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Obama taking back lead in polls

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Poll Finds McCain, in Tight Race, Is Still Tied to Bush By ROBIN TONER and ADAM NAGOURNEY WASHINGTON � Despite an intense effort to distance himself from the way his party has done business in Washington, Senator John McCain is seen by voters as far less likely to bring change to Washington than Senator Barack Obama. Mr. McCain is widely viewed as a �typical Republican� who would continue or expand President Bush�s policies, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. Polls taken after the Republican convention suggested that Mr. McCain had enjoyed a surge of support � particularly among white women after his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate � but the latest poll indicates �the Palin effect� was, at least so far, a limited burst of interest. The contest appears to be roughly where it was before the two conventions and before the vice presidential selections: Mr. Obama has the support of 48 percent of registered voters, compared with 43 percent for Mr. McCain, a difference within the poll�s margin of sampling error, and statistically unchanged from the tally in the last New York Times/CBS News Poll in mid-August. The poll showed Mr. McCain had some enduring strengths, including a substantial advantage over Mr. Obama as a potential commander in chief. And it found that for the first time, 50 percent of those surveyed in the Times/CBS News Poll said they considered the troop buildup in Iraq � a policy that Mr. McCain championed from the start � has made things better there. The poll also underlined the extent to which Mr. McCain�s convention � and his selection of Ms. Palin � had excited Republican base voters about his candidacy, a development that is no small thing in a contest that continues to be so tight: 47 percent of Mr. McCain�s supporters described themselves as enthused about the Republican party�s presidential ticket, almost twice what it was before the conventions. As often happens at this time of year, partisans are coalescing around their party�s nominees and independents are increasingly the battleground. But the Times/CBS News poll suggested that Ms. Palin�s selection has, to date, helped Mr. McCain only among Republican base voters; there was no evidence of significantly increased support for him among female voters in general. White women are evenly divided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama; before the conventions, Mr. McCain led Mr. Obama among white women by a margin of 44 percent to 37 percent. By contrast, at this point in the 2004 campaign, President Bush was leading Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic challenger, by 56 percent to 37 percent among white women. The latest Times/CBS nationwide telephone poll was taken Friday through Tuesday with 1,133 adults, including 1,004 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for all respondents and for registered voters. Among other groups, Mr. Obama had a slight edge among independents, and a 16 percentage-point lead among voters aged 18 to 44. Mr. McCain was leading by 17 points among white men and by the same margin among voters 65 and over. Before the convention, voters aged 65 and older were closely divided. In the latest poll, middle-aged voters � 45 to 64 � were almost evenly divided between the two. The poll was taken during a period of extraordinary turmoil on Wall Street. By overwhelming numbers, Americans said the economy was the top issue affecting their vote decision and they continued to express deep pessimism about the nation�s economic future. They continued to express greater confidence in Mr. Obama�s ability to manage the economy, even as Mr. McCain has aggressively sought to raise doubts about it. This poll found evidence of concern about Ms. Palin�s qualifications to be president, particularly compared to those of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Mr. Obama�s choice for a running mate. More than 6 in 10 of those surveyed said they would be concerned if Mr. McCain could not finish his term and Ms. Palin had to take over. In contrast, two-thirds of voters surveyed said Mr. Biden would be qualified to take over for Mr. Obama, a figure that cut across party lines. And 75 percent said they thought Mr. McCain had picked Mrs. Palin more to help him win the election, rather than because he thought that she was well-qualified to be president. By contrast, 31 percent said they thought that Mr. Obama picked Mr. Biden more to help him win the election, while 57 percent said it was because he thought Mr. Biden was well-qualified for the job. This poll was the taken right after Mrs. Palin sat down for a series of high-profile interviews with Charles Gibson on ABC News. Over the last two weeks, Mr. McCain has increasingly tried to distance himself from his party and President Bush, running as an outsider against Washington. The poll suggested the urgency of Mr. McCain�s task: The percentage of Americans who disapprove of the way Mr. Bush is conducting his job, 68 percent, is as high as it has been for any sitting president in the history of polling by The New York Times. And 81 percent said the country is heading in the wrong direction. The poll found that 46 percent of voters thought Mr. McCain would continue Mr. Bush�s policies, while 22 percent said he would be more conservative than Mr. Bush. (About one quarter said a McCain presidency would be less conservative than Mr. Bush�s.) And at a time when Mr. McCain has tried to appeal to independent voters by separating himself from his party, notably with his convention speech, 57 percent of all voters said they viewed him as a typical Republican, compared with 40 percent who said he was a different kind of Republican. ....................... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/u...ics/18poll.html

So much for McCain's bounce, Obama has been gaining ground for a while now.



Gallup has Obama 47%, McCain 45% but I don't trust them anymore since they apparently inflated McCain's initial convention bounce to make headlines.

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In other words, Gallup is admitting the following: 1. At the time it released the September 8th poll (showing McCain up by 10), it believed institutionally that likely voter results were less accurate than registered voter results. 2. Likely voter results have only occasionally diverged from the registered voter results. 3. Despite these facts, Gallup deliberately chose to release, to the widest fanfare possible, a poll using an admittedly less accurate method (the likely voter method) at the time of McCain's maximum convention bounce, knowing that it would show a large divergence (+10 for McCain vs. only +4 with registered voters) based on the likely voter method, even though such a divergence is not often present. 4. In short, they combined all possible factors in McCain's favor to make his lead seem as big as possible -- and the media went wild with it. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2...5933/788/599244

We'll see what comes of Palin's email account being hacked. See the Armageddon thread for that.

I don't pay too much attention to these gallup polls yet. They'll hold a lot more weight come about 2 weeks before the real polls open. I'm sure they'll be trading off the lead a few more times come november.

You can put stock in polls, but you have to realize what you're putting stock in, which means looking at the polling period (3-5 days prior for the Gallup tracking polls), sample size, sample scope (likely voters/registered voters), and sample demography (proportion of Republicans/Democrats), etc. The more the sample looks like a picture of the expected electorate on Nov. 4 in a particular place, the more accurate the poll.

Gallup tends to make McCain look good because it assumes 50% of voters will be Republican and 50% will be Democrats, when in most states there are more registered Dems. Gallup also underestimates the youth vote (assumes 10% turnout even though it was 16% in 2004 and will surely be higher this year).

Media media media media media media media media

Wait, what electoral college? obama

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov You can put stock in polls, but you have to realize what you're putting stock in, which means looking at the polling period (3-5 days prior for the Gallup tracking polls), sample size, sample scope (likely voters/registered voters), and sample demography (proportion of Republicans/Democrats), etc. The more the sample looks like a picture of the expected electorate on Nov. 4 in a particular place, the more accurate the poll. Gallup tends to make McCain look good because it assumes 50% of voters will be Republican and 50% will be Democrats, when in most states there are more registered Dems. Gallup also underestimates the youth vote (assumes 10% turnout even though it was 16% in 2004 and will surely be higher this year).

Thanks for the info. on that Lebezniatnikov. So the gallup polls in themselves are flawed then, you're saying?

Another question is though, can you really put stock in these polls yet? There are quite a few undecided voters still to be considered, and we haven't even begun the presidential debates yet. Who knows what dirt either candidate could pull out on the other as well, that could get some voters to swing from one candidate to the other.

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Originally posted by cmay119 Thanks for the info. on that Lebezniatnikov. So the gallup polls in themselves are flawed then, you're saying? Another question is though, can you really put stock in these polls yet? There are quite a few undecided voters still to be considered, and we haven't even begun the presidential debates yet. Who knows what dirt either candidate could pull out on the other as well, that could get some voters to swing from one candidate to the other.

Well, the polls are useful in tracking trends... so over the last two weeks we saw momentum swing from Obama to McCain and back to Obama. They're also useful to look at the demographic data - for instance, the latest Gallup tracking poll has white women going for Obama 53-47 or something like that - pretty powerful evidence that Palin's influence is wearing off.

As for whether they are more or less accurate far from an election, it depends on how you look at it. Any poll is just a snapshot in time - things obviously change between now and the election. The Gallup polls mostly just reflect how people would vote if the election were today (and the electorate were only composed of the proportion of people polled). I think they would perhaps be more useful if they were proportional to the number of registered voters - meaning: that instead of using 50% democrats and 50% republicans, the people polled reflected the actual breakdown in the state. That would show real gains for Obama since the Democratic voter registration drive this cycle has been pretty unprecedented, even in places like North Carolina and Virginia.

There are also surprisingly few undecideds this cycle. For all the talk by McCain and Obama about how this is a super-important election and all that, people seem to be listening. It may just be a result of how long the campaigns have been in the news, but most polls only show 5-6% undecided... and some of those people may never make up their minds and stay home, or some may vote for a 3rd party. The campaigns are more or less competing for the undecideds at this point, but those are the most difficult voters to predict voting behavior.

So to answer your question, polls can be very useful if you use them for purposes other than predicting the final result.

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Star/WTHR poll: It's close in Indiana Poll finds Obama has a fragile edge on McCain, 47% to 44%

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.d...WS0502/80917076

INDIANA!!!!

Kerry lost by like 20 there!

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.d...WS0502/80917076 INDIANA!!!! Kerry lost by like 20 there!

Do you think the election will come down to the count in Florida again this year?

Thanks for the explanation on the gallup polls. I think I understand it quite a bit better now.

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Originally posted by cmay119 Do you think the election will come down to the count in Florida again this year? Thanks for the explanation on the gallup polls. I think I understand it quite a bit better now.

Honestly, I think the Obama campaign should have been willing to concede Florida. The electoral map has changed considerably enough that Florida has become superfluous. All Obama needs to do is win Ohio or some combination of two of the following: Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa. Those all voted Bush in 2004, but are all polling in favor of Obama at this particular moment in time.

Obama has to keep Michigan and New Hampshire, of course, but recent polls don't indicate much of a problem there either - and recent voter registration indicates that Pennsylvania should be locked up as well.

edit: obviously Obama's people know something I don't know, because they're committing to pouring $39 million in advertisements in Florida alone between now and the election - the largest single-state buy in history. So in addition to the states they're playing ball in above, they think they can win Florida. A win there would equal an electoral landslide.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov edit: obviously Obama's people know something I don't know, because they're committing to pouring $39 million in advertisements in Florida alone between now and the election - the largest single-state buy in history. So in addition to the states they're playing ball in above, they think they can win Florida. A win there would equal an electoral landslide.

wow.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov edit: obviously Obama's people know something I don't know, because they're committing to pouring $39 million in advertisements in Florida alone between now and the election - the largest single-state buy in history. So in addition to the states they're playing ball in above, they think they can win Florida. A win there would equal an electoral landslide.

Risky business. I hope it works out for him, instead of shooting himself in the foot.

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Originally posted by cmay119 Risky business. I hope it works out for him, instead of shooting himself in the foot.

If Florida is in play then Obama doesn't need to win it for it to be useful to him. All he needs to do is force McCain to spend money there and that's less money that he can afford to spend in genuine swing states like VA and OH. Obama has a huge cash and organisational advantage that we haven't really seen him exploit yet, but will doubtless be important in the closing weeks of the campaign.

As for polls, don't worry about raw numbers (which don't really mean a lot this far out) worry about trends:



I think the convention bounce is wearing off (as is Sarah Palin's popularity - down about 10-15 points in the space of a week, the opposite of what normally happens when the electorate gets to know a previously unknown candidate) and we're steering back into senisible numbers again. Polls over the next couple of weeks - unencumbered by conventions and VP announcements - should be telling.

After the market crisis the past few days, the election is going to shift again. Obama has an ad out where he is talking to the camera about the challenges we're facing and a need to get back to the issues. People are becoming increasingly worried about the economy, reminded of the failures of Bush, and are looking for leadership. McCain is also paying for a campaign that is increasingly negative and just downright smears.

The debates are going to throw the issues into the forefront of the campaign. Does anyone think Palin is going to be able to address them intelligently? McCain can't win a campaign on the issues and with the media's renewed interest at correcting him, he doesn't have much else to run on.

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Originally posted by josh4 After the market crisis the past few days, the election is going to shift again. Obama has an ad out where he is talking to the camera about the challenges we're facing and a need to get back to the issues. People are becoming increasingly worried about the economy, reminded of the failures of Bush, and are looking for leadership. McCain is also paying for a campaign that is increasingly negative and just downright smears. The debates are going to throw the issues into the forefront of the campaign. Does anyone think Palin is going to be able to address them intelligently? McCain can't win a campaign on the issues and with the media's renewed interest at correcting him, he doesn't have much else to run on.

Obama aired more negative ads last week: Washington Post---> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/th...tive_ads_s.html

McCain put out the same type of ad a few days ago about getting back to the issues... so what?

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Originally posted by The17sss Obama aired more negative ads last week: Washington Post---> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/th...tive_ads_s.html McCain put out the same type of ad a few days ago about getting back to the issues... so what?

His "issue" is just a statement saying he's taken on worse people than Wall Street before... he's offered absolutely no substantive plan on the economy.

*ahem*

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Here's the long and short of it for John McCain: Barack Obama has as large a lead in the election as he's held all year.

"It's split"

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Originally posted by josh4 "It's split"

I was at that earlier today. Fox is such a joke it's almost not even funny.

I'm so sick of this election already. When you go vote it's like choosing between stepping in front of a fast moving bus or a fast moving train. The democrats have a junior senator with no experience plus an assclown blowhard idiot as his running mate. The republicans have a guy with plenty of experience but is so old he could drop dead any second and he takes a clueless dunce with just as little experience as Obama for his VP.

Can't we somehow press the reset button on this shit and start over?

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Originally posted by XaNaX and he takes a clueless dunce with just as little experience as Obama for his VP.

Please don't even attempt to compare the two of them.

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Originally posted by Trancer-X I was at that earlier today. Fox is such a joke it's almost not even funny.

I love the old lady in the back of the room who slaps her husbands arm down when he says he's voting for McCain.

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Originally posted by UWM Please don't even attempt to compare the two of them.

I wasn't comparing them, I was comparing the fact that I don't think either of them has the experience required to be president.

I may end up going with Obama as the lesser of two evils though. If he surrounds himself with a quality cabinet with experienced people to advise him I think that would be better than Palin the "maverick" attempting to do things her way

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Originally posted by XaNaX I wasn't comparing them, I was comparing the fact that I don't think either of them has the experience required to be president. I may end up going with Obama as the lesser of two evils though. If he surrounds himself with a quality cabinet with experienced people to advise him I think that would be better than Palin the "maverick" attempting to do things her way

This begs an interesting question:

Is experience a line on the resume, or is experience the ability to think intellectually and pragmatically about issues of importance?

In my opinion Obama is one of the most qualified candidates we've had in a very long time.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov This begs an interesting question: Is experience a line on the resume, or is experience the ability to think intellectually and pragmatically about issues of importance? In my opinion Obama is one of the most qualified candidates we've had in a very long time.

I think the ability to think intellectually and pragmatically about issues is certainly a requirement for being qualified for the presidency. However, having that ability is not a substitute for having executive level leadership experience in challenging situations. When tough decisions have to be made quickly, having the experience of making those types of decisions in the past to fall back on and draw from is critical.

In my opinion, as far as political experience goes being a multi-term governor for a large (population-wise not necessarily land area) state is the best prior experience you can have when becoming President. A close runner up would be a long serving multi-term (3+) Senator that has held leadership positions in major committees. Third would be a Senator with at least two terms or Representative with at least four terms or less time in one of those legislative bodies with prior high ranking military service (Brigadier General or higher). People with this kind of experience have been around long enough that you "know" them and their governing style, and you know what they stand for. They also have a long term record in office that can be looked at to see how skilled a leader they are. When someone has that kind of experience I feel comfortable that they will know what to do as President when problems arise.

Unfortunately, for me Obama's level of experience doesn't make me feel comfortable. He is a first term Senator and, let's be honest here, of the three and a half years he has been in office he has been focused on his presidential campaign for the last two of those. As a result, he has missed 303 of the Senate votes (46.3%) since he took office. Yes, I know McCain has missed more votes this term, but he has also been in Congress since 1986. I'm sorry, but this record along with an absence of prior high ranking military service or even a high ranking position at a major corporation leaves me with way too many questions about his ability to lead. Yes I know he had a few terms as a state Senator, sorry I don't put much stock in that experience.

Unfortunately I feel McCain has shot himself in the foot by choosing Palin. While I have no questions about McCain having the necessary experience what I do question is if he will drop dead in office on us. Yes I know he has a clean bill of health, but he is at that age where I have known several people who were "healthy" who dropped dead of a heart attack or developed a terminal illness suddenly. While Palin generated significant short-term interest in McCain's campaign I think he foolishly traded that short term bounce for long term stability. McCain has been all over Obama's lack of experience and what does he do? He runs out and hitches his wagon to someone who is just as inexperienced as Obama but who, and this is just my gut feeling, doesn't possess the personal qualities needed to be President. For me McCain went from being the ticket that stood for experience and stability to the ticket of "holy fuck I hope he doesn't die in office". Not a good move on his part.

I feel that Obama does possess those personal qualities needed to be President that someone like Palin lacks. I just think it was unfortunate that a desperate Democratic party has thrust him into the presidential race too soon. If he had two terms in the Senate under his belt I wouldn't think twice about voting for him. This should have been an easy election for the Democrats to win given Bush's approval ratings and the general distaste in the mouth of Americans for him and by proxy his party. Obama is the Democrat's trump card and they have played him too soon.

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