Rass Shows Obama Up In MT
by Josh Orton, Thu Jul 03, 2008 at 07:14:47 AM EDT
It may seem far-fetched now, but a few years ago so did Schweitzer and Tester. Rassmussen (July 1, 500 LV, MoE +/-4.6%):
Barack Obama is leading John McCain by five percentage points in Montana. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows Obama attracting 48% of the vote while McCain earns 43%.
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Against McCain, Obama leads among voters under 50, including a twenty-seven point lead among voters under 30. McCain leads among those over 50. Obama is supported by 89% of Montana Democrats while McCain gets the vote from 85% of Republicans.
The poll also found:
Fifty percent (50%) of Montana voters say it's more important to get the troops home from Iraq than it is to win the War. Forty-four percent (44%) hold the opposite view and say victory is more important.
It's a really terrible question, but revealing at the same time. The phrase "win the war" is basically spin, since it's clear that there is no military victory possible in Iraq. So even when flowery propaganda is used as the alternative to bringing troops home, it still loses.
Imagine if the question was phrased more accurately, like "get the troops home from Iraq" versus "stay forever until John McCain finds a pony."
Update [2008-7-3 11:26:39 by Jonathan Singer]: Just to follow up, Matthew Yglesias is 100 percent correct on what these numbers mean:
What's interesting to contemplate here is the role of effort. Democratic Senate candidates in Montana campaign in Montana. Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Montana campaign in Montana. I don't believe that Democratic presidential candidates typically do campaign in Montana. But Barack Obama has been putting some resources into the state. And there's long been a real question in my mind as to how much of the gap at the presidential level can be made up merely by showing up. Now that said there's a good reason Democrats don't normally campaign in Montana, which is that in addition to having a conservative track record it has very few electoral votes so it's hard to imagine it being the pivotal state.
This is important for a couple reasons. For one, just showing up will move numbers. This forces the Republicans to play defense where they don't want to (and in fact haven't for years). But beyond that, running up the popular vote -- even in states that you don't necessarily win -- is important on a policymaking level. As Yglesias points out, if Obama can win the presidency while keeping Montana close, he will have a much stronger case to call on the support of Max Baucus and Jon Tester, the state's two Democratic Senators; if he wins while losing Montana by 20 points (which is about where John Kerry performed in the state) he has significantly less leverage over the two. The same can be said all around the country. Anyway, interesting numbers to mull...
Tags: Barack Obama, Election 08 (all tags)
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