History Says the Race is Over, But What Does Palin Say?

Is this race over?  The political scientists forecast models, of course, suggested it was over in August because the underlying fundamentals of this race – the economy and voters’ desire for change – favored the generic Democratic candidate. But these models are premised on the idea that the presidential candidates do not make major mistakes and that nothing happens that alters those fundamentals.  Given the context in which this race is unfolding, is there anything that McCain can do to alter the narrative and win this election?

History suggests the answer is no.  No presidential candidate in the modern era, with the possible exception of Harry Truman, has come back from a 6% or greater deficit in the polls with less than 30 days in the election to win. As of today, Obama leads in the RCP average of polls by 6%.  To be sure, some candidates have come close. In 1976, Gerald Ford was 11% behind Jimmy Carter as late as Sept. 27, and 6% points down as late as Oct. 11 (all data from the Gallup tracking polls). But he gradually closed the gap as doubts about Carter’s inexperience grew, and on election eve, Gallup had the race a statistical tie.  Carter actually won the popular vote 50-48%.  The Gore-Lieberman ticket was at least 9% behind the Bush-Cheney ticket as late as October 19, 2000 among likely voters in the Gallup polling, but managed to pull ahead to win the popular vote if not the actual election. However, the Gallup tracking poll in 2000 was unusually volatile, leading some polling experts to suspect that its weighting of likely voters was not particularly consistent. So it’s not clear how useful that example is when projecting the current race.

What this history suggests is that campaigns are far less consequential than the media make them out to be. In 2004, fully 85% of voters never considered voting for the opposing candidate, at all.  No campaign event – no ad, no debate – was going to persuade them to vote for the other guy.  Surveys today suggest a similar dynamic: 85% of voters already have made up their mind regarding how they will vote, and that number grows larger on a weekly basis as the undecideds dwindle.

So, can McCain do anything to make this race competitive?   Yes, I think he can, but it’s a very very long shot. In two words, his strategy must be: Sarah Palin. Contrary to what may have been suggested by the punditocracy over the last week regarding whether Palin ought to be dropped from the ticket, she actually remains McCain’s biggest (and perhaps only) campaign asset. That is, she is the only element in the McCain campaign that can push the financial news off the front page, if only temporarily.  More importantly, she provides the best hope for swinging portions of the key demographic group in this race into the McCain column.  That demographic group is women.

Consider the breakdown of the two candidates’ voting coalitions to date.  Among men, McCain has consistently held about a 5% lead, 49-44, over Obama in the Gallup poll data (all data as of Oct. 1).  But among women he is running behind by 12%. As in 2004, then, when Bush owed his victory largely to increased support over 2000 among women, if McCain is to win he must narrow that gender gap by bolstering his support among women.  Note that among women, McCain does better among particular subgroups.  He leads among married women, women over 55, women who lack a college education, and he is tied with Obama among low to middle-income women.  In short, he polls more strongly among those women who supported Hillary Clinton in states like Florida, Ohio and Virginia – all key battleground states that he must hold if he is to win this election.

He also is competitive among a second group of women: independents.  Democratic women support Obama, 85-9%, while Republican women back McCain, 89-7%.  But among independent women, the race is much tighter, with Obama up 45-41%.  Not only is the race closer among independent women, there is also a larger undecided pool of some 14% of independent women.  Independent women, then, remain the largest remaining pool of persuadable voters.

What does this suggest?  If McCain is to win, he needs to go after independent women while strengthening his support among the disaffected Clinton supporters.  That means parking Palin in the battleground states and letting her work the crowds, where she is most effective at developing rapport with precisely this group of voters.  At the same time, she needs to ignore the Washington-NY press corps who are salivating at the prospect of reprising the Couric interviews.  Rather than allowing them to dictate news coverage, she needs to avoid the national news filter and instead meet directly with voters in battleground states, with direct news coverage access granted primarily to local media outlets.

A first step in this process of reaching out to independent women took place in Thursday’s much-watched vice presidential debate.  The “winner” of that debate, I suggested, was the candidate who could move these undecideds into their column.  In my next post I’ll begin to parse this data.  Who actually won the vice presidential debate?

History is running in Obama’s favor.  Can McCain break with the past?  Obama left the election door slightly ajar by not picking Clinton as his vice president.  In my view it is doubtful that Palin can wedge it open enough to overcome the fundamentals driving this campaign.  But the polling data suggests she remains McCain’s best hope for doing so.