Clarifying Chick Todd's Comments (re: Obama losing 70% undecideds) [View All]

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

What Chuck Todd said is that Obama need to have the election essentially sewed up with decided voters on the Sunday before the election or he is in trouble because Todd predicts that undecided voters will break for McCain.

His theory is that white rust-belt voters who are supporting all the down-ticket Dems but are still "undecided" on the presidential race are probably not going to ultimately vote for Obama.

It's a reasonable theory, but only a theory.

If Todd is correct, then Obama is in a position usually faced by an incumbent. In a typical election undecideds break for the challenger about 2:1, and the conventional wisdom is that an incumbent who polls under 50% in the last polling set is probably going down.

Personally I think the out-party factor and the race/Reagan-Dem factor acting in opposition to each other will result in an undecided break closer to 50-50 than 70-30, but either way it's a novel historical situation. With no racial factors in play Obama would get 66% of undecideds just for being a different party than Bush.

Long story short, I don't know that undecideds will break huge for McCain, but the Obama campaign is well advised not to count on the traditional 2:1 undecided break the out party usually gets. Though the 70% figure is a stretch, the underlying message is not. Obama DOES need to reach and hold 48%-50% among decided voters because we cannot count on the undecideds. They are unpredictable this year. If Obama does well with undecideds that's gravy.

I think Obama can reach and hold those levels. (Partuculary since 3rd parties are sure to get 2% between them... analyzing the race as a binary choice is a useful rule of thumb, but not down to the last decimal place.)