Will McCain Have to Fight for His Home State?

Each day when I get up and peruse the political news, I seem to keep finding stories which make me think that I’m watching a television series rather than an election. If you thought Mr. Echo being killed by the Smoke Monster on Lost was a stretch in terms of plot twists, that’s nothing compared to the idea that John McCain may have to fall back to his home state of Arizona and campaign there to keep it from slipping away to Obama.

A new survey of Arizona likely voters suggests that Senator Barrack Obama (D) is edging closer to Senator John McCain (R) as their presidential campaigns draw to a close. The survey, conducted by Marketing Intelligence and Zimmerman & Associates, shows McCain with the support of 43.5% of voters, while Obama draws a preference from 41.5%.

Two recent statewide surveys, one by Rasmussen Reports and the other by Arizona State University, were in agreement about Obama’s portion of the vote, but varied considerably on McCain’s strength. Rasmussen said McCain enjoyed a commanding 59% to 38% advantage, while ASU said McCain’s lead was only 45% to 38%.

The Rasmussen and ASU Surveys were both conducted during the last week of September.

Personally, I don’t believe it’s possible for McCain to lose Arizona next week. The man is incredibly popular back home and has never faced a serious challenge for his seats in Congress. Then again, I’ve seen more things happen during this campaign than I can count which I wouldn’t have believed a year or two ago. But the numbers we are seeing in Arizona do feed into a larger story across the national landscape. In the event that Obama does hold on and win the presidency, one measure of how valid his victory seems and his “mandate from the people” will be the same popular vote questions which dogged George W. Bush for years – how big was his margin in the popular vote? You don’t run up a large margin by taking huge victories in the states you carry and losing landslides in our opponent’s states. You do it by winning your states solidly but putting up enough of a fight in the rest of them to keep it close. That way, you stay nearly even in the numbers game in the red states while you build your margin in the blue ones.

Obama is currently running some close races in states where I wouldn’t have thought he could reach 40%. That may turn out to be the real surprise of this race. The only bigger shock will be if you wake up on November 5th and find out about President-elect McCain. And if you think that still can’t happen, you haven’t been following politics in America long enough.