EAST LANSING, Mich. — As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama has widened his lead over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
If the presidential election were held today, Obama would score a decisive victory in Michigan. Obama also holds a lead in every other state that is home to a Big Ten university, as well as nationally.
Those are the key results of the second Big Ten Battleground Poll, according to Michigan State University economics professor Charles Ballard. Ballard, who collaborated with researchers from the other Big Ten universities, is director of the State of the State Survey, in MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.
“What a difference a month makes,” Ballard said.
The first Big Ten Battleground Poll, taken in mid-September, showed Obama and Joe Biden clinging to a narrow lead of 48 percent to 44 percent in Michigan, and an even slimmer lead of 46 percent to 45 percent nationally. The most recent poll, taken Oct. 19-22, shows Obama with a commanding lead of 58 percent to 36 percent in Michigan, and 52 percent to 43 percent in the United States. The poll’s margin of error is 4.2 percentage points.
The states included in the poll were Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota, home to the 11 universities in the Big Ten conference.
“Our previous poll was taken when the campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin had gained ground for a couple of weeks,” Ballard said. “Since then, however, we have seen a seismic shift in the mood of the electorate.”
Those states were key battlegrounds in the 2004 election, and last month the Big Ten Battleground Poll showed a tight race in all but Illinois, which Obama represents in the U.S. Senate. The first poll was taken just as the U.S. financial crisis first intensified and before the massive decline in the stock market, when McCain was enjoying his highest poll numbers of the campaign in the Big Ten and nationally.
“Lehman Brothers went down during our September poll, but the full impact of the financial crisis had not been felt yet, Ballard added. “The day after the September poll closed, the credit markets came close to melting down. The day after that, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his proposed bailout package. Those events appear to have had a huge effect on the electorate.”
By late September, some polls showed that the Obama-Biden ticket had opened up a double-digit lead in Michigan, and McCain scaled back his Michigan campaign on Oct. 2. The latest Battleground Poll suggests the Obama campaign has gained even more ground in Michigan as the month of October has progressed.
In the September poll, Obama’s home state of Illinois was the only state in the region with a comfortable lead for either candidate. In the October poll, the Obama-Biden ticket has a double-digit lead in each of the eight states. The key states of Ohio and Pennsylvania were in a statistical dead heat in September. In the October poll, Obama leads 53 percent to 41 percent in Ohio, and 52 percent to 41 percent in Pennsylvania.
One of the most remarkable results of the October poll is that Obama leads by 10 percentage points in Indiana. In September, McCain had a four-point lead in Indiana, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.
If these results hold up on Election Day, the Big Ten region will deliver 117 electoral votes to Obama and Biden.
The party that currently occupies the White House is likely to have trouble whenever the public is dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, Ballard noted. In the latest Battleground Poll, 87 percent of Michigan voters say the country is on the wrong track. Nationally, 83 percent say the nation is on the wrong track. Both nationally and in Michigan, 92 percent say that the economy has gotten worse in the past year.
“The Big Ten Battleground Poll also has questions that are specific to individual states. In Michigan, we asked about the statewide ballot issues,” said Ballard. “The initiative to allow medical marijuana leads by 58 percent to 34 percent. However, the initiative for embryonic stem-cell research is trailing by 49 percent to 41 percent.”
Big Ten Battleground Poll head-to-head results for individual states:
Illinois - Obama 61 percent, McCain 32 percent (572 respondents)
Indiana - Obama 51 percent, McCain 41 percent (586)
Iowa - Obama 52 percent, McCain 39 percent (586)
Ohio - Obama 53 percent, McCain 41 percent (564)
Michigan - Obama 58 percent, McCain 36 percent (562)
Minnesota - Obama 57 percent, McCain 38 percent (583)
Pennsylvania - Obama 52 percent, McCain 41 percent (566)
Wisconsin - Obama 53 percent, McCain 40 percent (584)
Universities participating in the partnership are the University of Illinois, the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Penn State University and UW-Madison.
For more details about the poll, visit http://www.bigtenpoll.org.
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