RALEIGH – From what I’ve seen in public polls and heard about internal campaign polls, there seems to be a bit of a Republican surge in this last week of the 2008 election cycle. That’s why the margins shrank for Barack Obama and Kay Hagan in the latest surveys from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm. That’s why some Republican pros around the state capital look somewhat less haggard and glum than they did a week ago. And that’s why a new Associated Press poll seeming to show a tied gubernatorial race, a 2-point Obama lead, and a four-point Hagan advantage was actually greeted as modestly good news for the Republicans – because the sample was 24 percent African-American, a share that most political pros believe is way too high.
But even if the polling deficits for GOP candidates are tightening, so is the gap between potential and actual voting. Election Day is just days away. Many North Carolinians have already voted, so last-minute advertising or late-breaking news stories can’t affect their votes. In other words, the Republican brand may look a little shinier up on the shelf this week than it did last week, but lots of folks have already made their purchases and exited the store. Which of the two tightenings – of voter preference and time – will prove to be the key one?
At the national level, a closing of the presidential-preference gap was always in the cards. Some of the poll findings last week, such as double-digit Obama leads in Newsweek and CBS polls, never made sense. I still think Obama is likely to win the race, but American electorate hasn’t suddenly lurched from Center-Right to Western European in voting behavior. If Obama wins, it will be because of the usual political dynamics – voting out an incumbent party when the economy is weak – rather than a broad ideological shift. Self-identified conservatives still outnumber liberals more than two to one. Moderate swing voters still determine the outcome. In 2002 and 2004, most swung to Bush and the GOP. In 2006 and 2008, many have swung Democratic. This doesn’t signify the end of political history. As I’ve written elsewhere, politics has no ultimate victor. It has no final, decisive battle. It just goes on and on, like soap operas and Law and Order.
Within North Carolina, I think that the poll tightening is a consequence of several factors. First, the McCain and Dole campaigns came up with effective closing arguments, propelled by effective advertising. (I guess they were bound to come up with something useful eventually.) For McCain-Palin, it was the “Joe the Plumber” theme, calling into question the intentions and consequences of Obama’s fiscal policies. For Dole, it was an ad in which she looked directly into the camera, articulated broadly popular views on several key issues, and then told viewers that if they agreed with those views, she was their candidate. Good ad. Why only now?
Another factor was differences in campaign strategy. A number of GOP campaigns, with less money to spend in the first place, chose to hoard their resources until late October. Democratic advertising and mailings vastly outnumbered Republican investment in early October, helping to pump up their polling margins. My sense is that in the past two weeks, the difference in spending hasn’t been so lopsided, and the GOP messages have been genuinely new and interesting. Advertising still works to move swing voters at least a few points, which is all we’re talking about here.
I’m not saying these long homestretch strides will necessarily be enough to win either race. Democrats are benefiting from a host of advantages this year, including campaign cash, enthusiasm, organization, and the Bush/Wall Street drag on almost all Republican candidates. That North Carolina is still in play at all just goes to show how well the Obama-Biden ticket is situated, because every minute and dollar McCain-Palin must spend in our state is a resource that can’t be spent in Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Colorado.
Nevertheless, the tightening of the polls in North Carolina is good news for the few GOP candidates who were already in the hunt for some surprise wins on Election Night, most notably Pat McCrory in the governor’s race. Noting the general Democratic trend this year, someone pointed out to me this week that if McCrory wins, he might well be the only Republican to wrest a statewide office from the Democrats in the entire country.
We live in interesting times, indeed.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.