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Obama Gaining Crucial Ground, Polling Shifts in Some Key States

By Brian C. Mooney, Boston Globe Staff
October 4, 2008

Published October 4, 2008, by The Boston Globe. 

With 31 days until the election, Democrat Barack Obama's road to the White House is widening, and Republican John McCain's electoral path is narrowing.

The McCain campaign's decision this week to abandon Democratic-leaning Michigan is the most obvious and dramatic sign, a major tactical retreat that limits the ways he can reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes on Nov. 4.

But McCain is in as bad or worse shape in other battleground states. Barring a dramatic change, he is on course to lose Iowa and New Mexico, both states barely won by President Bush four years ago in his narrow victory over Democrat John F. Kerry. And he and the Republican National Committee this week began pouring money into Indiana and North Carolina, reliably Republican states where the Obama campaign has made strong advances and polls indicate the candidates are roughly tied.

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, has responded this week by significantly increasing its television advertising budget in Indiana and five other states and has even spent $350,000 to air spots continuously on a satellite TV channel, a first for a presidential hopeful.

The pendulum of the race has swung each way more than once over the course of the campaign, and with a month and two debates remaining, McCain has opportunities to recover.

But the Obama surge, coinciding over the last 10 days with the crisis on Wall Street and the debate over a federal bailout, has left McCain on the ropes in eight states with a combined 101 electoral votes that Bush carried four years ago. The Republican is slipping further behind not only in Michigan, but also in four other states that went Democratic four years ago, but which McCain hoped to pull into the GOP column this year.

By contrast, McCain does not lead Obama in any state that Kerry captured in 2004. That year, Bush beat Kerry by 35 electoral votes - 286 to 251 (one elector from Minnesota voted for Kerry's running mate, John Edwards).

"It means the road for McCain to 270 is narrowing, whereas for Obama there are still several paths," said Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. "McCain can now win by holding the states George Bush won in 2004, but playing defense won't be that easy because Obama is doing well in a number of those states. The fact that states like Indiana and Missouri are still on the table spells trouble for McCain."

McCain also has less room to maneuver in the crucial contest for campaign cash. He cannot spend more than the $84.1 million in public funds he accepted after being nominated a month ago, though the national GOP is augmenting his spending with so-called independent expenditures on ads in key states.

Obama, who has broken presidential fund-raising records, is the first candidate to reject the public grant, and can spend as much as he can raise privately. McCain campaign officials acknowledged it has given him an advantage.

The McCain move out of Michigan, which Kerry carried by three percentage points in 2004, was abrupt, coming less than 24 hours after the RNC bought $5 million in TV air time in Michigan and five other key states.

Republicans considered economically depressed Michigan ripe for plucking.

In a conference call with reporters Thursday, McCain campaign officials put the best face on the decision and signaled that they will become more aggressive in attacking Obama's record and proposals to paint him as a naive liberal.

Political director Mike DuHaime said the campaign would shift resources to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, both won by Democrats in tight races in the last two elections, but "two states we feel very strongly about."

McCain, however, has trailed Obama for five months in every public poll in both states, and, according to the RealClearPolitics website's average of public polls in recent weeks, now trails Obama by almost eight percentage points in Pennsylvania and five points in Wisconsin.

McCain is also opening a new front against Obama in Maine, where Bush failed in each of the last two elections to pick off an electoral vote in Maine's vast and relatively conservative Second Congressional District.

Maine and Nebraska are the only states that apportion electoral votes by congressional district, and the Obama campaign is reciprocating by maintaining a 15-person staff and a steady if light television advertising presence in Omaha, hoping to squeeze out a win in Nebraska's Second Congressional District. Obama already has an extensive field operation in Maine, and this week the campaign upped its modest buy of television time in the Portland market, which reaches part of next-door New Hampshire.

Greg Strimple, senior adviser to the McCain campaign, said stepped-up efforts will cause traditionally Republican states like Indiana to "snap back" into the GOP column.

The Hoosier State may not be reflexive, however. Before the May 6 Democratic primary, the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton waged furious organizing campaigns and, combined, amassed more total votes than Bush did in the 2000 general election when he beat Al Gore in Indiana by 16 percentage points.

The flip side of the McCain decision to concede Michigan is that it frees Obama to reallocate campaign resources, including his time, for other states.

Obama has made the most visits to Michigan and Florida, the two states where Democrats did not campaign during the primary season because state officials violated national party rules by scheduling early contests. Since wrapping up the nomination in June, Obama has held 82 events in 16 states, with nearly a quarter of the total -10 each - in Michigan and Florida, a review of daily schedules shows. Since Sept. 1, he has visited Michigan and Florida seven times apiece.

Of Obama's 82 events, 62 have been in states that Bush won in 2004 and 20 have been in states won by Kerry.

Conversely, of 97 McCain events since June, 59 have been defending states Bush won and 38 were on offense, in states taken by Kerry.

Both campaigns are saturating the airwaves in Ohio, which tipped the Electoral College to Bush four years ago.

And McCain's campaign, to counter heavy spending by the Obama campaign, in recent weeks has ramped up its TV spending in Florida, which delivered Bush's electoral-vote margin of victory in 2000. The average of recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics shows Obama leading in both states by slender margins, three percentage points in the Sunshine State and two percentage points in Ohio.

© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company