A new ARG poll out of West Virginia (600 LVs, Oct. 4-8, MOE +/- 4%) shows Barack Obama with an 8% lead over John McCain (mid-September results in parentheses.)

Obama 50 (45)
McCain 42 (49)

While ARG has been a rather unreliable pollster of late, their other polls in this batch (MN, MO, MT, NH, OH & TX) look reasonable and this poll was enough for Pollster and RCP to switch West Virginia to toss-up status. Just look at how few toss-ups Pollster has on their map (the yellow states.) Yesterday there were just 5, today, with the addition of West Virginia, there are now 6 accounting for just 60 electoral votes. What do they all have in common? George W. Bush won them in 2004.

While a poll showing Obama up 8 in WV is rather jarring, and probably overstates his level of support somewhat, the competitiveness of West Virginia shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Since June, McCain has never had more than a single digit lead over Obama. Nate Silver took notice back in September.

On the other side of the coin is West Virginia, where a Mark Blankenship Enterprises poll shows John McCain ahead by just 5 points, with a high number of undecideds. This poll has a small sample size and I don't know much about the firm, although it's apparently been polling WVA for quite a while. Those caveats aside, however, if West Virginia is truly polling at just 5 points in the midst of McCain's convention bounce, it becomes a pretty interesting state. Remember, there are a lot of Democrats in West Virginia, and a particularly large number of Clinton Democrats, a group which may be coming home to Obama even amidst his difficulties. And there are not a lot of evangelicals; West Virginia is fairly culturally conservative, but it is not Southern ethnographically. There are scattered reports that Obama has devoted more resources to West Virginia; it remains a long-shot for him, but his staff would surely be doing more good there than somewhere like Alaska.

Hmm, so maybe instead of Florida and New Mexico, Hillary Clinton should be dispatched to states like West Virginia and Arkansas!

Oh wait, she is. From a press release:

On Friday , October 10 , Senator Clinton will attend a campaign event for Anne Barth , candidate for West Virginia 's 2nd congressional district.

Later in the afternoon on Friday , October 10 , Senator Clinton will travel to Little Rock , AR for a rally on the Capitol Steps on behalf of Senators Obama and Biden and the Arkansas Democratic Party.

I hope to hear more from Carnacki on the goings on on the ground in WV. Check out this post from back in September to see how hard Democrats have been working for Obama there.