Hard-Fought Battle in Hard-Hit Ohio

Barack Obama and running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. rally for votes at the University of Mary Washington


Barack Obama and the Democrats hold a commanding position two days before Tuesday's election, with the senator from Illinois leading in states whose electoral votes total nearly 300 and with his party counting on significantly expanded majorities in the House and Senate.

John McCain is running in one of the worst environments ever for a Republican presidential nominee. The senator from Arizona has not been in front in any of the 159 national polls conducted over the past six weeks. His slender hopes for winning the White House now depend on picking up a major Democratic stronghold or fighting off Obama's raids on most of the five states President Bush won four years ago that now lean toward the Democrat. He also must hold onto six other states that Bush won in 2004 but are considered too close to call.

Two factors cloud the final weekend projections. The first is how voters ultimately respond to the prospect of the first African American president in U.S. history, a force that could make the contest closer than it appears. The other, which pushes in the opposite direction, is whether Obama can expand the electorate to give him an additional cushion in battleground states.

Obama leads in every state that Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry won four years ago, which gives him a base of 252 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win. He also has leads of varying sizes in five states Bush won: Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Were he to win all of those on Tuesday, he would claim the presidency with 291 electoral votes.

The tossup states include traditional battlegrounds such as Ohio, Florida and Missouri, as well as North Carolina, Indiana and Montana, which have been firmly in the Republican column in the past. They account for 87 electoral votes, and if Obama were to win several of them, his electoral vote total could push well into the 300s.

In Senate races, Democrats, who control 51 votes, are closing in on a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority. Three GOP-held seats whose Republicans are retiring -- in Colorado, New Mexico and Virginia -- appear almost certain to go to Democrats. In five other states -- Alaska, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Oregon -- incumbent Republicans are seriously threatened. To get to 60, Democrats would have to win all those seats, plus one of three other competitive races: in Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi.

In the House, Democrats look to repeat their gains of two years ago, when they picked up 31 seats and took control of the chamber. On Tuesday, they could add 25 to 30 seats to that majority, which would bring them to their highest number since 1990, when they had 267 seats. Ten Republican-held seats lean toward Democrats, and two dozen are viewed as tossups. Five Democratic-held seats are considered up for grabs.

Of the 11 gubernatorial races, only three are competitive. Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon has the advantage over Rep. Kenny Hulshof in Missouri, where Republican Gov. Matt Blunt is not running for reelection. Two other races in states held by Democrats are considered tossups.

In Washington, Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, who won a controversial victory four years ago, faces a tough rematch against businessman Dino Rossi. In North Carolina, where Democratic Gov. Mike Easley is term-limited, Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, are in a race that is too close to call.

These projections are based on interviews by a team of Washington Post reporters with strategists in both parties, the presidential campaigns, state and local officials, and other analysts. The projections also include an analysis of a wealth of polling data on individual races and states.

In the Washington Post-ABC News daily tracking poll, Obama currently holds a nine-point national advantage, topping McCain 53 to 44 percent. The poll started after the last of the three presidential debates, and Obama's margin has held between seven and 11 points throughout.

More than half of all voters in the Post-ABC poll say the economy is their central voting issue, and Obama has been the main beneficiary of that focus. He has a double-digit edge on the question of which candidate is better able to handle the economy, and he has had even wider leads as the one who is more in touch with the financial problems people face.

updated 13 minutes ago

Obama razz's McCain over endorsement

(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama hit key swing states Saturday, taking a jab at his GOP counterpart's endorsement by the nation's vice president.

At an event in Laramie, Wyoming, on Saturday, Vice President Dick Cheney said he will cast his ballot for the McCain-Palin ticket.

"This year, of course, I'm not on the ballot, so I am here ... not to vote for me, but I want to join daughter Liz, who is with me today, join us in casting ... our ballots for John McCain and Sarah Palin."

Obama started his day with a morning rally in Henderson, Nevada, and later moves on to Pueblo, Colorado, and Springfield, Missouri.

In prepared remarks for the rally in Pueblo, Obama lashed out at the Cheney endorsement.

"I'd like to congratulate Sen. McCain on this endorsement because, he really earned it. That endorsement didn't come easy," according to the remarks. "George Bush may be in an undisclosed location, but Dick Cheney's out there on the campaign trail because he'd be delighted to pass the baton to John McCain."

Obama continues, "He knows that with John McCain, you get a twofer: George Bush's economic policy and Dick Cheney's foreign policy. But that's a risk we cannot afford to take."

Earlier at a rally in Henderson, Nevada, Obama continued to defend his tax plan for the middle class -- and defended against "socialist" claims.

"The choice in this election isn't between tax cuts and no tax cuts, it's about whether you believe we should only reward wealth or we should also reward the work and the workers who give it," he said. "John McCain calls this socialistic. I call it opportunity."

Across the country, former President Clinton hit the campaign trail for Obama in Beckley, West Virginia.

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/01/campaign.wrap/index.html

(CNN) -- With a week to go before Election Day, most recent national polls show Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with an advantage. But how much are they to be believed?

The most recent national CNN poll of polls showed Obama with an 8-point lead over Republican presidential nominee John McCain, 51 percent to 43 percent. The polls were conducted October 21 through October 26.

Most other national polls show Obama with a lead ranging between 5 points and double digits.

A look at CNN polling during the same period before Election Day in 2000 and 2004 suggests that political observers and campaign supporters ought to be cautious in declaring the race over because of current polling numbers. See the latest state and national polls

When a presidential race has a non-incumbent in the lead, like this year, the poll numbers tend to tighten as Election Day gets closer, CNN senior researcher Alan Silverleib said.

"Any time it looks like they are on the verge of voting somebody new into office, there is buyer's remorse," he said. "Based on that, and the fact that the country has been so polarized in recent elections, there's pretty good reason to think that the polls might tighten up a little bit."

Four years ago, a national CNN poll of polls released about a week before Election Day showed President Bush leading Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry by 3 points, 49 percent to 46 percent.

The poll was released October 25 and reflected likely voters' choice for president. Election Day was November 2 in 2004.

A national CNN poll of polls released November 1 showed Bush leading Kerry by 2 points, 48 percent to 46 percent.

President Bush won by 3 percentage points, 51 percent to 48 percent.

In 2000, it was a bit of a different story. Election Day arrived November 7 that year.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll conducted October 29 through October 31 showed Bush, then the Texas governor, leading Democratic Sen. Al Gore, 48 percent to 43 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

A subsequent poll conducted November 2 through November 4, released two days before the voters cast their ballots, showed the same results.

Gore, however, ended up winning the popular vote by about 540,000 votes. When broken down by percentage, both candidates had about 48 percent of the popular vote. Bush won the Electoral College, and thereby the presidency, by 5 electoral votes.

There have been a few examples of such "buyer's remorse" in recent history, Silverleib said.

"We saw that with [Arkansas Gov. Bill] Clinton in 1992, when the polls suddenly tightened up during the last week," he said. "It was almost like people saying, 'Do we really want this guy?' "

They did. Clinton soundly defeated President George H. W. Bush, 43 percent to 37 percent.

In another example, polls tightened during the 1968 presidential race between Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. Nixon led by double digits among registered voters in late September, according to a Gallup analysis published Monday.

The lead dwindled to 8 points in a poll conducted October 17 through October 22. By early November, Nixon was clinging to a 1-point lead. The poll was conducted October 29 through November 1 and surveyed likely voters, according to Gallup.

Nixon won by less than 1 percentage point.

"Humphrey had all the momentum at the end, and there's an open question there that had that election gone on for another week, Humphrey might very well had won," Silverleib said.

There is then the oft-cited example of Thomas Dewey and Harry Truman in 1948. Polls predicted that Dewey would win, but Truman pulled off the upset.

Silverleib, however, is reluctant to cite that race as illustrative of the accuracy of contemporary polls.

"People talk about Dewey and Truman, but they stopped polling a couple of weeks before the election," he said, adding, "polling then wasn't nearly as refined a science as it is now."

However, in what might be a bit of sobering news for the McCain campaign, since 1956, front-runners in late October lost the popular vote only twice after being ahead in the Gallup poll a week before Election Day, according to that polling organization's analysis.

Obama held a lead in both of Gallup's likely voter tracking polls released Tuesday.