More States Move Away From McCain

by Steve Soto

As the latest Zogby daily tracking poll of likely voters showed an Obama lead of over 6 percent nationally, and amid more signs of a McCain campaign that inflates its crowd size claims and isn't on the same page about its economic plans, new polling shows that Obama is pulling out to larger leads among likely voters in four key swing states that McCain wanted badly.

Obama holds double-digit margins over McCain in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin and carries a nine-point advantage over his Republican rival in Colorado, according to polling conducted by Quinnipiac University for washingtonpost.com and the Wall Street Journal.

[snip]

Obama's 54 percent to 38 percent lead in Michigan helps to explain why McCain decided to pull down his ads and pull out the majority of his campaign staff from the Wolverine State last week -- choosing to fight, instead, in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Maine.

The data was similar in Wisconsin and Minnesota where Obama gained 10 points and nine points, respectively, in his margin over McCain since the September Quinnipiac poll; the Illinois senator led McCain in Wisconsin 54 percent to 37 percent, and held a 51 percent to 40 percent edge in Minnesota.

So what will we see from McCain tomorrow night: a guy who throws everything against the wall in a desperate effort to stay in the game, or someone with a legacy on the line who looks more like the 2000 version of himself?

Update: In today's Gallup daily tracking poll for the USAT, Obama now enjoys a large lead over McCain as the candidate best able to deal with the economy. While the poll shows Obama with a ten-point lead overall, he enjoys a 14-point lead on the economy. What isn't noted aside from the advantages he has with independents in the Gallup piece, is that the sample used for today's poll had the largest number of Republicans in it (30%) that Gallup has used in the last month, and Obama still racked up a 14-point spread.