Apologies for the short diary, but it's a pretty good sign when our candidate is up by five in a state that went to Bush by 20 and 25 percent in 2000 and 2004 respectively.

I know it's just three electoral votes, but I think it's a sign of the shifting electoral map, both in terms of geography and demographics.  Obama won the under thirty vote by 27 points.  I know that it is common to have some degree of increased conservatism as people grow older, but it sure seems like a bad sign for republicans long term.  Unless they actually become the party of small government and stop scapegoating minority groups like gays, atheists, etc (both things we democrats should hope for, even if it dilutes our majority), I don't see how they'll stay viable into the coming decades.  That may be a slightly extreme extrapolation from the results of a single poll in early July, but the poll shows a 30 point swing from the last election.

Good news for Barack Obama and very bad news for John McCain.
Contrary to polls discussed during the primary season, it looks like McCain's purported strength among Latinos/Hispanics was an illusion.  

National Poll Shows That Latino Voters Favor Obama Over McCain
June 16, 2008

Latino voters favor Obama over McCain, according to Latino Decisions Poll.

A new national survey of Latino voters shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over his rival, Republican John McCain.

http://www.pacificmarketresearch.com/ld/ poll_national.html

That's 15 points.  Survey stats: 1,010 people polled nationwide, 4% Margin of error.  Granted, this is the only poll so far showing such a wide margin, but is it possible that, as the article says, that "Barack finally has his bounce"?

cross posted from DailyKos
Huffpo is reporting a statistical dead heat in Georgia today.

A New InsiderAdvantage / PollPosition survey conducted June 18 of registered likely voters in the November presidential contest shows Sen. John McCain leading Sen. Barack Obama by a single point in Georgia, making the race in Georgia a statistical tie.

Based on an Insider Advantage Poll

McCain: 44%
Obama: 43%
Barr: 6%
Undecided: 7%

According to some of the talking heads, Barack Obama is supposed to be particularly weak among Hispanic voters. Last week, though, Gallup released a compendium of polling showing that, contrary to this common wisdom, Obama held a significant 62 percent to 29 percent lead among this demographic over John McCain. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll also released numbers on Hispanic voters, and although the oversample of Hispanic voters still only amounted to 150 respondents (yielding somewhere in the neighborhood of an 8-point, plus or minus, margin of error), the numbers looked a bit familiar:

Hispanic Voters

John McCain (R): 28 percent
Barack Obama (D): 62 percent

There are now two polls showing Obama performing in the low 60s among Hispanic voters and McCain performing in the high 20s in this group in head-to-head polling. In case you weren't sure if your hunch was correct, no these numbers aren't good for McCain.

Exit polling, whatever weight you give it, from 2004 showed that John Kerry won the Latino vote by a scant 53 percent to 44 percent margin (Pew (.pdf) estimates George W. Bush's share of the vote to be closer to 40 percent). So according to these numbers, either the ones more favorable to Bush or those not, McCain is running much worse among this voting bloc than did Bush just four years ago. In fact, McCain's numbers among Hispanics look consistently similar to those of his party in 2006, when they lost the Hispanic vote 69 percent to 30 percent. So the question in my mind, much like it was in my last post, is which candidate is it that is experiencing difficulty courting the Hispanic vote?

In short, the numbers released last night by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal are really bad for John McCain. Here's the key graph:

However, Obama has a seven-point advantage (46-39) among all white women. How important is that lead? Newhouse explains that Republican candidates always expect to win white men by a substantial margin, but it is white women that usually decide the race. "If a Republican wins among white women, we usually win that election," he says, noting that George W. Bush carried that group in 2000 and 2004.

A seven-point for Barack Obama among White women might not seem overwhelmingly remarkable at this juncture, even when taken together with the quote from GOP pollster Neil Newhouse regarding the importance of this demographic to the electoral success of the Republican Party. (Newhouse also mentions the suburban White women's vote, which I discuss a bit below the fold.) But looking through recent exit polling it becomes clear that these numbers could be borderline disastrous for the McCain campaign.

During his 2004 reelection victory, George W. Bush carried White women by a 55 percent to 44 percent margin over John Kerry -- meaning that Obama is already running ahead (or at least even) with Kerry in this demographic while McCain is running more than 15 points behind Bush within this key subgroup. In 2000, Bush narrowly won White women, 49 percent to 48 percent, and even during the Democrats' sound victory in the 2006 midterm elections GOP House candidates won White women's votes by a 50 percent to 49 percent margin. So not only is McCain running well behind where Bush ran in this demographic during his reelection campaign, McCain is also running significantly behind where Bush ran during his popular vote loss and where his party performed during their big loss in 2006. Just which candidate is it that has a problem among White women voters?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25096620/

YES WE CAN!!

Obama leads with Independents, Blue Collar Workers, Hispanics, Women and Blacks.

Slightly behind suburban "soccer moms" and 20 points behind white men (boo hoo)

Other: Obama-Clinton beats McCain-Romney by 11 points.

After a hard-fought contest, at mydd and elsewhere, we see some Clinton supporters who have decided to back the nominee and others who are unsure or who are saying that they won't.

Nationally, there appears to be signs that the party is starting to unify.  Rasmussen reports today:

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_conte nt/politics/election_20082/2008_presiden tial_election/daily_presidential_trackin g_poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows Barack Obama's bounce growing to an eight-point lead over John McCain. Obama now attracts 48% of the vote while McCain earns 40%.  On Tuesday, just before Obama clinched the nomination, the candidates were tied at 46%.

This shift -- from a tie to an 8 point Obama lead -- has occurred because Democrats are coming together.

Obama's bounce is the result of growing unity among the Democratic Party. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Democrats say they will vote for Obama over McCain. That's the highest level of party support ever enjoyed by Obama.

Frankly, this shift is faster than I thought it would be. Will the party continue to consolidate?  One reason why they might is that, as Rasmussen found, people don't actually know much about McCain.

Think about that: Although McCain has been a nationally known political figure longer than Obama, folks don't know that much about him. I'd bet that as people learn that last year that he voted with Bush 95% of the time on Bush's top legislative initiatives (according to National Journal) and that he is firmly anti-choice, his numbers will drop.

I'm a former Clinton supporter who switched to Obama back in January. I'm a 50 year old woman, a life-long feminist, and the mother of two fabulous kids.  I have friends who worked for Clinton and who supported her all the way.  But these friends and I are focused on how the election will affect our lives and those of our children. Again, I understand that for some Clinton supporters, they need to process all that has happened.

This is a time of opportunity for Democrats to take control of the White House and to promote the policies and values we share. I hope we can acknowledge the feelings of Clinton supporters who are not feeling good right now and can leave the door wide, wide open to them, as we talk about why this election matters to our lives.