Battleground Update: The Red States Get Redder, The Blue States Get Purpler

Andrew Romano

The current Real Clear Politics electoral map reflects the latest polls; it is not a prediction of the outcome

One week ago today, I launched Stumper's general-election coverage with an in-depth look at where the "Race for the White House" stood in the wake of the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. While the national polls had swung about 9 points in John McCain's direction since the Democrats left Denver, the Real Clear Politics electoral map still tilted every so slightly toward Barack Obama, 273 to 265. But the Illinois senator's slim lead was hardly set in stone--as I noted at the time. "No battleground state polls have been released since the second day of the Republican Convention," I wrote. "If the national surveys are right and McCain has in fact received a 5-point post-St. Paul bounce, that enthusiasm will almost certainly trickle down." I promised to revisit the map once the dust had settled.

Well, now it has. And what it shows is ... drumroll, please ... more of the same. According to Real Clear Politics, this week's map, posted above, is identical to last week's. Obama is still leading 273 electoral votes to 265.

Does that mean that Obama has emerged unscathed? Hardly. The Democratic nominee may have managed to maintain his razor-thin eight-vote margin--but he's done it by the skin of his teeth. Even if McCain has yet to flip a state, a closer look at the latest battleground polling reveals that the Arizonan's gains have, in fact, trickled down. They've had two effects. First, a handful of red states that Obama once hoped to win now seem either out of reach or more favorable to McCain, whether temporarily or permanently. And second, McCain is suddenly within striking distance in a group of Blue States where Obama until recently enjoyed a comfortable lead. The result: a campaign that once boasted about redrawing the electoral map by targeting an unprecedented 18 battlegrounds has been forced to focus on a more familiar swath of states--and even play defense in places it had hoped to win easily. In the last week, the Red States have gotten redder--and the Blue States have gotten purpler.

Take Montana and Georgia. In 2004, George W. Bush won the former by 20.5 percent and the later by 16.6 percent. But after clinching the Democratic nomination in early June, Obama put both states on his target list and deployed hundreds of volunteers and staffers to Atlanta and Helena to open field offices and register voters. He had reason for optimism. In early July, Rasmussen showed Obama ahead in Montana by 5 points; at the same time, an Insider Advantage poll put him a mere 2 points behind McCain in Georgia. But the latest surveys from those same firms tell a different story. According to an Insider Advantage sounding released last Thursday, McCain now leads 56-38 in the Peach State--an 18-point gulf. Meanwhile, the first postconvention poll by Rasmussen gives the Republican an 11-point advantage in the Treasure State, 53-42. Real Clear Politics has McCain ahead by an average of 13.4 percent in the former and 9.0 percent in the latter. Which means they may be out of reach.

The news for Obama in the key Bush states of Ohio and Florida isn't any better. In late July, the battle for the Sunshine State was tied at about 45 percent on average, and after Denver, Obama trailed by as little as 2.6 percent. But in the post-St. Paul period, McCain's Florida numbers have skyrocketed. Since last Monday, four surveys have hit the wires, with PPP (McCain +5), Quinnipiac (+7) and Insider Advantage (+8) all showing a growing lead for McCain; only FOX News still puts Obama within striking distance. According to the RCP average, McCain now boasts his largest edge (5 percent) since late June. The McCainward shift in the Buckeye State looks much the same. Of the six polls released since St. Paul, five show the Arizonan ahead--boosting him to his biggest RCP lead in this crucial, close-run battleground (2.5 percent) since mid-May. Even Virginia, a Bush state where Obama had held McCain to a tie for much of the cycle, seems to have drifted right. There, McCain now leads by 2.6 percent, 49.3 to 46.7--the largest margin for either candidate since May. The Republican nominee has also edged ahead in the latest polls out of New Mexico and Nevada--both Red in 2004, both leaning toward Obama before St. Paul.

But the most troubling developments for the Dems are probably in two states Kerry won in 2004: Pennsylvania and Minnesota. At the end of July, Obama led in the Keystone State by a whopping nine points, 51.7 percent to 41.7 percent; at the start of September he was ahead by a healthy five, 47.4 to 42.4. The three polls released since St. Paul, however, show McCain closing fast. In the Quinnipiac survey, McCain trails by a measly three points after lagging by seven in mid-August; Strategic Vision and Rasmussen put him within two. Overall, Obama's average lead in Pennsylvania--2.3 percent--is his smallest since capturing the nomination. And while a CNN/Gallup poll released between the conventions gave Obama a 12-point lead in Minnesota, the two soundings out since the GOP left the state earlier this month suggest that McCain is either tied with Obama at 45 percent (Star Tribune) or trailing by a statistically insignificant 2-percent margin (Survey USA). Couple that with the surprising 46 Obama-43 McCain result in the latest Wisconsin survey, and the Rust Belt and upper Midwest are starting to look too close for Chicago's comfort.

It's not all doom and gloom for Obama. So far this month, he's seems to have solidified his narrow margin in Michigan and New Hampshire (states McCain is hoping to flip) while expanding his edges in the Bush states of Iowa and Colorado, where he now leads by 9.7 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively. If he wins these states in November--along with Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Mexico--he wins the White House. New Democratic registrations and Chicago's sophisticated field operation will surely help. But what the last week of polling has shown beyond any doubt is that McCain's successful convention and shocking choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate have shifted the map ever so slightly to the right, transforming a landscape that favored Obama into a landscape that favors, well, no one. For the next six weeks, then, expect Obama and Joe Biden to play defense (Pennsylvania, Michigan) as well as offense (Colorado, Virginia, Nevada) while focusing much of their attention on the king of all swing states: Ohio. But don't expect the final map to look all that different from 2004.

UPDATE, Sept. 16: Prof. Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin agrees with our analysis:

Among the strong Republican states, McCain has gained more than 8 points over Obama since shortly before the conventions, turning a 14 point lead into a 22.5 point margin, a huge gain. Among the strong Democratic states, the effect of the conventions is a tiny 2 point move in McCain's direction, from an Obama lead of 12 points before to 10 points now. But the rest of the states, rated lean or toss up, have also shown movement. These swing states had a 1.5 point Obama lead before the conventions, and that has now turned into a 3 point McCain lead, a 4.5 point shift.

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