A few days ago special polling results were released for four key ‘tipping point‘ counties. Much to my surprise, Politico (via Insider Advantage) has released another batch of these county-level polls. As with the last go-round, the news is pretty good for Obama (except maybe in Franklin County, Ohio, where he isn’t beating Kerry’s spread).
Bucks County, Pennsylvania (Philly burbs): 47 O/41 M (2004 51 K/48 B, 2000 50 G/46 B)
St. Louis County, Missouri (St. Louis burbs): 53 O/37 M (2004 54 K/45 B, 2000 51 G/46 B)
Prince William County, Virginia (DC burbs): 50 O/42 M (2004 46 K/53 B, 2000 45 G/53 B)
Franklin County, Ohio (Columbus): 45 O, 40 M (2004 54 K/45 B, 2000 49 G/48 B)
Again, there’s no downballot information accompanying these polls, but there are some prominent races in these districts that are likely to benefit from the rising blue tide: Prince William County is primarily in VA-11 (with fractions in VA-01 and VA-10), while the western half of Franklin County forms the bulk of OH-15 (along with most of OH-12 and a bit of OH-07). (Bucks County is PA-08, and St. Louis County is split between MO-01 and MO-02.)
If they don’t vote Dem this time, I’m fucking done with them. We now have Colorado, NC, and VA as the new perennial swing states. We don’t need those ‘morans’ to win anymore.
for the current numbers we think we have in PA. I’m back to being worried.
As a SE-PA native, I can assure you that not so long ago, Bucks county was VERY conservative. Delaware and Montgomery were the first to switch in the Clinton-Gore years, and Bucks and Chester were late to the party. Bucks is also very blue collar and rural.
So I’m encouraged that Obama is +6. It means he’s probably getting the big margin he needs in SE PA generally.
The VA result is also impressive, given how strong the Bush margin was in 2000. I think VA is pretty much in the bag, or at least, I’m more confident in VA at this point than FL or OH.