Not much to look at today, but we have two somewhat contradictory results from the heartland.
In Iowa, SurveyUSA has Obama 9 points ahead of John McCain; Hillary Clinton was not surveyed. Obama has held a lead over McCain in all 12 Iowa polls released since the first of the year, and the state would appear to be about as safe as can be for a state that went for George W. Bush in 2004.
But in Nebraska, a Research 2000/Daily Kos poll has McCain up by huge margins: he leads Obama by 28 points and Clinton by 30. Nebraska awards some of its electors by Congressional District, but this poll doesn’t have Obama particularly close in any of Nebraska’s three CDs. In NE-2, the Omaha-based district that we thought might be relatively competitive for Obama, he trails McCain by 30 (small sample size caveats apply).
Other Nebraska polling has shown that state closer — sometimes a lot closer — so it’s too early to discard the possibility that Obama can pick off an electoral vote or two. Nevertheless, the Obama-McCain map continues to consolidate itself, and look more like the one that most people were expecting from the outset. While Obama’s polling situation has improved recently in states like Missouri and Virginia, more exotic plays like Montana and Nebraska appear to be less likely for him.