SurveyUSA has just released a poll today with Obama up by 6 points in Virginia. This is very bad news for John McCain. Without Virginia, it’s almost impossible that he can win the presidency. Republicans and analysts can talk about possible Republican takeaways of blue states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, but if anyone believes that, I’ve got a hair plug shop to sell them in Deleware (doing quite well, actually).
For a state that Bush won by 8 in 2000 against Gore and by 7 in 2004 against Kerry, it’s a bit of a shock to see a Democrat up 6 points at this point in this reliably red state. That’s a 14 point swing! To me, that just doesn’t seem credible, no matter how many new people have moved into the state. HotAir.com points out that SurveyUSA is usually fairly accurate in its polling (sidenote: I wish more polling companies would make this information available!). I decided to look into that claim a little more closely.
In the 2004 election, SurveyUSA’s final prediction was for Bush to win the state by a 51-47 margin. The actual result was that Bush won 54 to 45. SurveyUSA’s prediction thus fell short of Bush’s share of the vote by 3 percentage points and overpredicted Kerry’s support by 2 percentage points. That is not an insignificant difference.
For the Democratic nomination contest in Virginia, SurveyUSA predicted Obama would win 60-38 over Clinton. He actually won 63-35 over Clinton and SurveyUSA had, by far, the prediction that matched most closely to the final vote.
These two examples obviously show opposite results, with one poll overestimating the Democratic candidate’s numbers and the other underestimating Obama’s final numbers, but there is such a difference betwen a presidential election and a closed party nomination contest, that I don’t think we can draw too many conclusions here. The polls in Virgina have always shown a tight race, but one where McCain was consistently ahead. That began to turn a couple weeks ago and now Obama is just one point behind McCain in the RCP poll average. This looks especially ominous as the most recent polls are going Obama’s way.
It looks like McCain will have a real fight on his hands to keep Virginia red. I suggest getting Governor Palin out there early and often in the Old Dominion. Perhaps she can save the day in that state as she has for McCain’s campaign overall.
Should Repubs be worried about this? You bet your sweet asses we should!
