If the extensive Pew Center poll proves prescient, the Obama people will be popping the corks by 8 PM next Tuesday, and the Republican party will be in for a very long winter. The poll shows Obama ahead by 52 to 36 percent. What’s more interesting is the breakdown of voters. Obama leads among white college-graduates by 48 to 43 percent and breaks even among those with some college. He wins white non-Hispanic Catholics by 49 to 41 percent. These are bellwether constituencies. The only groups that conspicuously favor McCain by more than five percentage points are whites with a high school education or less, white evangelicals, and Republicans. I’ll leave it to you to imagine which voters, and states, these might represent.
--John B. Judis