Leads in battleground states strikingly slim
By Karen E. Crummy, The Denver Post
11/01/2008 11:49:30 PM MDT
Republican John McCain continues to trail Democrat Barack Obama in five of eight battleground states that the Arizona senator likely must hold on to to win the presidency, according to new polls.
However, the divide separating the candidates is narrow, and there are still a significant number of voters in these states — anywhere from 4 percent to 9 percent — who are undecided.
McCain leads Obama in North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri, while Obama is ahead of McCain in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
All but Pennsylvania are states President Bush won twice.
But Coker added a caveat: Nearly all the states have a higher than usual number of undecided voters, and anywhere from 81 percent to 96 percent of them are white.
"There is the potential for white voters to break heavily for McCain, just based on history," said Coker.
Both McCain and Obama have blitzed the battleground states in the final days of the election. Tom Kise, spokesman for McCain, said that the polls are narrowing as voters realize being president "takes leadership and integrity — neither of which Obama has."
"As undecided voters begin to focus on what Obama says as opposed to how he says it," Kise said, "they are realizing that he is not prepared to be president."
The Obama campaign could not be reached for comment Saturday. On Friday, campaign manager David Plouffe said in a national conference call that he believed undecided voters in battleground states would not align toward either candidate en masse and instead divide more evenly.
In many of these battleground states, McCain is combatting circumstances out of his control, such as the economy and an unpopular president.
Ryan Erwin, a Republican consultant in Nevada, said that given the option, state voters are more likely to vote for the GOP candidate.
"The question is, has McCain given them enough of a reason?" Erwin asked. "Obama seems to have the lead, and it's going to take an incredibly strong turnout effort for McCain to win." |
