Obama Opens Up 3 Point Lead in Indiana

[Денг Гордон]

Sen. Barack Obama holds a tenuous lead over Sen. John McCain in Indiana, with one in four likely voters saying they could change their mind on who to support for president, according to a new Indianapolis Star-WTHR (Channel 13) poll.

Obama's three-point lead in the poll, 47 percent to 44 percent, reinforces Indiana's status as a battleground in the race for the White House.
Advertisement

The poll, conducted Sunday through Tuesday by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, also revealed a geographic disparity between the two candidates: Obama, the Democrat, holds a 54 percent to 40 percent advantage in Indianapolis, but McCain, the Republican, leads in all other regions of the state, including Northwest Indiana.

Pollster J. Ann Selzer said the poll, with a 4 percentage point margin of error, reflects a lead by Obama that is tentative and reliant on a solid turnout in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080917/NEWS0502/80917076

538 rated Selzer and co the most reliable pollster.

This is in a likely voter model poll too, which means it could easily be undercutting Obama's totals. For example, in the Indiana primary, Obama had almost 100% voter turnout in Gary, IN (I think it was something around 95%, it was above 90% turnout), and I'm sure they don't have that type of turnout built into their likely voter model. So Obama could likely see another 2-3 point bounce as a result of his ground game. Indiana is one of those states that shouldn't be a deep red state. It touches 2 Democratic states, and a genuine swing state. It seems like the Democrats were just doing so poorly there because they weren't contesting the state. The long primary run changed that, and the Obama campaign probably found that there are a lot of voters that they can register in Indiana and win this thing. For example, Kerry lost Indianapolis in 2004. That's pretty fucking pathetic.

It also looks like Obama has opened up a 4 point lead nationally. A bubble burst for the McCain campaign. Either people realized Palin is an idiot, too many lying ads by McCain, or the economy stupid.

 

[RipCity]

For example, in the Indiana primary, Obama had almost 100% voter turnout in Gary, IN

100% eh...Gary Indiana is 85% African American...Not hard to figure out why he had such a good turnout there.

 

[MikeDC]

I read that article at lunch today and it sounded to me like they built in quite a lot of forecasting based on age, race, etc, and they were being very optimistic about the turnouts of those groups.

History tells us to those groups are typically overestimated prior to election day.

 

[Денг Гордон]

There have been 500,000 new voter registrations in Indiana this year, and most of them are Democrats. John Kerry lost the state by I think 500K about, just off the top of my head. So with a massive voter registration, and then campaigning (somethign the Dem's neglected) to get back some of the voters they should be getting, but weren't, it isn't too hard to see why Obama may be winning.

Selzer also did a good job in Indiana during the primaries as far as I'm concernred. They had Obama +3, but that was with a bunch of undecided voters still (something like 42-39 Obama). And that was a month plus before the election. So they showed a close contest there, while other polls showed Clinton smashing Obama. (And that actually worked in his favor, because once Indiana became essentially a tie, with Obama having a chance to win it going late into the night with his massive turnout in Gary (obviously he ended up coming up short), Selzer did a good job.

 

[MikeDC]

Well, I guess they had him plus 3 and he lost by 1, so that's within the margin of error. Not sure I'd call that good though.

As long as the guys up in Lake County vote early and often as I expect them to, he's got a great shot. :|

 

[Денг Гордон]

Well, I guess they had him plus 3 and he lost by 1, so that's within the margin of error. Not sure I'd call that good though.

As long as the guys up in Lake County vote early and often as I expect them to, he's got a great shot. :|

If you look at that poll, and how the other polls moved, the other polls moved about 3 points in Clinton's favor. So assuming the Selzer poll would have moved accordingly, he would have basically had it as a tie election.

It should be interesting to see how much impact Obama's ground game has. I heard a field report the other day, that said that Obama has multiple volunteers just stalking out gas stations, and they are getting people registered to vote at gas stations, while taking down their contact information (so they can make sure to get them to vote).

I would still say, this is a favorable state to McCain, just based on how much ground Obama had to make up on the last election, but it looks like it might just be a fringe swing state.

 

[Denny Crane]

20% of clinton voters will vote for McCain.

I don't think they're very scared.

 

[porky88]

Indiana is a lot like Missouri this year in my opinion. Obama will make it close but in the end McCain will still take it because they are both GOP states.

 

[Денг Гордон]

Rasmussen, which has a slight Republican lean, has McCain +2.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...a/election_2008_indiana_presidential_election

So Indiana indeed does look close.

I think someone said something about Hillary voters in Indiana not going to support Obama. Well Obama is polling better among Democrats in Indiana then nationally. 92% of Democrats support Obama in Indiana. That means Obama's base support in Indiana, among Democrats is 1,176,000 voters. That is more votes than Kerry earned total in Indiana in 2004. Bush won Indiana with 1,479,000 votes in 2004. If Obama can keep this base Democrat support that he has now, take some independents and Republicans away from McCain, and then continue to build up the Democratic registration with their massive registration, it is easy to see why Obama could win Indiana.

And I disagree on Indiana being like Missouri. Indiana is winnable, Missouri is not.