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So Republican John McCain’s decision to put Iowa center stage this weekend, with two rallies Saturday by his running mate, Sarah Palin, and a stop on Sunday for McCain himself, seem to indicate that recent reports of the Republican ticket writing off the Hawkeye State have been greatly exaggerated.
Nearly every poll shows Democrat Barack Obama with a sizable lead in Iowa. The most recent, the Big Ten poll, had the race as a dead heat in September but now shows Obama with a 13-point lead.
McCain’s Iowa staff has repeatedly said their internal polls show the race here is still close and they are convinced the state is still winnable. But Arthur Sanders, professor of political science and international relations at Drake University, said there is no evidence that the race in Iowa has been close for a long time.
“Obama has a comfortable lead here,” he said. “I can’t remember a single poll that ever had McCain winning Iowa.”
If that’s the case, why is McCain investing so much in the Hawkeye State?
“He can’t just give up everywhere,” Sanders said. “McCain is behind in all kinds of states that he has to win. He has to pick some and take a stand.”
Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the Big Ten poll, said the electoral math is against McCain, which means he needs to flip a state Obama is leading in if he wants to reach 270 electoral votes.
“Where’s he going to go?” he said. “California? Massachusetts? At least Iowa has a history of voting for Republicans for president. That gives him at least some hope, so maybe it’s not such a bad place to make the gamble that it will go that way again.”
So despite lagging poll numbers, Obama’s organizational advantage and voter-registration trends showing big Democratic gains, McCain has decided to continue investing time and money in Iowa.
“The base of the Republican Party here in Iowa is strongly evangelical Christian,” Sanders said. “My guess is that they hope Palin can energize that base and close the gap. That seems to be the strategy, but it’s a roll of the dice at this point.”
Jeff Angelo, a Republican state senator from Creston, sees the campaign’s trip this weekend as a peek into McCain’s Iowa strategy.
“There is no doubt John McCain will win in western Iowa,” he said. “And he’ll win in southern Iowa. Where Obama is strong is in the urban parts of the state. Whether or not McCain can close the margins there will determine his success.”
Palin’s job is to make an impact with voters in a part of the state where the Republican Party is traditionally weak, Angelo said.
“If McCain is able to pull off a victory in Iowa, the credit will have to go to Palin,” he said. “There was a huge enthusiasm gap this summer. That changed when she was added to the ticket. You can say there is still no passion from the base for McCain, but there is a lot of excitement about Palin.”
Angelo said the main factor that will determine the outcome of Iowa is turnout. If turnout follows the traditional model, McCain can still win. But if Obama is successful in turning out new voters, something he did during the caucuses, the polls showing an Obama blowout victory are probably true.
“If young voters, who are traditionally unreliable on Election Day, turn out in big numbers, Obama will win big,” he said.
The recent Big Ten poll of battleground states is a good example of this logic. Wisconsin’s Franklin said his pollsters took the more conservative approach and just sampled registered voters as opposed to trying to determine “likely voters.”
“It may be that we include more people than will actually show up at the polls,” he said. “We do find within our data that those less interested in the campaign are more supportive of Obama. To that extent, our registered voter sample is probably higher in support than a likely voters sample.”
But even only including likely votes wouldn’t shift the outcome of the polls.
“It might close the gap, but it wouldn’t change the outcome,” Franklin said.
In September, the Big Ten poll had the race as a tie, with both candidates at 42 percent. But in the most recent poll, the number of people who viewed the economy as the most important issue rose to 68 percent, and among those voters, Obama has a nearly 30-point lead.
“The public did not like the way McCain handled the economic crisis,” Franklin said. “That was a turning point. Our poll was one of the only ones that had the race close, but that all changed when the economy went down.”
No matter how you look at it, Franklin said, it is a risky gamble putting this much energy into Iowa, but it may be his best shot.
“He has to place bets on a couple of long shots,” he said. “Iowa has voted Republican before. Maybe it can happen again.”
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