Today's polls show a slight erosion of Obama's lead on a national level, while non-daily trackers continue to show expanding leads, including a Pew poll opening up a point for Obama to 49-42, as do specific battleground state polls, most notably CO, FL, NM, PA, and VA, where a CNN poll has a nine point Obama lead.
Diageo/Hotline holds an eight point Obama lead, but points out significant advantages in battleground states
Gallup closes up by a point
GWU/Battleground gives up three of the five points it gave Obama yesterday, to a seven point advantage, only 41% call the economy the biggest issue, probably low and certainly works against Obama, whose net favorables are +25 compared with +8 for McCain
Rasmussen closes four points, to tightest in weeks
R2K flat at an 11 point Obama lead
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby widens slightly for Obama, thanks mostly to a 14 point lead among independents--this figure bounces around way too much for comfort
Battleground, despite its general Republican leanings (remember the company was founded by long time GOP pollster Lance Tarrance) and some bizarre survey design quirks, has some interesting things to tell us today, perhaps because of these curiosities. While Obama is only up seven in this poll, we can put some of that down to the fact that only 41% of respondents suggest the economy is the biggest issue facing the country (most polls have that in the 50-65% range), and that's where he consistently scores the best. However, his net favorables are far higher than McCain's, at +25 vs +8, and a similar advantage obtains for the running mates. Additionally, there has been a distinct recent trend which, combined with other information we've seen lately, should be heartening for the Democrat. While part of the McCain campaign's thrust has been to make Obama look like an unknown quantity, that's also provided him an opening to explain to the American people (or not) who he is. As a result, a month ago, the question "thinking a bout what you have heard recently about Barack Obama, are you more or less likely to vote for him" has moved from 47-37 against in the spring to 52-42 in favor. Conversely, while just after the GOP convention McCain was running a slight positive there (48-44), it's now a significant negative at 38-55. And note that this was before last night's debate. 56% said that McCain is running a more negative campaign, compared with only 19% for Obama. Obama ekes out a slight win on "strong leader," a 10 point margin on "shares your values" and "will keep American prosperous," 18 on "fights for people like me," 19 on "will improve the economy," and 20 on "will unite the country" and "will create jobs" and fully 30 points on "will bring change to Washington" and health care. And remember, this is a poll with a consistent relative GOP bias.
The Real Reverse Bradley?
I'm just tossing this out as a possiblity, but could we see the reverse of the Bradley Effect (whether it exists or not) by white people in states where racism is more overt saying they're NOT going to vote for Obama but actually voting their pocketbooks and ethics when they get behind the curtains? There's no poll out there that suggests anything other than that if people are voting on the economy, and over half are, its nothing but an Obama sweep. You'll be able to hear the gears grinding together in the heads of millions...
Instant Polls Show One Surge Is Working
Instant polls after the debate showed the clearest edge to Obama of all three debates. CNN has it 58-31 for Obama, with the illinois senator winning not just on the overall economy and health care, as one would expect, but with a significant advantage on taxes as well. Additionally, 80% of respondents said McCain spent more time on the attack, compared with only 7% saying Obama did. In a year with a "throw the bums out" mentality, it may be significant that 54% said McCain seemed more like a typical politician than Obama, compared with only 35% saying the opposite. Obama won by a large margin in a couple key intangible areas too--by 23% on the question of "stronger leader," a significant change from the beginning of the campaign when McCain was regularly winning polls on the subject by a similar margin, and an unsurprising but still huge 48% on likability. On the oh-so-important washed-up radical issue, 51% said what's-his-name didn't matter at all, while 23% said it mattered a great deal.
CBS' poll of uncommitted voters had even more striking top line results, but was set up a little differently, asking its issues questions about each candidate in a vacuum rather than head-to-head, making direct comparisons between the two tricky. Bottom line, an Obama victory by 53-22, with 25% calling it a tie. Obama's margin of victory has actually increased for each of the three debates, which I believe reflects voters' increasing comfort with a candidate who was not nearly as well recognized as his opponent. Both candidates' scores improved on most of the issues questions, which probably reflects increasing knowledge of both. 68% thought Obama would make the right decisions on health care, while only 20% thought Mc Cain would. On taxes, Obama has a little work to do, with 64% thinking that he would raise theirs; on the other hand, 50% thought McCain would, so the gap is not as large as it might appear. Obama won a significant victory on the economy, with 65% thinking he would make the right decisions, compared with 54% before the debate. McCain also gained in this score, from 38% to 48%, but still lags significantly. Perhaps differently from CNN, more voters thought McCain would handle a crisis better, with 82% trusting him to do so, compared with 63% for Obama. I find this a little curious as McCain's temperament and hot-headedness were consistently remarked on by voters as turning them off. Overall 46% of respondents said their opinion of Obama improved while just 10% said it got worse; 30% said their image of McCain did, though 26% said it declined. Most of the uncommitted voters in this survey, though, remain uncommitted, which could be troubling for the Democratic challenger, although he did make significant inroads, with 30% now saying they would commit to him, compared with 14% for McCain.
Importantly here, 30% of respondents were Republican, but only 22% gave McCain the win. So even if not a single democrat in the poll (just barely possible) said he won, and not a single independent did (utterly impossible), then over a quarter of Republicans could not bring themselves to say that their candidate won. Given that there would have to be some independents who prefer McCain, the number of Republicans dissatisfied with their candidate's performance would probably be well north of 30%.
Survey USA has a poll among independents in California, showing a 55-29 Obama advantage, but it could have been 99-1 McCain and the state would still be blue.
Focus groups also roundly gave the win to Obama, including those on MSNBC and even Fox News, which amusingly refused to say by what margin. Democracy Corps, a Democratic polling organization, also ran focus groups, with undecided voters largely leaning towards McCain (a 20 point net favorable for McCain, compared with 0 for Obama). By a 50%-25% margin, though, they said Obama won, and many of these voters shifted their preference, with Obama holding a 42-20 lead. Voters were turned off by, as we would expect, McCain's "harsh tone, dismissive body language, and many interruptions." Temperament was also once again raised as an issue, with many respondents "shocked at how easily he seemed to lose his composure." Amazingly, Obama's net favorables went from flat (42 positive, 42 negative) to +50 (72% positive, 22% negative) after the debate. This kind of warm feeling can dissipate fairly quickly, though, especially among voters who have not truly made up their minds and may walk into the voting booth that way. Obama needs to seal the deal with these voters in the next few days in order to prevent last minute nerves, whether on racial or other grounds.
This Debate Was Over Before It Started, Double Bind Dept.
Look, Obama won this debate five days ago when he challenged McCain to mention Bill Ayers to his face. Talk about a double-bind. Either McCain says nothing and looks like a coward, or he attacks on Ayers, which a majority of the country thinks is a non-issue. So he attacks, and attacks badly, and the momentum he built up at the beginning of the debate is gone. McCain may have won some points with the idea that if Obama wanted to run against Bush, he should have run four years ago, but he let Obama have the opening to point out that he is running against the Bush economic record because McCain's is indistinguishable. Had McCain been able to parry that, some aspects of the debate may have turned out differently but he didn't, and it didn't. According to one poll, 80% of people thought McCain did next to nothing but attack. And many of the attacks only allowed Obama to respond in a cool and reasoned manner. And when he explained who he associates with, that on the economy he associates with Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker, and on foreign policy with Richard Lugar and General Jim Jones, former NATO Supreme Commander, he did exactly what (and I hate to admit this) Chris Matthews said he needed to do, attack from a position of defense. Obama also turned the Ayers point around by pointing out (you read it here first) that the association between the two related to the Annenberg Challenge Grant, thereby allowing him to work Ronald Reagan's name in on his side. We've talked before about how Obama is channeling The Great Communicator (TM) in his campaign, and McCain gave him the hall pass here. On the issue of the vicious personal attacks ("traitor," "kill him") all McCain could do was defend his base, because to repudiate it would have been to repudiate his own running mate, who Obama had brought in by pointing out she said nothing when rally attendees screamed that sort of thing. Then, when given the opportunity to attack Gov. Palin, Obama passed, making himself look above the fray and taking away her ability to defend herself against his dastardly attack on every talk show in the country this morning.
McCain also managed to prove that the pick of a female running mate really wasn't about getting women's votes when he managed to throw the entire gender under the proverbial bus on a question on with many women agree with him. By suggesting in a dismissive manner that women's health was a blind used by the extreme pro-abortion clique, he managed to insult every woman whose health has ever suffered during a pregnancy. Obama, however, discussed abortion like a constitutional law scholar, which of course he actually is, that it comes down to the idea of a constitutional right to privacy, which of course the far right denies. (For the record, if anyone thinks I'm being partisan on this, I swear to you that you can not tell what my personal stance is on abortion from what I'm writing here, even from this disclaimer. You really can't. And I'm not going to tell you either. Unless you ask nicely and bring dessert. Then maybe.) He was also fuzzy on his own health care plan, and it looks like survey respondents' feelings about the senator on the health care issue are responding accordingly.
This is the only time you will ever see the words "Joe The Plumber" in this note. It didn't work. It was annoying when either candidate said it, when McCain mentioned him quite literally 22 times and Obama said "hey, I can talk to you too, Joe." And Joe Sixpack does his own plumbing because he can't afford Joe The Plumber, so when McCain smarmily said "Guess what, Joe, you're rich!" he inadvertently voiced what an awful lot of people who can't afford to call him (and many who can) are thinking. [Thanks for the train of thought, Ken!]
As I write this, McCain is at a rally (ooh, check it out, I'm live blogging!) in Pennsylvania saying once again he is proud of everyone who attends his rallies. That'd be a little chilling in light of the "kill him" comments if it weren't sad and pathetic. He's telling the Joe the Plumber story now, so I'm switching to cartoons.
If You Don't LIve Near Me, You May Not Care. Chris Shays Might.
Survey USA has a poll out this morning showing that Democratic challenger Jim Himes has a 48-45 lead over 10 term incumbent Chris Shays in the 4th Congressional District in CT. This, my home district, has a history of sending liberally-minded Republicans to Congress, and it's been 40 years since we elected a Democrat. Shays is widely (and, I believe correctly) viewed as having been this in 1987 when he first went to Washington after the untimely death of Stew McKinney (who succeeded Lowell Weicker, so we know what a maverick actually is around here), but has been increasingly associated with Bush administration policies over the last four years. Himes is from Greenwich, has a banking background, is very presentable, and has been running an exclusively positive campaign until the last week or so when an ad surfaced showing Shays repeating over and over McCain's line about the economy being fundamentally strong, and that "nobody can deny that." For better or worse, within a few days of that ad running, Himes pulls out into a narrow lead. Make of it what you will. McCain's going to lose Fairfield County by double digits, which isn't helping. Hell, he'll probably lose Greenwich.
The Governor Goes to
Can't close without one ridiculous moment, so here it is. At a rally in New Hampshire, as she was waxing lyrical about the beauty of the scenery and comparing the Granite State to Alaska (where's New Hampshire's oil? There are tax-free liquor stores, though.) She then talked about Dover, where she was, and "other parts of this great Northwest." Applause did not ensue. She also talked about how Red Sox (down 3-1) fans know how to turn an underdog into a victor. Perhaps that line worked, as she used it to good effect last week in Tampa talking to them about Rays fans; Tampa Bay is currently beating Boston 3-1 in the ALCS. One of them is going to turn an underdog into a loser. Humble and lovable Shoeshine Boy was not available for comment. Sweet Polly Purebred, reached via cellphone, pleaded, "Oh where, oh were, has my Underdog gone?" Reports that Sen. McCain was, with the assistance of Riff Raff and Simon Bar Sinister (to whom he bears a striking resemblance), attempting to purloin the Super Energy Pill were unsubstantiated at press time.
OK, that's quite enough. See you tomorrow with polling data that's too early to reflect much of the debate!
John
Underdog Quote Of The Day
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog, It's just little old me [crashing sound], Underdog.
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