In battleground states, bad news for Obama

A recent poll from four potentially key states shows that Barack Obama can't take victory for granted just yet.

Published July 24, 2008 4:10PM (EDT)

Team Obama may have started making plans for the presidential transition, but a new poll of four battleground states shows it probably shouldn't be counting its chickens already.

Voters in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin were surveyed -- in all four states, the pollsters found, Barack Obama's numbers have slipped relative to John McCain's since June. Obama still leads in three of the four states, but in Michigan and Minnesota his lead is within the margin of error. McCain has a small advantage -- also within the error margin -- in Colorado. Obama does have a double-digit lead over McCain in Wisconsin, though.

The standard disclaimer about polls conducted this far away from Election Day applies here, of course; these numbers shouldn't be taken as gospel. But they should be taken as a reminder of how far we have to go before the election, and of course that people shouldn't be celebrating Obama's lead in national polls just yet.

The poll was conducted by Quinnipiac University in partnership with WashingtonPost.com and the Wall Street Journal.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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2008 Elections Barack Obama John Mccain R-ariz.