Posted on 11/02/2008 11:12:01 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Meryl Yourish says no — and in fact one of the state’s largest newspapers agrees. The Richmond Times-Dispatch did its own polling in Virginia and got much different numbers than CNN and ABC over the last two weeks. They call the race a dead heat, and winnable for McCain:
The presidential contest in Virginia is heading toward a photo finish.
The final Richmond Times-Dispatch Poll of the campaign shows Sen. Barack Obama at 47 percent and Sen. John McCain at 44 percent. Nine percent are undecided — an unusually large slice of the electorate. The profile of undecided voters suggests that some are potentially opposed to Obama.
Because Obama’s advantage over McCain is within the poll’s margin of error — plus or minus 4 percentage points — the contest in Virginia can be considered about even.
Meryl says she heard an even smaller figure:
And this is what I was told yesterday at the Cantor rally: McCain is within one and a half percent. Undecideds trend against the frontrunner. Virginia carried Bush in 2004 and in 2000. Virginia is still a red state. Don’t believe the hype.
If Obama has not yet gotten a majority, he may never get it. Normally, undecideds break against the incumbent, but this race has no real incumbent. Obama tried to make McCain the incumbent, but the election has really become a referendum on Obama, and he knows it. Anyone still undecided at this point has not been able to convince themselves that Obama is ready for the presidency.
The percentage of undecideds has remained high right to the end — in some state polls, as high as 14%. Obama hasn’t made the sale, and I suspect most of them will wind up breaking towards McCain as a result. Virginia and Pennylvania will provide an especially interesting test of this theory.
Check out the trend lines on this graph of Virginia polling—Seabiscuit is closing, and closing hard and fast!!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/va/virginia_mccain_vs_obama-551.html
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