John McCain had periods of strong polling in 2008, especially after the Republican Convention, but Barack Obama won in a landslide.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
What would count as true or false
Judged against 2008 polling history and certified results. True: McCain led or was competitive in national polling at times, notably after the September 2008 Republican convention, and Obama won decisively (about 7.3 points in the popular vote, 365-173 in the Electoral College), which is widely described as a landslide or decisive win. Mostly true: both hold, but 'landslide' is somewhat generous, or the timing of McCain's strong stretch differs slightly. Mixed: one part holds and the other does not. Mostly false: McCain never had notably strong polling, though Obama won clearly. False: McCain had no strong periods and Obama's win was narrow.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
-
E1 Gallup Daily: McCain Maintains 5-Point Lead Gallup · 9 September 2008
“McCain led Obama by five percentage points in Monday's report on the strength of a six-point increase in the percentage of voters choosing him on the presidential trial heat following the Republican National Convention.”
-
E2 Obama's Road to the White House: A Gallup Review Gallup · 5 November 2008
“McCain then succeeded in overtaking Obama after the Republican National Convention in September.”
-
E3 Obama's Road to the White House: A Gallup Review Gallup · 5 November 2008
“At this point, McCain experienced his longest front-runner stretch of the general-election phase of the campaign: 10 days from Sept. 7 to Sept. 16.”
-
E4 2008 Electoral College Results U.S. National Archives (National Archives and Records Administration) · 5 November 2019
“Electoral Vote | Winner: 365 | Main Opponent: 173 | Total/Majority: 538/270”
Reasoning
Gallup reported that McCain moved to a 5-point lead after the Republican National Convention (E1). Its post-election review says McCain overtook Obama after the September convention and led for 10 days, from Sept. 7 to Sept. 16 (E2, E3). The National Archives record shows Obama winning the Electoral College 365 to 173 (E4), the decisive margin the criteria name. None of the evidence gives the popular-vote margin, but both parts of the claim hold under the criteria.
Cite this claim
Nate Silver, “John McCain had periods of strong polling in 2008, especially after the Republican Convention, but Barack Obama won in a landslide.” (said 9 October 2024). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_506f78dc2cd5, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_506f78dc2cd5
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Nate Silver
-
Mostly true
“The previous Quinnipiac polls of these states had been quite a bit better for Harris.”
-
Resolved true
“The recognition that the election is only four weeks away.”
As of early October 2024, the US presidential election is about four weeks away.
-
Resolved true
“And yet, there are dozens of polls released every week.”
-
Mostly true
“This property is even more profound in baseball, where single-run leads are relatively durable because runs tend to come in bunches and the default outcome is not to score at all.”
-
Mostly true
“The Wall Street Journal employs a polling partnership between a Republican and a Democratic polling firm — essentially a form of adversarial collaboration, a technique that often yields reliable…”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.