Polling Firm Projects Obama or Clinton Would Defeat McCain, Survey Has Issues 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 7, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A leading polling firm has conducted a nationwide survey of 600 voters in each of the 50 states and projects that either pro-abortion candidate, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, would defeat John McCain in the electoral college vote this November. However, the poll has limitations that skewed its results and other analysis shows a tighter race.
Survey USA interviewed 600 registered voters in each of the 50 states for a total of 30,000 interviews of Americans about the presidential race.
In a contest featuring Obama and McCain, Survey USA shows Obama winning with 280 to 256 electoral votes, and 270 are needed to capture the presidency.
Obama carries 24 states and the District of Columbia in the poll and McCain carries 26 while both candidates split Nebraska. The polling firm shows Obama winning battleground states such as Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia and others while McCain carries Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Survey USA shows a closer race against Clinton, with her having a 276-262 advantage over McCain. The shift in several states from the Obama-McCain matchup is quite noticeable.
Clinton carries her former home state of Arkansas in the matchup, loses Colorado, Michigan to McCain, wins in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
Though it shows either pro-abortion candidate winning, Survey USA admits its own survey has its limitations.
"The winner’s margin in each state is not always outside of the survey’s margin of sampling error," the polling firm says.
It admits that states where the candidates are within the margin of error (in some cases within tenths of a percentage of each other) it assigned to the candidate where its polls show a lead.
In addition, the surveys include registered voters instead of likely voters, and polls of likely voters normally show a one-two percent higher result for Republican candidates. That could change the complexion of the race in several competitive states.
Meanwhile, the results are limited to polling data from Survey USA and do not include an analysis of polls done by other firms that, in some cases, show a different candidate leading.
A survey of all of the recent polling data from all firms by LifeNews.com in late February found Obama would defeat McCain by a 293 to 245 electoral vote margin and McCain defeating Clinton with a 274-264 win.
Giving McCain Pennsylvania (where one poll showed McCain winning) and New Mexico (where polls show them tied) McCain would win with a 271-267 edge over Obama.
Ultimately, the electoral analysis shows a very close presidential election and, as in 2000 and 2004, several battle ground states could make the difference depending on how they break.
