BackboneAmerica

If nominated, Barack Obama has a better chance of carrying Colorado this fall than Hillary Clinton, but nationally he would win fewer electoral votes than she would. On net, Obama’s chances of defeating John McCain for the presidency are much poorer than Clinton’s. That’s the indication from a new survey of nine key states by ccAdvertising of Herndon VA. Here’s the link:Survey of Key States

The matchups were surveyed in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Responses indicated that against Clinton, McCain would carry only CO, FL, IL, and NH, giving her the electoral college by 279-259, assuming other states go as they did in 2004.

Whereas against Obama, according to the ccAdvertising survey, McCain would carry 6 of the 9 states, losing only CA, IL, and NY. This would give him the electoral college by 311-227, again assuming a repeat of 2004 in the states not surveyed.

The survey predicts that Colorado, which has gone Democratic only twice in the last half-century, would be more competitive for Obama, who runs only 2% behind McCain among these respondents, than for Hillary Clinton, who runs 5.4% behind.

ccAdvertising conducts automated phone surveys with massive oversampling, in lieu of the scientifically sampled, live-operator approach used by conventional polling firms. A total of 6,675 persons completed the survey described here, with another 7,287 respondents answering one or more of the questions. Aggregated and averaged, this is 1,551 persons in each of the nine states, far larger than a conventional polling sample.

Gabe Joseph, who heads the company, points to a December 2004 analysis from Slate magazine, “Who Nailed the Election Results? Automated Pollsters,” as evidence of his method’s superiority. While the article doesn’t specifically mention ccAdvertising, lauding only Survey USA and Rasmussen, Joseph notes the latter is a client of his company and conducts many of its surveys with ccA’s systems, process, and data.

Here is again is the full survey including questions, results, and methodology: Survey of Key States