50-State Poll: Obama Would Win 280 Electoral Votes and the Presidency
Washington Times
By Donald Lambro
March 19, 2008

The presidential election is more than seven months away, and Democrats still do not have a nominee, but pollsters have already begun tentatively testing and forecasting which states Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama could carry against Sen. John McCain.

An ambitious 50-state poll of 30,000 registered voters by media pollster SurveyUSA shows Mr. McCain would lose to both of them at this point in the election year, though by a closer electoral margin against Mrs. Clinton (276-262) than against Mr. Obama (280-258) in the race for the 270 votes needed to win the presidency.

In both matchups, the poll shows the Democrats winning red states that Republicans have usually carried in past elections, though in some cases by razor-thin margins.

In the two preliminary matchups with the Arizona senator, Mr. Obama carries more historically red states than Mrs. Clinton, edging out Mr. McCain in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, and in two of Nebraska's three congressional districts, giving him two of its five electoral votes. The freshman senator carries the three West coast states, virtually all of the Midwest except Indiana, and most of the Northeast.

But Mr. McCain sweeps the rest of the Plains and mountain states in the West, all of the South, and picks up two pivotal Democratic bastions, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where other polls have shown the race getting close.

Against Mrs. Clinton, the presumptive Republican nominee carries almost all of the Western plains and mountain states, including Democratic-leaning Washington and Oregon, picks up New Hampshire and keeps Iowa, Missouri, and almost all of the South in the Republican column. But the New York senator narrowly wins New Mexico, and also reverses the 2004 outcomes in Arkansas, Florida, West Virginia and Ohio.

State-by-state polls measuring which way the presidential election can go are a risky proposition at best this early in the election. The Democrats are still embroiled in a bitter fight over the nomination that could leave their party deeply divided and weakened. Mr. McCain still has to unite Republicans after an exhaustive nominating battle that has created divisions among the GOP's conservative base.

Even so, despite what many analysts see as a bleak political environment for the Republicans this year, more polls are showing the presidential race surprisingly close at this stage. A national Gallup poll and Rasmussen survey last week showed Mr. McCain was statistically tied with both Democrats.

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