Obama ahead in Big 10 states
Written by Associated Press | | news@toledofreepress.com(AP) — Just 12 days away from Election Day, a new poll shows Barack Obama with double-digit leads over John McCain in the crucial upper Midwest states that are home to universities in the Big Ten Conference.
Obama improved from September when the Big Ten Battleground Poll showed him in a dead heat in all of the states but Illinois.
The poll showed Obama up 10 points in Indiana, 11 points in Pennsylvania, and 12 points in Ohio. The Democratic presidential nominee is up 13 points in Wisconsin and Iowa, 19 points in Minnesota, and 22 points in Michigan. And in his home state of Illinois, Obama is up 29 points.
In recent weeks half a dozen other polls have shown Obama with a double-digit advantage in Wisconsin and solid leads in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Polls have shown a dead heat in Indiana and Ohio, and a slight Obama lead in Minnesota.
The first poll was taken just as the financial crisis first intensified and before Wall Street tanked.
“In September, we saw virtually the entire Big Ten as a battleground,” said Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political scientist and co-director of the poll. “Now Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground. The dominance of the economy as a top issue for voters is the overwhelming story.”
The region’s states have been among the most competitive in the country, as they were in 2004, and will help determine who becomes the next president.
The eight states account for 117 electoral votes and both campaigns are spending big money on television advertising and on organizing supporters.
McCain’s campaign has been in flux in a couple of the states recently. He pulled out of Michigan early in October and drastically scaled back TV advertising in Wisconsin. Republicans have been placing robocalls and sending direct mailings in Wisconsin and other states.
Obama’s current plans don’t call for any more visits to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin or any other state that voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004. Instead he is focusing on states that President Bush won, including Ohio and Indiana.
McCain’s current schedule shows his running mate Sarah Palin making stops in Ohio this week with McCain heading to other battleground states including Colorado, Missouri, Iowa and New Mexico.
The poll of between 562 and 586 people in each state is a partnership between universities in the eight Big Ten states. It was conducted Sunday through Wednesday and had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
On the Net: www.bigtenpoll.org
For all the 24 hour talk, for all the sound bites and slogans, who’s ahead and who’s behind, none of it means anything if not for honest, genuine elections. So often we are seeing the very skeleton of our democracy shattered before us; vote rigging in precincts nation-wide, voter intimidation, and broken voting machines. How, I wonder, can the public good ignore such a fundamental threat to our very civilization?
This comment was posted on October 26th, 2008 at 9:04 amThis isn’t about who wins or loses, this is about maintaining the core value of our tradition, the tradition of democracy, of honest elections which has given this country purpose and meaning since it’s inception. We are a country of great compromises and we are a country of public discourse and and we are a country of service. Without honest elections none of this matters, none of this at all means anything. How, after two election cycles, with Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, Ohio, where thousands upon thousands left their homes to stand in the cold, waiting like good citizens to express their voices through their fundamental right to choose, only to be turned away in shame and handed worthless forms which were never counted for anything.
How could such democracy be stifled time and again and to the ignorance of the public? How come we still can not see, the value is not in who wins or loses but in the rules of the game itself that must be upheld. That every citizen of this nation, let them cast their vote.
I can not believe, I can not believe that with so much talk so little of it addresses this issue, the issue of the election itself, the issue that in our 21st century society we still can’t do something as simple as count slips of paper. And that in the 21st century cheaters and manipulators, and other such shameful acts are not received with such an outcry of shame and disgust, that anyone would dare to taint and terrorize the very fabric of our democratic society.
In these next ten days let us all pray, and pray fast, for the honest counting of votes, let us all pray, no matter what your prejudice or party, no matter what your age or color, for an honest count, for an honest representation of the public will. And that those who might hold evil in their hearts, toward this process, that they may be released to the just and loving arms of the Lord. For these matters I pray deeply and steadfast.