October 31, 2008
Posted: 01:38 PM ET
From CNN's Megan Zingarelli
Rick Davis says McCain is closing gaps in the polls.
(CNN) — As late polls continue to shows Barack Obama with an edge over John McCain in key battleground states, the Arizona senator’s campaign manager told reporters Friday the Republican nominee had momentum heading into the race’s closing days. "We fight back," campaign manager Rick Davis said on a conference call, echoing McCain’s recent stump speech. "And we are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks since John McCain won the primaries." The latest CNN national poll of polls shows that Senator Barack Obama is at 50 per cent to McCain's 43 per cent, with 7 percent undecided. But Davis said surveys are irrelevant in the race’s homstretch. "Guess what? Polling isn't accumulative," he said. "It's whatever it is today, and we see a very, very tight race today, so it really doesn't matter where it was ten days ago."
Davis claims that the campaign is beating back the perception that Obama is better suited to handling the financial crisis. "One thing that is clear is that we've established a momentum; we've increased our gains in virtually every one of the battleground states throughout the course of the week," Davis said. "We've had probably the best 10 days of polling since the convention. We think we've shaken off the effects of the financial collapse that suppressed our numbers prior to the last debate." Some CNN analysts see a different story. "Obama's lead in most of the battleground states appears to be holding steady at this point," said CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib. "If McCain can't close the gap over the weekend in states like Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, there is no way for him to reach 270 electoral votes on Election Night." And the McCain campaign is pushing its ground and advertising efforts as hard as possible in those states, pouring additional resources into advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts in battleground states like New Hampshire and Ohio. "We're banking on a very close race," said Davis. "I mean we think this is going to be a tight electoral college year. We think this is going to be a tight popular vote year. There's no indications otherwise today." And he responded to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe’s morning announcement that the Democratic nominee was going on the air in McCain’s home state of Arizona, and back on the airwaves in traditional GOP strongholds like North Dakota and Georgia. "We encourage them to please pick other states that we intend to win, to spend their campaign cash and spread it out as much as they can," said Davis. Filed under: John McCain
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