Obama gaining crucial ground: McCain "on course to lose IA and NM, both won by Bush" in 2004

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Obama gaining crucial ground
Polling shifts in some key states
By Brian C. Mooney
Globe Staff / October 4, 2008



http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/10/04/obama_gaining_crucial_ground/

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.