String of polls shows uphill climb for McCain
Obama campaigned in Colorado Sunday. (Getty Images.)
(CNN) - Barack Obama is hanging onto leads in several battleground states as well as a handful of traditionally red states won by President Bush in 2004, CNN's average of several recent state polls shows.
According to a string of new polls of polls from CNN, Obama holds narrow leads in Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Nevada, and Virginia. John McCain meanwhile is hanging onto his lead in Indiana and West Virginia. CNN's polls of polls are statistical averages of several recent surveys from each state. They do not carry margins of error.
CNN Election Center: Check out the latest state polls
In Ohio, the state no Republican has won the White House without, Obama is holding a 4 point lead, 50 percent to 46 percent. That's one point narrower than a CNN Ohio polls of polls last week.
In Missouri, the state that voted for President Bush twice, Obama holds a 1 point lead over McCain. A CNN average of recent polls last week showed the race tied in Missouri.
Obama is holding onto a 2 point lead in Florida meanwhile, 48 percent to 46 percent. That's one point narrower than the race was last week at this time.
In Nevada, Obama has a 4 point lead, 49 to 45 percent - a lead that hasn't changed over the last week.
In Virginia, a state that hasn't voted Democratic in over 4 decades, but one that has been increasingly trending Democratic, Obama holds a 5 point lead, 50 to 45 percent. That's 3 points narrower than Obama's lead there last week, according to a CNN poll of polls then.
McCain meanwhile has a 1 point lead in Indiana, 47 to 45 percent, another state that hasn't voted Democratic since the 1960's but one that the Obama campaign has heavily targeted.
McCain also has an 8 point lead in West Virginia, 50 to 42 percent, a lead that is 6 points higher than it was this time last week.
That latest round of poll results shows McCain faces an uphill climb in the final week of his presidential campaign.
“The Republicans haven’t lost Virginia in 44 years. They absolutely need Florida to reach 270 electoral votes on Election Night. They’ve never won the White House without carrying Ohio. And the last time Missouri backed a losing candidate was in 1956," noted CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib. "McCain is now trailing – albeit narrowly – in all four of these states. He needs a dramatic turnaround this week to have a serious shot at winning on November 4.”
ON THE TRAIL: Palin makes 2nd Virginia stop
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/art.cnnlive10.cnn.jpg caption="CNN.com/live carried the event."](CNN) - Sarah Palin held a campaign event in Fredericksburg, Virginia earlier Monday.
Earlier, the Alaska governor campaigned in Leesburg, Virginia.
Biden: Attacks on Obama sound familiar
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/biden.3.jpg caption=" Biden warned against the McCain campaign's divisive tactics this morning."]
GREENVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) – As his running mate geared up to deliver his “closing argument” to voters, Joe Biden continued to criticize the McCain campaign’s attacks on Barack Obama, comparing them to those faced by Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy in their campaigns.
“The purpose of it is to deliberately further divide the country, cause they concluded the only way they can win is if they divide us,” Biden told supporters Monday morning at an outdoor rally at East Carolina University.
“Look, let me share a little bit of history with you,” he continued. “The defenders of the status quo have always tried to tear down those who would change our nation for the better.”
“They said Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a real a real Christian. That was the essence of the campaign against him. Well does that sound familiar?” Biden asked. “They said Abraham Lincoln, they said he wanted to take away individual rights. Ladies and gentlemen, they said Franklin Roosevelt would destroy the American system of life. Sound familiar? And ladies and gentlemen, they said that John F. Kennedy was, quote, ‘a dangerous choice in difficult times.’ That’s what they said, they said John F. Kennedy was a dangerous choice in difficult times. Sound familiar?
“Well ladies and gentlemen, new ideas and new leaders are often met with new attacks and almost always negative attacks built on lies which are the last resort of those who have nothing new to offer. And that’s where we find ourselves.”
Podcast: Polls show McCain down, who's to blame?
Watch Monday's installment of CNN=Politics Daily, The Best Political Podcast from The Best Political Team.
(CNN)— With eight days to go before Election Day, both candidates are pulling out all of the stops and working overtime in the critical battleground states. In the latest installment of CNN=Politics Daily, CNN’s Ed Henry has the details on some finger pointing going on within the McCain campaign, and why some people think the Arizona senator is down in the polls. Meanwhile, CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux reports on the Obama campaigns final push to get voters to the polls.
Also, in battleground Virginia, the efforts have shifted from getting people registered to getting people out to vote. CNN’s Kate Bolduan has the details on the ground game there.
Finally: How likely is it that Democrats will win the ‘magic 60’ seats needed for a filibuster-proof majority? CNN Special Correspondent Frank Sesno takes a look.
Click here to subscribe to CNN=Politics Daily
Palin trots out 'Tito the builder' at Virginia rally
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/palin.12.jpg caption=" Palin was introduced by 'Tito the builder' at a rally in Virginia this morning."]
LEESBURG, Virginia (CNN) - Sarah Palin brought along one of her favorite working-class heroes to a campaign rally in northern Virginia on Monday: Tito Munoz, or as he’s better known to Palin and her audiences, “Tito the builder.”
Munoz, wearing a yellow hard hat with a McCain-Palin bumper sticker, introduced Palin at the outdoor rally in Loudoun County, a populous Washington exurb that broke for George W. Bush in 2004 but has gone Democratic in three consecutive statewide elections.
“Everything we stand for is in danger by higher taxes and less freedom,” Munoz said of Obama, earning chants of “Tito! Tito!” from the audience.
The McCain campaign took a shine to Munoz, who owns a construction business, two weekends ago in Woodbridge, Virginia when he was seen accusing a group of reporters of attacking Joe the Plumber for questioning Barack Obama’s tax plan. Palin has since cited Munoz in speech after speech as an example of a hard-worker who would have his dreams crushed by Obama’s plan to raise taxes on high income-earners.
When Palin took the stage, she cracked to Munoz that “not since the Jackson Five has the name Tito been used so often.”
The governor proceeded to deliver a mostly routine stump speech, lacking any of the improvisational riffs like the one she put forth in Tampa on Sunday, when she ad-libbed a four-minute diatribe on the “ridiculous” questions about her RNC-purchased wardrobe.
Instead, Palin stuck to the campaign script and accused Barack Obama of shifting his rhetoric on taxes.
“John and I have a very basic, fundamental disagreement with our opponents on this issue. Sen. Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes,” she said. “And though it seems that he adjusts his tax plan pronouncements almost daily now, kind of flip-flopping on what the details are. His commitment to higher taxes never changes, though.”
With Virginia teetering on the brink of falling into Democratic hands for the first time in 44 years, Palin is blitzing every corner of the commonwealth on Monday with four campaign stops and a series of local media interviews. A Washington Post poll released Monday showed Obama leading John McCain by eight points in Virginia, with one half of registered voters holding "strongly" or "somewhat" negative views of the GOP vice presidential candidate.
Greene: John McCain, talent agent?
VANDALIA, Ohio (CNN)– “You will know their names and I will make them famous!"
John McCain once again used that line on the campaign trail over the weekend, as he does in virtually every speech. It refers to pork barrel projects– “You will know their names and I will make them famous!” is his promise/threat to veto all such legislation, and to tell the world who the offending congressional sponsors were.
But the line, if you extrapolate from what people have been telling us on our journey, has perhaps taken on a double meaning– one that could lead to a lucrative, if unlikely, second career for McCain, should he lose the election next week.
“McCain really is the one person who has made these two people overnight stars," said Larry Ealy, 54, of South Bend, Indiana. “It’s pretty amazing, how fast he made it happen."
More from Mr. Ealy later in this dispatch. For now. . . .
If McCain wins, his plate will be rather full for the next four years: president of the United States, commander in chief of the armed forces, leader of the free world. . .all of that.
But should he lose, a strong argument can be made that, over the last several months, McCain has shown an uncanny knack for a line of work you wouldn’t automatically associate with him:
Talent agent.
Your chance to ask Obama the questions
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/art.obamaireport.gi.jpg caption="Your chance to ask Obama a question."]Wolf Blitzer interviews Sen. Barack Obama Friday in The Situation Room, and you can be a part of it.
CNN invites you to ask the Democratic presidential candidate questions on a wide range of topics.
Send over your video questions at iReport.com!
ON THE TRAIL: Biden makes push in North Carolina
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/art.cnnlive9.cnn.jpg caption="Watch the event on CNN.com/live."](CNN) - Joe Biden stumped in North Carolina earlier Monday, one of several traditionally red states the Obama campaign is targeting.
Pete Yorn song urging people to vote goes viral
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/art.yorn.cnn.jpg caption="The music video for American Blues Vol. 1 has become very popular online."]
(CNN) - Indie rocker Pete Yorn was depressed. He woke up in Hawaii on the Fourth of July and read the paper. There was a short article about an Optimist Club disbanding .
“Even they were going bad, on the economy and the state of union, and everyone was just kind of freaking out, ” he said.
So he did what indie rockers do: He knocked out a song and sent it to a few friends.
He says he wrote the song, "American Blues Vol. 1," in about five minutes.
“It was a beautiful paradise and it hit home even more for me. I was feeling all this negativity in such a beautiful place,” he told CNN by phone from Omaha, Nebraska, where he’s working on his next album.
The song touches on the campaign and the economic crisis with lines like: “You love your house/Now give it back,” and “keep beaming through the pledge of allegiance cos you aint dead yet.”
Yorn is a Gold Record-selling artist signed to Columbia records, but he put this song out on his own.
ON THE TRAIL: Palin stumps in Virginia
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/27/art.cnnlive8.cnn.jpg caption="Watch the event on CNN.com/live."](CNN) - Sarah Palin campaigned Virginia earlier Monday, the traditional red state where polls show Barack Obama holds a clear lead.
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