Can McCain Lead a Late Rally?
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Polls
A couple of days ago, Sean Oxendine explained at TheNextRight why historical precedent indicates a John McCain victory is still possible. Oxendine pointed out that in close-fought change vs. the steady-old-hand elections, voters tend to either break heavily for change and turn the election into a rout (i.e. 1980) or they get nervous at the last moment and flood toward the steady-old-hand, which is what happened in 1996 when Bob Dole made a late rally (sad that the challenger ran the steady-old-hand campaign, but true) and again in 2000 when Al Gore made up more than five points in the election’s closing moments.
So, can we expect a late surge for McCain? It’s possible, particularly with the new Associated Press-GfK poll showing Barack Obama with just a 44% to 43% lead among likely voters. Obviously other polls report wider margins, but there is not yet an indication that Obama is about to stage a rout.
Of course, the real problem for McCain might not be in closing the popular vote gap but in accumulating enough electoral votes. Note that neither Dole’s nor Gore’s late rallies resulted in a win.
Still, I’m not convinced we won’t have a close election on our hands. We’ll just have to see what happens.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
the new Associated Press-GfK poll showing Barack Obama with just a 44% to 43% lead among likely voters.
A likely voter screen that turns a rout into a dead heat is essentially worthless.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Read over on FiveThirtyEight a recent article on likely voter models.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
From the AP-GfK crosstabs (h/t Bob Cesca):
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Hence the link to all the other polls, I didn’t want to give the AP one too much weight. But only a couple of the polls would indicate a rout. I don’t know if McCain can rally or not, but the numbers still make it a possibility.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Could it be that voters have been paying more attention to Obama’s connections and actions than the media? The Odinga connection alone would cost Obama 10 points if it got properly exposed by media:
http://drslogan.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/kenya-barack-obamas-other-change/
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Alan, most polls show a 5% or more lead in the popular vote with Obama breaking the 50% barrier, that is a rout, really this AP poll is a large outlier
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
yep and its clear when you check their data, in all respondents Obama leads 47 to 37, when its likely voters it becomes 44 to 43, the fact that it went from 1101 in the all respondents to 800 in the likely voter screen that they are cutting out a lot of people who will probably vote for Obama based on early turnout reports, their LV screen is too rigid
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I guess it depends on your definition of rout. 5 points is not a rout in my book. You want a rout. THIS was a rout.
And, lets remember, polls are just polls. Routs happen at the ballot booth. It’s kinda silly to argue how far ahead Obama is at this point. That wasn’t the point of the post. I’m just trying to see if, historically and statistically, McCain has a shot.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Actually….
Real Clear Politics shows Obama up by 7%.
FiveThirtyEight shows Obama up by 6.2%.
Pollster shows Obama up by 7%.
I don’t think we’re looking at rout territory, but we’re definitely into landslide. Especially if Obama gets up to 360+ electoral votes. Because at that point he’s at 2 to 1 McCain’s numbers. But he’ll most likely need a 8% national popular vote total to do that.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I wonder how much complacency could cost Obama on election day. If the polls keep showing a steep advantage it could be a lot closer if a lot of votes don’t show up, especially young/first time voters.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I’m not sure voters really broke to Gore in 2000 so much because he was a steady hand candidate. I would suggest his popular vote victory was due in large part to the late news of Bush’s DUI disenchanting some of the religious right (a group that would fuel his win in 2004). And the dynamics of 1996 make for a fairly weak comparison as well, imo.
We’re not going to see Reagan 84 numbers for some time, but I do think an Obama rout (electorally) is more probable than a McCain win at this point. If Obama can maintain anything close to a 5-7 point lead nationally, it seems almost impossible that he wouldn’t find some scenario to carry him to 270.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
what is wrong with all of you? if nbc, cbs, abc, msnbc, cnn etc….. and all the money that obama is spending on advertisements which he lied about taking, and if the truth would come out about all his friends, mccain would be leading again. we had the economic problems and mccain went down again, but if people really understood what the liberals are going to do with the economy, the majority would not vote for him. America is mostly conservative!
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I downloaded the AP-Gfk detail.
http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com/pdf/AP-GfK_Poll_3_Topline_FINAL.pdf
This is an absolutely BIZARRE and self-contradictory read.
45% of respondents self identified as Evangelicals when only 23% self-identified in 2004 exit polls. THAT says the POLL is drastically skewed.
78% said the country is moving in the wrong direction.
On all questions about handling the economy, the split was about 52% Obama to 38/39% McCain.
Health care was 55% Obama, 36% McCain.
Only on “national security” did McCain lead, 48% to 43%.
25% of the respondents were on cell phones, randomly chosen. NO ONE KNOWS who owns a cell phone number, no certainty the cell phone is even in the area code where it is issued, is owned by a voter . . .
I’d be embarrassed to be associated with this Associated Press disaster.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Here are the facts about the alleged Odinga connection (a theme of conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi’s book about Obama)
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/corsis_dull_hatchet.html
“A frequent Corsi tactic is to point to some link between Obama and various unsavory persons and to imply that Obama somehow shares in their unsavoriness. He devotes an entire chapter to violent uprisings in Kenya following a disputed presidential election in 2007. The link to Obama? During a visit to Kenya in 2006, Obama and his wife, Michelle, arranged to take an AIDS test to publicly demonstrate the test’s safety. While there, Obama spoke to the assembled crowd. Raila Odinga, one of the two candidates running for president, was on the stage when Obama spoke. Corsi concludes that the event constituted an endorsement of Odinga. He goes on to attribute all the violence in Kenya to an elaborate Odinga plot.
Corsi, however, offers no evidence that Obama actually did endorse Odinga. In fact, MSNBC reported that during that same trip, Obama also met with Mwai Kibaki, who was Odinga’s opponent in that election, as well as with opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta. And Human Rights Watch reported that both Odinga and Kibaki (or their supporters, anyway) had a hand in the violence that followed the election.”
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 pm
When the AP poll has the race in a dead heat, while the latest poll conducted by Fox News – Fox News! – shows Obama with a huge lead, that’s my cue to start ignoring the polls – all of them – as entirely untrustworthy.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 am
[...] in the comments to a post about John McCain’s chances at victory, there was a debate about what does and does not qualify as a rout. To avoid further linguistic [...]