Virginia is a Swing State
by Jonathan Singer, Thu May 22, 2008 at 11:38:25 AM EDT
Quinnipiac has released numbers out of Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio pitting John McCain up against either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. According to the surveys, Clinton performs better in these traditional swing states than does Obama, leading McCain outside the margin of error in each state while Obama holds a statistically significant lead in just one (Pennsylvania) and trails within the margin of error in the other too.
But what, exactly, is a swing state? Just the states that in the last couple of elections were close between the Democrats or states that would in the event of a McCain-Obama general election match up would likely be close?
Take for instance Colorado, where John Kerry improved on Al Gore's 42 percent in 2000 by pulling in 47 percent of the vote in 2004. Obama has held an average of a 4-point lead in the state over McCain in Rasmussen Reports surveys this year, and led by 9 points in a SurveyUSA poll as well.
Or look at Virginia. Though no Democrat since Lyndon Johnson has carried the state in a presidential election, Gore lost it by 7 points in 2000 and Kerry lost it by 8 points in 2004. And this year, polling decidedly shows the commonwealth to be on the map in the event of a McCain-Obama race. A week and a half ago I noted Rasmussen polling putting McCain up in Virginia, though well within the margin of error. Today, SUSA puts Obama in the lead by an even larger margin (though still not a statistically significant one):
SurveyUSA for WDBJ and WJLA, 600 RVs, 5/16-18, MoE +/- 4.1%
John McCain (R): 42 percent
Barack Obama (D): 49 percent
Does this poll mean that Obama is destined to carry Virginia in a general election? No. But does it mean that Obama can make a race out of it in Virginia? No doubt. And putting 13 electoral votes in play is nothing to sneeze at. What's more, with the trend in the commonwealth fairly clear -- Democrats winning gubernatorial contests in 2001 and 2005, a Senate election in 2006 (and another likely in 2008), and the state Senate in 2007 -- Virginia looks like particularly ripe territory (similar to Colorado, which has also seen shifts in control of the state legislature, the governor's mansion and congressional representation, as well as Iowa and a few other states).
Or to put it more concisely, Virginia is a swing state.
Update [2008-5-22 16:19:57 by Jonathan Singer]: Of course it bears repeating (though I mention it in this post) that Barack Obama's lead in the commonwealth is within the margin of error of the SUSA poll -- just as McCain's lead is within the margin of error in the Rasmussen poll and the VCU poll. That, in a nutshell, is the point of the post. Not that Obama is leading, but rather than in poll after poll the race is within the margin of error -- a telltale sign of a swing state.
Tags: 2008, VA-Pres, Virginia (all tags)
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