The idea of Barack Obama winning North Carolina or perhaps Indiana, I
think we have gotten accustomed to. But Obama winning ... West
Virginia, a state where he got barely a quarter of the vote in the
Democratic primary?
That's what American Research Group
says; in fact, it gives Obama a rather large, 8-point lead in the
Mountaineer State. I'd have to say that I'm very, very skeptical of
this one until I see it confirmed by another polling agency; this is
exactly the sort of quirky result that ARG is (in)famous for.
Nevertheless,
if Obama has a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania -- and all of the
polls seem to think that he does -- that means he's had to have made at
least some progress in the "Pennsyltucky" region in the interior of the
state. And if he's made progress in Pennsyltucky, that probably means
he's made progress in West Virginia. West Virginia -- like Pennsylvania
-- is also a place where the Democrats retain a substantial edge in
party identification, and perhaps the economy has really brought
Democrats home. Indeed, for the past week or so, just about every poll
taken in a Kerry state has shown Obama with a double-digit lead, with
the minor exception of Minnesota, where the polling has been erratic.
In
any event, there might be some merit in Obama paying a visit to West
Virginia -- not because it's quite moved to the point where it's a
swing state but because I think the symbolism of all of it would get
him a lot of earned media.
Here are the rest of the numbers:
Obama
slightly improved his position in the tracking polls today --
incorporating one full day of interviewing after the Nashville debate
-- although most of that is the Diageo/Hotline poll having snapped back
to Obama +6 after showing him ahead by just 1 yesterday. (You should
continue to give top priority the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls
as their large sample sizes make them less prone to this sort of
result). We'll want to wait until the weekend before we can more fully
evaluate the effects of the debate.
--Nate Silver