Is The Race Really As Close As We Think?

From Campaigns and Elections by Doug Daniels

With our voracious appetite for 24/7 cable news and online coverage of the presidential race, everybody seems obsessed with scrutinizing every shred of polling data out of the race for president. Daily tracking polls, national averages, and even polls of polls have become standard metrics by which pundits and politicians alike steer the political discourse.

And in a political climate that is universally viewed as terminally grim for Republicans, the fact that Sen. Barack Obama has been unable to pull farther ahead of GOP rival Sen. John McCain has many wondering why the presumptive Democratic nominee isn't doing better.

The latest Gallup tracking poll has Obama with a 3 point lead over McCain-46 percent to 43 percent. Rassmussen's latest tracking numbers have Obama ahead by 2 points. A recent CBS News poll gives Obama a 6 point lead.

But despite the media frenzy over the surprising tightness of the race, Obama's campaign has avoided, at least publicly, exhibiting any sense of panic. Maybe that's because Democrats claim to see plenty of promising data in the state-by-state polling.

"Remember, in the primary there was a lot of talk about how the white, non-college educated vote would not go to Obama in the general election, but those voters have come back to him," says McMahon. "Plus, he's still ahead in all the states John Kerry won in 2004, and ahead in three or four of the states Kerry lost, so the playing field still tilts to Obama."

On Sunday, former presidential advisor and George W. Bush political guru Karl Rove suggested Obama should be much farther ahead than he currently is in national polling. On CBS' Face the Nation, Rove said the Illinois' senator's slim lead suggests that far too many voters have doubts about his ability to lead the country.

But Obama backers counter with the numbers that they say really matter on Election Day-those measuring the race in key battleground states-which appear to offer Obama a somewhat brighter picture. The latest Rassmussen poll has Obama up by 4 percentage points in Michigan and seven points in Wisconsin.

Most polls out of Ohio have Obama with a slight edge in that state, and the latest Quinnipiac numbers out of Pennsylvania have Obama up by 7 points.

Of course, history suggests that both candidates should be cautious in reading too much into any of these numbers, since the national summer polls have traditionally been an unreliable predictor for what will happen on Election Day.

Even former vice president Walter Mondale actually led President Reagan by a handful of points in a Gallup poll in February of 1983, only to suffer a crushing defeat in November. Reagan won the most Electoral College votes of any candidate in history that fall.

And four years later, in July of 1988, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis lead George H.W. Bush by a similar margin, only to lose in a landslide in November.

And don't forget polls back in the summer of 1992 that showed Ross Perot defeating both Bush and Bill Clinton.

Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International, says summer polls aren't necessarily unreliable, simply snapshots of where the electorate stands before voters really engage in the campaign.

"You start to see public opinion solidifying more after the conventions or after the debates, and there are people who don't make up their mind until the last week of the campaign," Zogby says. "Most people are doing more important things right now than following every detail of a campaign, like keeping their job or putting food on the table."

Still, Zogby says he's not surprised by the closeness of the race, despite the damaged Republican brand. "Structurally the country is still competitive," he says. "If you subtract George Bush from the equation you still have two parties that are pretty close, and if any Republican can run away from Bush with some credibility, it's McCain. And so I think those factors, along with Obama's race and perhaps his inexperience, are keeping it close. But there are still enough undecided voters out there who may feel more comfortable with Obama the more they get to know him."