This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

John McCain is heading to near-certain defeat in the elections because American voters no longer trust Republicans on the economy, a Republican strategist warned today.

Steve Lombardo, who has worked on Republican campaigns since 1992 and advised McCain's opponent, Mitt Romney, in the primaries, said it would take a major external event - such as a terrorist attack - or a crippling error by Barack Obama for McCain to make a comeback.

"Basically unless there is some external event the dynamics of this race are being driven almost entirely by the financial situation here in the United States and globally, and that works for Barack Obama," Lombardo said.

"If there isn't some sort of event or, God forbid, a terrorist attack that moves the election on to foreign affairs or national security, it is unlikely that McCain can regain the lead just because the American voters have decided that the base of the problems they face are the Republican party, George Bush, and by extension John McCain."

The bleak assessment of McCain's prospects from one of his own comes on a day when the economic crisis brought George Bush to an historic new low in his popularity.

Bush's 25% approval rating was recorded just after Congress approved a $700bn economic bailout, suggesting the public gave no credit to the White House for its rescue plan.

The rating, a new nadir for an historically unpopular president, puts Bush one point ahead of Richard Nixon on the eve of his departure from the White House in 1974. It is just three points higher than the poll's all-time low for any president, Harry Truman's 22% job approval rating in 1952.

Lombardo laid out his misgivings in a memo obtained by the Guardian in which he wrote that McCain's attempts to distract voters from the economy and make the election about Obama's character were unlikely to work.

The memo argues such attacks at this point seem "desperate" and "off-key", and that the time to define the Democrats' character was in August - before the presidential debates.

"The economic situation has virtually ended John McCain's presidential aspirations and no amount of tactical manoeuvring in the final 29 days is likely to change that equation," the memo said.

It concludes: "There are more turns to come in this election and it is not over yet but it sure seems like it is."

The memo said McCain lost the election on September 15 - two days after Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy - when he told a rally in Jacksonville, Florida: "The fundamentals of the economy are strong."

McCain saw fresh signs today of the damage to his own presidential prospects from the economic crisis in a new set of polls showing him trailing in four battleground states and fighting to hang on to two states - Indiana and North Carolina - formerly seen as Republican strongholds.

McCain suffered another blow when the wife of a retiring Republican senator seen as one of the Republicans' experts on national security officially endorsed Obama.

"The fact is we're in two wars, two of the longest we've ever been in. We've run up a third of our nation's debt in just the past eight years. We're in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression," said Lilibet Hagel, whose husband, Chuck, is a senator from Nebraska.

With less than four weeks to go until election day, the slide in the polls brought an even more aggressive and personal edge to McCain's attacks on Obama.

The Obama camp hit back with a new ad released on cable networks today accusing McCain of being "out of ideas" and seeking to distract voters from America's economic problems. "With no plan to lift our economy up, John McCain wants to tear Barack Obama down," the ad said.

The Republican is also giving a larger role to his running mate, Sarah Palin, who is recovering her popularity among the party base following her adequate debate performance last week.

In the latest bad news for McCain, a Time magazine-CNN poll showed the Republican struggling to hold on to states that George Bush carried by large margins in 2004.

In Indiana, which has voted solidly for Republicans in presidential elections since 1964, McCain and Obama were tied among registered voters, with 48% support.

Obama was also widening his lead in battleground states won by George Bush, including Ohio which decided the 2004 elections. Obama now leads McCain by 50% to 47% among likely voters in the Time-CNN poll.

A day after accusing the Democrat of "palling around with terrorists", the campaign today shifted focus from Obama's connections to the candidate himself.

Palin meanwhile emerged as the Republican's lead attack dog. The vice-presidential candidate was scheduled to address three rallies.

In the first of two appearances in northern Florida, a vote-rich battleground state where the Republicans are struggling to remain in contention, Palin also re-directed her attack from Obama's association with the 60s era radical Bill Ayers to Obama himself.

"You mean he didn't know that he had launched his own political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?" Palin asked a rally in Jacksonville.

"This election is about the truthfulness and judgment needed in our next president," she said. "John McCain has it and Barack Obama doesn't."

Palin was also scheduled to appear in North Carolina tomorrow.

The last Democrat to win North Carolina in a presidential election was Jimmy Carter in 1976. But an aggressive push by Obama, who spent time there preparing for the debate, and invested resources in voter registration, has put McCain on the defensive.

Today's polls showed the two virtually tied in the state, with Obama on 49% and McCain on 48%.