Shaving My Shoulders

One of the more interesting things about following the horserace that is the Presidential Election is looking at polling trends within the individual states. Things are still in the embryonic stage since the Democrats don't have a nominee yet and its only May so many people are still not paying attention. But, certain trends are emerging which seem to suggest where the major battles will take place this year.

Unfortunately, only one polling firm has been conducting state vs. state polling: Rasmussen. Their polling is fine, but only having one source can give you skewed results. Since the Democratic nominee has not been decided upon, they divide things up into three categories: Obama vs. McCain, Clinton vs. McCain, and the Balance of Power Calculator. In the last one, they factor in the historic trend of the state, the current polling, and market predictors as to how to rate the state. They also have to average the results between both Obama and Clinton, which offers its own little skew on things. The results are shown graphically bellow:


Obama vs. McCain:

Clinton vs. McCain:

Balance of Power:

The Balance of power is probably the most reliable because of other little problems in polling this early. I don't believe that anyone believes that Mr. McCain is going to win New Jersey despite his polling ahead by a small margin against both Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton. I personally don't believe that Mr. McCain will win Iowa no matter who he faces unless there is a complete meltdown by the Democratic candidate. Likewise, Mr. Obama will probably not carry North Carolina despite his being tied in the polls with Mr. McCain.

At this stage in the game, its best to watch. However, I would point out that historically the anti-incumbent party is usally far ahead in polling at this stage. This has been staved off due to the continued fighting between Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton. We shall have to see by how much the winner breaks ahead of Mr. McCain initially. If it's by less than 10 points with not many swings in states like Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, and Florida, Mr. McCain could have a very serious chance at winning.