The new 50-state Survey USA polls are quite fun for the political junkie. With the usual disclaimers that polls this early are essentially meaningless, blah blah blah, let's dive into the numbers.
SUSA has highlighted the results and claimed that they foretell a tight race in the fall. Other Kossacks have pointed out some of the shocking numbers, like Obama winning in North frickin' Dakota.
But my perusal of the results tells a different story.... Follow me for more....
UPDATED: I've added the same type of results for the McCain-Clinton matchup at the end of the diary...
I couldn't find a margin of error for the individual state results, but what I was interested in was the number of electoral votes for each candidate which are SOLID, and the number which are LEANING.
For my first go-round, I tallied as "solid" states in which the margin was higher than 5 points. That's probably not enough, given how far off the election is, and the sample size, and all that. But still.
By my calculations, solid McCain states are as follows:
AL, AZ, AK, GA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MS, MO, MT, OK, TN, UT, WV, and WY.
Using the same definition, "solid" Obama states (I'll leave it to someone else to do this for the Clinton matchups) are:
CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, IA, ME, MD, MA, MN, NM, NY, OH, OR, RI, VT, WA, WI, and DC.
Excited yet?
Here are the "lean" McCain states:
AK, FL, NE*, NJ, NC, PA, SC, SD, TX.
And the "lean" Obama states:
MI, NE*, NV, NH, ND, and VA.
*NE splits its votes according to SUSA, 3 for McCain and 2 for Obama.
Now, the totals....
"Solid" McCain: 129
"Solid" Obama: 236
"Lean" McCain: 129
"Lean" Obama: 44
Included in the leaners are 1 state each which are essentially tied (presumably SUSA broke the tie with figures they rounded off): NJ for McCain (raise your hand if you think McCain is going to win freakin' New Jersey) and VA for Obama.
This means that according to these results, Obama starts off with a much larger base of support than McCain.
Now, if we change the definition of "solid" to double-digits (probably more reasonable), let's see what happens.
The following states go from "solid McCain" to "lean McCain": IN, KS, MO, MT.
And these go from "solid Obama" to "lean Obama": CO, DE, IA, MA, MN, NM, OR.
The numbers become:
Solid McCain: 98
Solid Obama: 183
Lean McCain: 160
Lean Obama: 97
You can still see the Obama has a larger "base" and more possible pickoffs.
Note that Obama tends to do better in states where he has campaigned. This would bode well in Michigan (+1, lean Obama) and Florida (-2, lean McCain).
Note also that several of McCain's "leaners" (+5 or less) are big states he can't afford to lose: FL (+2), NJ (0), PA (+5), and TEXAS (+1).
Obama's leaners include only 2 decent sized states, Michigan (+1, see note above), and Virginia (0), a state Dems have not recently even contested very seriously.
This is fun stuff, maybe meaningless, but fun nonetheless. And a good distraction from the Candidate Wars...
UPDATE; While I've been writing this, this excellent diary came up, with much the same kind of stuff. But I decided there's enough difference between our diaries to still post mine....
UPDATE #2: I've now done the same kind of analysis for the McCain-Clinton matchup.
"Solid" (more than +5) McCain:
AL, AK, AZ, CO, GA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MS, MT, NE, NV, NH, NC, ND, OK, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, WY
"Solid" Clinton:
AK, CA, CT, FL, IL, ME, MD, MA, NY, OH, RI, VT, DC
"Leaning" McCain:
IA, MI, MO, OR, TN, WA
"Leaning" Clinton:
DE, HI, MN, NJ, NM, PA, WV, WI
Totals:
"Solid" McCain: 198
"Solid" Clinton: 203
Leaning McCain: 64
Leaning Clinton: 73
These totals are much more even: both candidates have bases of approximately the same size, and both are contesting what's left.
If we up the definition of "solid" to double digits, we get these states moving from solid to leaning:
McCain: CO, KS, KY, MS, NV, NH, NC, OK, SC, TX for 102 EVs, leaving him with 96 "solid" and 166 "lean".
Clinton: FL, ME, MD for 41 EVs, leaving her with 162 "solid" and 114 "lean".
In this analysis Clinton does better, having a larger base than McCain.