Thursday, October 30, 2008

Mason Dixon Poll: Pennsylvania and Ohio Tied

After trailing by as many as fifteen points in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, Senator John McCain has pulled even with Barack Obama, according to a new Mason Dixon poll.  A similar trend is occurring in Ohio where the Dixon poll shows McCain with a lead of one percent just two weeks removed from a double digit deficit.  Dixon has Florida at 1 percent for McCain, Indiana at 5 percent for McCain, Missouri for McCain by one percent, Virginia with a two percent Obama lead.  Virtually every state McCain MUST win to have any chance to win the electoral college has moved within the margin of error, according to news reports of Dixon polling. 

The change in this race over the past two or three weeks is really amazing.  The finish should be fascinating.  When McCain says he plans to be up all night November 4th, I am beginning to think he needs to stock up on Red Bull.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This isn't true, McCain has led in Ohio & Fla. or it's been virtually tied for quite some time. He's not close in Penn. this poll is an outlier. The fact is, he could win all these states and he still loses. I can't tell if your pushing this to boost the collapsing McCain campaign or to pursue a horse race narrative.

Michael Burt said...

Not sure which polls you are referring to, but if you go to the Mason Dixon website you'll see that the nubers are as reflected here. That's not to say that tis particular poll is 'the' poll, just that there are a number of areas where the race is closer than it was a week or two back.

Not sure how you call a campaign 'collapsing' when it s steady or improving in the polls, but then that seems like the sort of hyprbole that passes for ordinary speach today. My interest is not in a horserace, or in propping anyone up.

The race is undeniably closer, though as you seem to believe, the odds are that Obama will win the election. Doesn't mean that one cannot take an interest in the many moving parts that will add up to a popular and electoral vote.

Finally, as I have mentioned in the blog, the Obama team is downplaying polls just now, while the McCain team is playing them up. I'd do the same thing in both cases.

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