Sen. Barack Obama holds leads in four key counties that will go a long way toward determining the eventual winner in four important swing states — Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — according to a new Politico/Insider Advantage survey.
Obama is poised to expand on recent Democratic gains in three populous suburban counties — Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, Missouri’s St. Louis County and Virginia’s Prince William County. In a fourth, Ohio’s Franklin County, home to Columbus and its suburbs, the survey also found Obama with the lead.
In Bucks County, a politically competitive but historically Republican suburb that shares a border with Philadelphia, Obama is running ahead of McCain, 47-41 percent. In 2004, Democrat John F. Kerry carried the county by a slim 51percent to 48 percent.
Obama bests McCain 50 percent to 42 percent in Prince William County, a Washington, D.C. suburb that voted for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. Between 1976 and 2004, Prince William County supported Republican presidential candidates by an average margin of 18 points.
Obama also has opened up a wide 53 percent to 37 percent advantage over McCain in suburban St. Louis County, which does not include Missouri’s second-largest city, St. Louis. In 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, carried St. Louis County, the most populous county in the state, 54 percent to 45 percent.
In Ohio’s Franklin County, the state’s second-most populous county after Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County, Obama leads by a narrower 45 percent to 40 percent margin. Kerry carried Franklin County 54 percent to 45 percent in 2004.
InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt Towery explained Obama’s success in these areas is a result of his strength among independents and voters between the ages of 30 and 44.
“That is the most angry group of voters that we have this year, with regard to the Republicans,” Towery said. “I see that in almost every poll I look at.”
In Prince William County, Obama leads in this age group, 58 percent to 33 percent, and takes independent voters by an even wider, 55=percent-to-25-percent margin. McCain is scheduled to appear in Prince William Saturday, a nod to his vulnerability there and also to the electoral importance of that traditionally Republican area.
Obama’s advantages in Prince William County hold up in competitive locales across the country, with independents consistently picking him over McCain.
“The big swing, again, is that Obama’s picking up the lion’s share of the independents,” Towery added.
Independents in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County support Obama, 46 percent to 32 percent, and 30-to-44-year-olds pick him by a 10-point margin, 49 percent to 37 percent.
In central Ohio’s Franklin County, he takes 30-to-44-year-olds by a smaller, but still decisive 49 percent to 34 percent gap, and wins independents, 43 percent to 19 percent.
Missouri’s St. Louis County, where Obama is safely ahead of McCain, features Obama’s narrowest lead among 30-to-44-year-olds: he’s ahead there by 49 percent to 40 percent. Independents are breaking for Obama by a more convincing, 47-percent-to-31-percent margin.
During the Democratic primary, Obama won just a handful of counties in Missouri, but by running up big margins in the city and county of St. Louis, he was able to pull out a narrow statewide victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Kerry’s 9-point margin in St. Louis County and his landslide 80 percent win in the city of St. Louis were not enough to overcome George W. Bush’s lead elsewhere in the state. But if Obama can maintain his commanding advantage there, it could help tip the state into the Democratic electoral column.
Currently, Towery said, McCain is headed for a major defeat in the area.
“In this county, he’s not even doing well with the 65-and-over crowd,” he said. “This is a wipeout.”
Unlike in St. Louis County, Obama did not perform well in Bucks County in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary. Though the Philadelphia suburb was seen as favorable terrain for the Illinois senator, Clinton handily defeated him there, 63 percent to 37 percent.
Obama’s lead in Bucks County is within the poll’s margin of error and he is not performing as well among women as he is in the other counties surveyed. In Bucks, he has just a 4-point edge with female voters, compared with a 16-point spread in the Columbus, Ohio, area.
According to Towery, this can partly be attributed to McCain’s strong performance among middle-aged women.
“You’ve got an unusually high number for McCain in that 45-to-64 age group, and that’s got a lot of women in it,” Towery explained. Among voters in that age interval, McCain leads Obama 53 percent to 37 percent.
That Obama is ahead of McCain in Bucks County, anyway, suggests that he has been more successful than his opponent in reaching out to the suburban swing voters who dominate areas such as these.
A September poll commissioned by Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies showed McCain leading Obama among suburban voters, nationwide, by a 48 percent to 42 percent margin. The poll was conducted Sept. 15-21.
But whatever the national trend among suburbanites, Obama has edged ahead in key areas that are likely to influence the outcome of the election.
Recent public polling has shown Obama winning all four states in which these county-level polls were conducted. The RealClearPolitics polling average has Obama ahead by 14 points in Pennsylvania, Virginia by 8.1 percent, 3.2 percent in Ohio and 1.8 percent in Missouri.
This is the second round of Politico/Insider Advantage polling in critical counties. The first round results, published Tuesday, showed Obama tied or leading McCain in Jefferson County, Colo.; Washoe County, Nev.; Wake County, N.C.; and Hillsborough County, Fla.
The Politico/InsiderAdvantage telephone surveys in St. Louis County and Franklin County were conducted Oct. 13. The St. Louis County survey included 542 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. The Franklin survey included 376 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percent.
The Politico/InsiderAdvantage telephone surveys in Bucks County and Prince William County were conducted Oct. 14. The Bucks survey included 320 likely voters and the Prince William survey included 308 likely voters, both with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percent.
12 comments:
I'm an avid Obama supporter but i must say that John Mccain did alot better in this last debate than the previous ones beforehand. Though, he by no way won the debate it shows that that Mccain campaign is making serious steps to get their act together. These wide margins in key counties show that the American people are fed up with the current path of the country. Unless Mccain can convince these one time republicans that he can take our country in a different path, the vote will inevitably swing to Mr. Obama. Obama has been promising change for the nation for the past 20 months, making it official campaign motto, and now the american people are climbing aboard the notion of an Obama-Biden ticket. Mccain needs to rethink his strategy, and do it soon, his main attention should and will be aimed towards the citizens of these counties and swing states in an attempt to reassure them that voting republican once more will not land lead them to a dead end.
18 Days! I'm sick of all this political arguments...
I just want someone to win and to get to work.
I have confidence in what will happen no matter who wins so let's go ahead with it already.
It looks like this 'uphill battle' for McCain is turning into a losing fight. Those are some pretty big margins Obama has for the lead. But I guess you can never really tell the winner based on these poles alone, since Kerry had a landslide victory and still ended up losing the election.
I'm interested in seeing how all of this works out...
- That picture at the top made me laugh :D
I think Obama is a very influential candidate and that his performances in all three presidential debates may have sparked a spreading desire for voters to support his cause. Although Obama only needs to hold on to his leads in these key counties for him to become the next president, i think he should still try to expand his weight in the other counties of the controversial states as well just to be safe. On the other hand, things are not looking so brightly for Senator McCain. Hmmmm, i guess he just haven't gotten time to deploy his "comeback plan" yet.
Yes it sure does seem that Obama is going to be our next Commander-in-Chief. And one of the reasons behind his success in the poles is his promise to cut taxes for the middle class. The only problem I have with this, because believe me, it sounds like a good plan at face value, is the results from doing so. If the middle class pays less income tax, how will the government gain the revenue it requires to function? There are many answers that seem to put a damper to the question at hand, but how many of them are actually beneficial to the US? Obama wants to tax businesses, but he also wants to exacerbate the level of unemployment that the US presently has. If the middle class does not have to provide the funds through taxes, their employers will. In this case, less people will be hired, some will lose jobs, and others will be paid less than they truly need. Businesses will inevitably raise their prices, and minimum wage will have to increase to even out the imbalance. This can only lead to inflation, and a reoccurrence of what we are seeing today. The middle class may not have to pay the government straight from their pockets, but in the long run, the money that supports our government will come from them, respectively.
The chances of Obama succeeding in ALL of his promises for change are slim. And the chances of the US actually changing according to his plans are even slimmer. What he says has great impact on the people, but must be taken at face value. There is no doubt in my mind that Obama will work his hardest to make his plan work best for America. And I hope with all of my heart that he does everything in our countries best interest, instead of his own.
There is a larger population in the US that does NOT pay taxes than people realize. And the money from the middle class is such an important necessity for our federal system. It can be acquired from other sources, but in the long run there is only so much money in our country, and its value depends on who has it at the time. I fear that this plan may have come too much from the heart, and not enough from the mind.
I really do not understand why McCain has such strong support from middle aged women. I know everyone is entitled to their own views and wrong opinions, but where women are concerned... the views being perpetuated by Palin/McCain are troglodytic at best.
The fascination with Palin is getting really old. That seems to be showing, though.
Regardless, I'm kind of afraid that there will be some weird shenanigans on election day. And even if not, I do worry about what sort of response Obama will receive from rabid conservatives, if he gets elected.
... scary...
I mean, they already think he's a terrorist, so that's not too great.
I think people are finally starting to realize that we need change. The government has been in republican's hands for too long.Obviously Obama is doing an amazing job :D
I think the election is still pretty close. There's always the chance that one of the candidates does something stupid or something really good. One never knows what might happen in the days right before election night.
As of right now it's very uncertain who is going to win the election. This makes for a interesting couple of weeks leading up to the decision of who is going to be the next president.
I know that it's important to get the majority of the vote in an area so that candidate will ensure his victory in the election time. But, honestly, I can't wait till it is all over with because i really don't care.90cutlass71
i think sen. obama has this election sewed up...he has been making good desions mccain ahs been saying the same thing over and over and over agin. so un less mccain can prove himself that he can hold him self responsible for our country then obama has it in the books
I really think that people are starting to realize that if we dont get change we are going to get disaster. So they want obama because even though mccain said that he is nothing like bush. The people look pass that and say that he still might do just what bush did anyway.
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