Reading today's stories and diaries about the Gallup poll showing McCain's convention bounce and digging a little deeper into polling methodology, etc., I'm convinced that Obama's ground game of registering new voters has not yet been factored in to the equation.
First, an anecdote - I live in Gingrich country, the 6th district of Georgia. The northern suburb of Atlanta, the Fightin' 6th was gerrymandered some years back to ensure a solid Rebublican majority for time immemorial. In 2006, our House candidate, Steve Sinton, lost by something like 40 points.
Yet at every public event I've been to this summer, there are Obama volunteers out in force, registering new voters and passing out bumperstickers...
At the weekly Saturday farmer's market - Obama volunteers are there.
At the end of summer fireworks show at the local high school - Obama volunteers are there.
McCain's volunteers? Nowhere in sight.
Canvassing, phone banking, etc., etc. - the Obama ground game is in full effect here in suburban Atlanta. Newt Gingrich country.
The bumper sticker poll (taken from the windshield of my car during my daily commutes) is at least 4:1 Obama.
And, today, I see this gem from Dick Pettys at Insider Advantage:
Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican, challenged conventional wisdom last week when she disputed assertions that Sen. Barack Obama’s historic campaign in Georgia has galvanized a surge in voter registrations.
"It’s a myth, y’all," she was quoted as telling the Georgia delegation during the Republican convention in St. Paul.
So what do the numbers say?
Statistics on her website show that between January and August of this year, black voter registration rose by 149,840 (from 1,226,426 to 1,376,266 – an increase of 12.2%).
During the same time period, white voter registration increased by 159,650 (from 2,967,199 to 3,126,840 – an increase of 5.38%).
That’s 309,490 newly-registered voters during the time period, 51.5 percent of them white and 48.4 percent of them black.
Whatever it is – or is not – it's different from what was happening four years ago.
During the same time frame in 2004, the number of black voters rose by 47,379 (from 1,017,579 to 1,064,958 – a gain of 4.7%) and the number of white voters rose by 21,641 (from 2,757,792 to 2,779,433 – a gain of 0.78%).
That was 69,020 new voters, 69 percent of them black and 31 percent white.
310K new voters v. 70K in 2004. While Georgia's population has grown these last 4 years, it hasn't grown that much.
There's something happening here.
If the ground game is going this well in Gingrich country, I suspect that we're in for a very pleasant surprise come November 4.
Oh, and my 93-year-old Italian Catholic grandma says she likes "that Biden boy." Every evening, she watches Bill O'Reilly. Not even the loofah episode could change her mind about that show - but she likes Biden.
There's something happening here.
For my part, I'll be phone banking all week and giving my eBay proceeds to the Obama campaign.
UPDATE: More great numbers from HeyMikey in the comments:
In 2004, Bush beat Kerry in GA by about 550,000 votes (Bush 1,914,254, Kerry 1,366,149).
In the GA primary this year, more Dems than Repubs voted (1,041,000 to 953,000). I really didn't expect that. Huckabee won; McCain had 303,000 votes, less than 1/3 of the Repub vote, so it's possible the Repubs here won't be enthused about turning out for him. But I bet Palin will have massive appeal among the redneck vote here. (Think Gretchen Wilson fans.)
Assume the 150,000 new black GA voters are 95% for Obama -- that's a net of about 135,000 votes gained. Not nearly enough to make up the 550,000 Bush-Kerry margin.
I think Obama is somewhat more popular here among whites than Kerry was. I also think young voters are more engaged this year, and heavily skewed towards Obama.
Obama has 40 offices in GA. (I'm pleasantly amazed!) McCain has zero -- just the SE regional office in Tallahassee, FL.
Will all that be enough to make up the rest of the Kerry margin? I think the odds are somewhat against it, but it's a close enough call that Obama is smart to put a lot of resources here. GA has 15 electoral votes -- big potential payoff.