The Liberal Crab – Poll of “Poll of Polls” – 10/20/08 **Update: 10/21**

Popular Vote

Obama – 49.9% +5.2%

McCain – 44.7%

Electoral College

Obama – 363 

McCain – 175

As predicted yesterday, the polls did tighten.  What I didn’t predict was that McCain would move up as much as he did – about .4%.  The reason was nothing that came out in the polls today, but Real Clear Politics dropped two polls that were boosting Obama’s numbers – the CBS poll that had Obama up 14 points on Tuesday and the LA Times poll that had him up 9 points.  Dropping these two polls, which really were outliers, dropped Obama’s advantage in their poll by 1.5%.  That was a significant drag on Obama’s numbers today.  Without RCP’s poll, the race would have tightened by only .3%.  There is nothing in the other polls to indicate much more tightening.  Two other polls were slightly down and one was up nearly a point. I suspect that Obama’s advantage will probably trend upward tomorrow as several of Sunday’s polls trended to Obama and none tightened.  The last debate has been fully ingested in the poll.  Tomorrow, we might start to see how Colin Powell’s endorsement may have helped Obama, since it occurred early Sunday morning.

The good news is, while Obama did drop a .1% under 50% (and I suspect he will be over 50% tomorrow), his support seems to be steady at about 50%.  I think you will also see McCain’s support level out tomorrow.  By Wednesday, we’ll be under  two weeks to go, have a whole slew of weekly polls and fully see any impact from Powell.  I think by then, we’ll know if McCain still has a fighting chance or is finally out of gas.

The Electoral College, for all intensive purposes, has not changed in the last three days.  It’s gone up slightly, but it really is just noise and how I treat toss-ups (see my first poll of polls report for methodology).  I will kep reiterating, I expect that Obama will probably lose some EV’s this week as last week’s national trends will begin to be picked-up by the state polls – nothing to excited about, but something to watch.

We are at the point in election that importance of each Electoral Vote gets significantly more important each day.  McCain has no more days left to remain static.  Each day without EV movement is a significant diminisher to his chances.  Looking at the RCP Electoral Map (which is similar to most) – McCain needs to come from behind in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Nevada – 7 states in 16 days.  That doesn’t include playing defense in Indiana (and maybe North Dakota and West Virginia).  That’s basically spending 2 days in each state.  Really, if the polls are accurate, the only legitimate chance McCain has is to change the dynamic of the race.  Only in that way can he have a domino affect that will parlay those states.  McCain needs all 7 ‘toss-up’ states plus hold all his leaners.  A very tall order.  Right now, Obama is in control.  If you start hearing Obama is pulling out of red states or consolidating his resources – that would be the sign that there might be a shift in the race to McCain.  Obama is going to continue to play offense while his support is stable, but he’ll quickly realign if he doesn’t like the numbes his internal polls start producing at the state level.

**UPDATE: ** This morning, I am hearing Obama’s strategy is not to return to ANY of the Kerry states (including PA) for the remainder of the election.  Obviously, if things get tighter, he’ll go back. But back to my point above.  If Obama is strictly sticking to the ‘red turf’, then his internal numbers are showing some good signs for him.  This is the counter to the point I made above – again, a good sign.  **UPDATE**

As Obama supporters – we need to keep pressing: keep donating, keep volunteering, keep pushing Obama’s message, keep pro-active, and MAKE SURE YOU VOTE.  If you can vote early  – do it!