SurveyUSA state polls: Obama leading McCain in Ohio and Pennsylvania; Tim who?

SurveyUSA is conducting a series of polls in 17 states to test the popularity of various Republican and Democratic presidential tickets. It’s a dubious endeavor to the extent that many of the VP hopefuls bruited about have little national name recognition at this point, but the top-line results pitting Barack Obama versus John McCain are interesting, particularly where the perennial swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are concerned.

Those top-line numbers from the five states surveyed thus far:

• Ohio: Obama +9 over McCain
• Virginia: Obama +7 over McCain
• California: Obama +8 over McCain
• Pennsylvania: Obama +8 over McCain
• New Mexico: Obama tied with McCain

The VP matchup results share one common characteristic, and it comports with what Paul Demko noted last week about the Pennsylvania matchup: McCain/Pawlenty pairings consistently fare worse in the surveys than matchups that place Mike Huckabee, Joe Lieberman, or Mitt Romney on the GOP ticket.

This looks to be purely a matter of name recognition for Pawlenty. But it may be less easy for the McCain camp to ignore the relative boost it gets in all the states polled so far when the party’s best-known evangelical, Mike Huckabee, is on the ticket.