always trying to quell my anxiety. My current anxiety is about how the states will handle the volume of voters who will come out in November. I'm a worrier at heart but am looking forward to staying up all night (for the first time since I don't know when) to watch this historical outcome.
I think this is the data and conclusions predicted by the Obama campaign all along.
Thank God someone finally said this. I kept reading the actual polls and less filtered news and then I'd turn on CNN and MSNBC and hear an entirely different interpretation of the facts. Since when is a six point lead not a solid margin? I keep thinking there is one white man Obama needs to win for this nonsense of identity politics and phantom close calls to finally be put to rest.
I think Obama will win, but it will not be a landslide, if we take landslide to mean over 300 electoral votes. My neighbor still refuses to take down her Hillary yard sign. It's pretty sad. We're thinking about putting a "unite for change" sign smack in between her Hillary sign and our Obama sign in order to send a clear message :)
I hope the national media keeps saying things are close. It'll keep the Obama campaign sharp and the money rolling in.
Don't count your chickens!
Landslide!
I hope you are right on the analysis, but I will wait until Election Day to make sure before I celebrate. From my point of view this election is a no brainer, but the truth of the matter is that there are many people out there who still believe the lies that have been circulating through the internet and also people who have a problem with Obama's skin color. We are in the 21st century and race should not be an issue but still many people will not vote for a black person (my mother-in-law is one of those people as a matter of fact). I will keep my fingers crossed because we really need a change in the way we do things in this country.
I do not trust the GOP propaganda and we know what they can do to just scare good people. I still think that Obama regardless of the polls is the underdog in this election.
Don't forget basic Rove 101, the themes of:
Fear. "He's not like us". Inexperience. Military leadership.
As time gets closer, and corrections are harder to make, the Republicans--and their friends in the broadcast media--will resort to complete misrepresentation and lies.
You can count on it.
Democrats so far have shown ZERO ability to stop swiftboating (see: General Wesley Clark)
They do NOT deploy surrogates quickly and effectively to refute attacks. Obama simply stays above it, and most of the others are like deer in the headlights.
This combination of lies and lousy response strategy could EASILY lead to another defeat in the fall (and don't forget the possibility of more cheating with Diebold machines and other undetectable means).
They're going to be desperate. And Democrats (with a few exceptions) haven't shown themselves to be anything but WEAK.
When they go head to head McCain will certainly try to stay on script, but that has always been his weakest skill. He seems to view himself as some sort of a virtuoso at speaking off of the top of his head but the actual record tells a very different story.
Obama will slaughter him. Game, set, match.
Not only do I agree with this assessment, I would go so far as to predict that Obama will win by a significant margin by which he will be able to claim a mandate; something his immediate predecessor was unable to achieve. The increasingly-lame rhetoric coming from the McCain camp, its surrogates, and its media lackeys testifies to the growing sense of desperation in the GOP ranks. I would not be surprised to learn through November exit polls that a substantial number of registered Republicans jumped ship and voted for Barack.
Agreed.
I also decided months ago that the Repubs, in possession of the same press and polls as the rest of us, set McCain up. Short of Ronald Regans lovechild with a direct descendant of George Washington, NO Republican stood a chance this cycle. Thus, the man they loved to marginalize got the nod. I'd feel sorry for him if he weren't so...unapp
I agree, and am still convinced that the polling data is, for some reason, not capturing the inherent advantage of the party who is gaining voters by party affiliation and registration. I have looked at poll sampling methodology and since they tend to be proprietary, it is almost impossible to evaluate. My threory is that they are not sampling the correct ratio of republicans vs. deimocarts and anti-republicans.
As a Dem, and an Obama supporter, I am glad that this early in the election it appears close. I don't want us to get too confident, not continue to be motivated to raise cash, and remain inspired to activism and change. The amount of change we want and desperately need requires that Obama and the Dems get a mandate. I fear that a substantial lead before election day will suppress turnout and our victory will be by only a few points. That's not good enough.
Not to tempt fate; I believe this election will be a blow-out, giving Obama a mandate for change. But, as my mom says: no keneharas.
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