The Vendre/Jenkins Political Report, 7-15-08

I only write when there's good news, or when there's funny bad news, but I curl up into a ball and whimper when there's unfunny bad news.

So the good news:



Obama is romping in Minnesota (ahead by +17 points), Iowa (10+), Michigan (8+), and Virginia (5+). One poll has him ahead by 5 in Missouri, though most of the recent polls have shown McCain ahead there.

Zogby has Obama winning North Carolina by 9 points -- surely an outlier. While that number might not prove that Obama is actually ahead in NC, it does how that the Tar Heels are willing to vote for him and the state can be won. Similarly, Zogby shows Obama ahead 16 points in New Mexico, which also seems to be out of line with other polls.

Elizabeth Dole barely outraised her Democratic opponent in the NC Senate race and, in fact, has less money on hand right now because she spent a lot on ads last month. This time the Dems have a more competitive candidate in State Sen. Kay Hagan, who, despite the ad blitz, is giving Dole a run for her money. Ideally, Hagan could pull it off if Obama galvanizes big-time turnout in the state.

The Democrats are virtually guaranteed to win Senate seats in Virginia, New Hampshire and New Mexico. Colorado is very likely to go blue, and the entire Alaska GOP is engulfed in a giant corruption scandal, which may depose the long-serving, long-thieving Ted Stevens.

Al Franken has finally pulled ahead in the Minnesota Senate Race, and Jesse Ventura just said he would not run for the seat -- which is great, because a three-way race would probably have assured that conservative asshole Norm Coleman would have been reelected. Meanwhile, Coleman's wife is marketing a product called the Blo & Go on TV.

Electionprojection.com, which was pretty reliable during the primaries, currently projects the Electoral College breakdown to be Obama 306 to McCain 232. For reference, Bush won with 286 to Kerry's 252 in 2004. Obama seems to be very well positioned to win several states that Bush won in '04, such as Iowa and Colorado. Other traditionally Republican states like Nevada and Virginia look like they could definitely go Obama's way, although they are not assured. On the outer rim of possibility, blood-red states like Alaska, the Dakotas, and Montana have shown Obama just a few points behind, whereas Kerry and Gore lost these states by 20 or 30 point margins.

That being said, a week ago Election Projection had it as Obama 338 to McCain 200, suggesting two things: either McCain may have hit his low point in the last week or so, or Obama's shifts on issues like wiretapping and public financing have hurt his image. Considering that McCain doesn't know what birth control is and thinks Americans who are losing their homes are "whiny," it's far too soon to say he has reached his low point. On the other hand, Obama's vacillations on important issues have undoubtedly dragged down his high-flying persona in the view of the public; he is doing surprisingly well, in fact, after a month of the words "flip-flop" and "opportunism" buzzing around his name in the media. If this is bad as it gets, and he has gotten his self-inflicted wounds out of the way, then Obama may be at his low point. Then again, the real nasty stuff has barely gotten started yet.