You may remember last month I did a piece on the tipping point counties in all the hotly contested states, as a means of drilling a little deeper into where the real pivot points of this election are. Well, apparently I’m not the only person interested in this level of analysis, as Politico, via Insider Advantage, polled presidential preferences in four key bellwether counties in four presidential swing states.
What they found is extremely heartening, given that all of these counties narrowly supported Bush in the last two elections. Here are the poll results, with 2004 and 2000 results in parentheses:
Washoe County, Nevada (Reno): O 46, M 45 (2004 47 K/51 B, 2000 43 G/52 B)
Wake County, North Carolina (Raleigh): O 50, M 44 (2004 49 K/51 B, 2000 46 G/53 B)
Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa): O 47, M 41 (2004 46 K/53 B, 2000 47 G/50 B)
Jefferson County, Colorado (Denver burbs): M 45, O 43 (2004 47 K/52 B, 2000 43 G/51 B)
Unfortunately, there’s no information about downballot races here, but the way we’re beating the previous two elections’ spreads should be encouraging to Jill Derby in NV-02, Mark Udall in CO-Sen, and Kay Hagan and Bev Perdue in NC. (As an interesting aside, Hillsborough and Jefferson were actually the tipping point counties in my analysis of Florida and Colorado.)
Washoe is in NV-02. Which congressional district or districts are the others located in?
Margin-wise, Obama is performing 8 points better than Kerry (B+2 becomes O+6.) But based on current NC polls, Obama should be performing something around 15 points better than Kerry statewide.
I don’t buy the tipping point premise, just because states are counted as a whole. Winning just enough votes to flip a close county isn’t nearly as important in increasing turnout in an area that heavily favors your candidate. You want to turn out votes in those counties, but a vote there matters no more than vote anywhere else. Looking at such counties really amounts to a non-scientific poll.