Is the South Distorting National Polling?
Obama leads in three of four U.S. regions and trails--by a lot--in one. Guess where.
Via Markos,I see this interesting regional cross-tab in the Gallup daily tracking, where Obama is down six points today: In the East, it's Obama +4. The Midwest, Obama +4. The West, Obama +6. And the South, Romney +22.
Any chance that's skewing the Gallup national number? Almost has to be, doesn't it? It's the limitation of national polls at this point, and I said this four years ago when Obama led them. It doesn't matter a whit how much Romney wins the Confederacy by (well, most of the Confederacy). Most of those states are ceded to him.
This isn't to gainsay the state polls showing it tight, like the new Wisconsin survey, which is troubling indeed from the Obama perspective. If he loses that state, he has big problems. Obviously, that polling was done before this debate. We'll start to see by the weekend whether this debate had any impact.
Anyway. The South. Those of you who go back to the Guardian days with me remember how I used to rant against the South. Haven't really made a habit of that here yet. But my feelings haven't changed. I still think we made a mistake taking them back. The only meaningful contribution they make is college football, and I'm sure that over time the USA and the CSA could have coexisted amicably enough that our teams could play each other with minimal border issues. What, Faulkner, you say? Bosh. He'd have moved to the USA!
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