Latest poll : 3% Obama lead A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent. Obama's rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience--an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who'd slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama's reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage. More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. This is a major concern since Obama's outsider credentials, have, in the past, played a large part in his appeal to moderate, swing voters. In the new poll, McCain leads Obama among independents 41 percent to 34 percent, with 25 percent favoring neither candidate. In June's NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama bested McCain among independent voters, 48 percent to 36 percent. Obama's overall decline from the last NEWSWEEK Poll, published June 20, is hard to explain. Many critics questioned whether the Democrat's advantage over McCain was actually as great as the poll suggested, even though a survey taken during a similar time frame by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg showed a similarly large margin. Princeton Survey Research Associates, which conducted the poll for NEWSWEEK, says some of the discrepancy between the two most recent polls may be explained by sampling error. At the time of the last poll, pundits also noted that a large lead in the polls doesn't always guarantee a general-election victory. Many warned that Democrat Michael Dukakis led George H.W. Bush by as much as 16 points in some 1988 polls and then went on to lose that year's presidential contest. But perhaps most puzzling is how McCain could have gained traction in the past month. To date, direct engagement with Obama has not seemed to favor the GOP nominee. McCain has announced major initiatives on energy and the economy but failed to dominate the conversation on those issues. Last week's shake-up of the campaign's senior management did little to halt calls from Republicans for a major overhaul in McCain's message. Nor did it quell the lingering suspicion among Republicans that 2008 is simply destined to be a Democratic year. (Only 28 percent of voters in the new NEWSWEEK Poll approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president.) McCain's biography still appears to be his greatest asset, with 55 percent of voters saying they have a favorable opinion of the Arizona senator, compared to 32 percent who have an unfavorable opinion. (Obama's favorable/unfavorable gap is virtually identical at 56 to 32.) And despite Obama's precipitous decline, the poll suggests underlying strengths for the Dem. Concerns that he would be unable to unite the Democratic Party after the bruising fight against Clinton appear to be unfounded. Only 17 percent of former Clinton supporters say they will vote for McCain in the general election, and 13 percent of undecided voters are former supporters of the New York senator. But 61 percent of registered voters who support Obama say they support him strongly, compared to just 39 percent who say they strongly support McCain. At a similar point in the 2004 presidential race, only 53 percent of supporters of Democratic nominee John Kerry said they supported him strongly. The new poll suggests white voters continue to be a challenge for Obama, with McCain leading the Democrat in that category 48 to 36 percent. Some of Obama's lag in white support may be explained by continual confusion over his religious identity. Twelve percent of voters surveyed said that Obama was sworn in as a United States senator on a Qur'an, while 26 percent believe the Democratic candidate was raised as a Muslim and 39 percent believe he attended an Islamic school as a child growing up in Indonesia. None of these things is true. Finally cracking the code with less-educated whites could have a big payoff for Obama: 85 percent of undecided voters are non-Hispanic whites and only 22 percent of those undecideds have a four-year college degree.
Lol... When Newsweek's 15 point poll came out, Gallup had Obama up by three. Now Gallup has Obama up by six. http://www.gallup.com/poll/108772/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Holds-6Point-Lead-Over-McCain.aspx If you really like polls, go to Real Clear Politics. Although Obama is ahead in almost every single poll, it's July. This means very little. One poll is certainly not worthy of a thread. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html RCP Average 06/26 - 07/10 -- 47.0 42.2 Obama +4.8 Newsweek 07/09 - 07/10 1037 RV 44 41 Obama +3.0 Gallup Tracking 07/08 - 07/10 2661 RV 48 42 Obama +6.0 Rasmussen Tracking 07/08 - 07/10 3000 LV 47 45 Obama +2.0 CNN 06/26 - 06/29 906 RV 50 45 Obama +5.0 McLaughlin (R) 06/26 - 06/29 1000 LV 46 38 Obama +8.0 Pew Research 06/18 - 06/29 1574 RV 48 40 Obama +8.0 Democracy Corps (D) 06/22 - 06/25 2000 LV 49 45 Obama +4.0 Time 06/19 - 06/25 805 RV 47 43 Obama +4.0 LA Times/Bloomberg 06/19 - 06/23 1115 RV 49 37 Obama +12.0 Franklin & Marshall 06/16 - 06/22 1501 RV 42 36 Obama +6.0 Newsweek 06/18 - 06/19 896 RV 51 36 Obama +15.0 FOX News 06/17 - 06/18 900 RV 45 41 Obama +4.0 USA Today/Gallup 06/15 - 06/19 1310 LV 50 44 Obama +6.0 ABC News/Wash Post 06/12 - 06/15 -- 49 45 Obama +4.0 Cook/RT Strategies 06/12 - 06/15 880 RV 44 40 Obama +4.0 Reuters/Zogby 06/12 - 06/14 1113 LV 47 42 Obama +5.0 Ipsos 06/05 - 06/11 -- 50 43 Obama +7.0 NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 06/06 - 06/09 1000 RV 47 41 Obama +6.0 Hotline/FD 06/05 - 06/08 806 RV 44 42 Obama +2.0 IBD/TIPP 06/02 - 06/08 916 RV 43 40 Obama +3.0 CNN 06/04 - 06/05 921 RV 49 46 Obama +3.0 CBS News 05/30 - 06/03 930 RV 48 42 Obama +6.0 USA Today/Gallup 05/30 - 06/01 803 RV 47 44 Obama +3.0
It's going to be a close election. Duh. People predicting a "blowout" are misguided. The only way a "blowout" happens is if McCain's campaign collapses late in the game.
true that. speaking of which, this past week may have been the beginning of the collapse: Mc"same as W" caught double-talking again, this time to a Pittsburgh crowd. Mc"same as W" Viagra moment resonnated when his top surrogate Carly Fiorina contradicted the Senator's position on women's issues Dr. Phil's mental recession remark, and Mc"same as W" won't kick him off his team i'll be interested in what the polls will after factoring this pivotal week of public display of "same as W"ness by the double-talk express from AZ
Ooooo...you sure did put me in my place. When in the hell did you annoint yourself as the arbiter of what is or is not worthy of a thread? I didn't see your royal thread police barking at the seemingly endless "Look at this poll...Obama landslide" threads, or the 15,000,000 Veepstakes threads for Obama (sorry Bats). Yet when somebody posts a poll showing the other side of the coin you laugh at it and tell the OP that it wasn't worthy of a thread. With all due respect...bugger off.
mccain has no chance - the crash on wall street is his death knell. That and the fact that he sucks as a candidate.
With everything going against McCain like it is, why isn't Obama up 10-12 points? The fact that things are "neck-and-neck" despite McCain's sorry campaign leads me to believe this election is destined to be very close, and a gaffe or sudden event in October could tilt things either way.
If this were 1980, I would be inclined to agree with you. The problem in 2008 is that this nation is so fractured that I doubt any national election will be a landslide for quite a time to come.
If this were 1980, Barack Obama would have no chance of being the candidate. The only reason this race will be a "dead heat" is because Barack Obama is black, and some idiots still think he's a Muslim (and still think that being a Muslim, for some reason, is bad). Barack Obama is the most gifted and transcendent politician this generation has seen, running at exactly the right time for a candidate of his political ilk to run, against a 72 year old conservative who supported the war and who also happens to be a dreadfully uninspiring individual. And yet, it's a "dead heat." It all comes down to race.
I predict a landslide for Obama. I practically guarantee a victory for him. I would quantify a landslide, by the way, as over 300 EV's or a 5-6 advantage in popular vote. Given our last two elections, those numbers would equal landslide imo. The Newsweek poll is weird as was their last one as are, frankly, all polls now. Some weight for party ID, some don't. So we get wildly different results. Newsweek, strangely, weighted the Obama +15 poll in favor of Dems and then changed their weighting before this poll. It's no wonder they got very different results. Some of that has to do with the race getting closer, but some of it no doubt has to do with them correcting their previous party ID weighting. The most interesting poll to me today though is the one that puts Obama up by 5 in MO. Which brings me to why I predict an easy victory for him. If Kerry had won Ohio (and their 21 EV's), he'd be president. So it was close. Looking at today's map, Obama easily retains every single Kerry state and leads (barely) in Ohio. But that's not the big news. The big news is that he also leads, is tied, or is competitive in the following Bush states: NM, CO, NV, MT, ND, AK, IA, MO, VA, IN, NC, GA, MS and FL. And, as mentioned, OH. McCain leads, is tied or is competitive in the following Kerry states: NONE. Bush won every single one of the above states in 04. And he still barely won the election. McCain has to retain every single one of the above states to win or he has to win all but one and pick off a Kerry state. It's not going to happen. The Kerry states that were close (MN, WI, etc.) are not battlegrounds this time. Obama's got steady 10+ point leads in them. He also has sizable leads in a lot of the states that Bush barely won last time. And he's competitive in several blowout red states from 04. ND, for example, went Bush by more than 20 points. Obama's tied there. For those that think it will be close, I suggest going to 270towin.com and creating your own map. You'll see how hard it will be for McCain to make this competitive ultimately, barring a major game-changing event. Right now they each have one must win state. For McCain it's Florida. For Obama it's Pennsylvania. I predict they'll both win their must win states. After that, Obama will be 28 votes from victory and McCain will need 78. (And that's after I just went ahead and gave him GA, MS and MO, none of which are sure things for him.) In running simulations on 270towin.com, the rosiest scenario I can see for McCain is to lose 286-252. In that scenario, I gave him almost all the battlegrounds including FL, OH, IN, NC, MS, GA, MO, MT, ND, AK and NV. And I gave Obama IA, NJ, NH, MI, WI, VA, MN, WA and OR. Obama's miles ahead in each of those places besides MI (where he's barely ahead) and VA (where they're tied). Of the states I gave McCain he's losing in some and has tiny leads in others -- in none of these does he have a comfortable lead at all. If you want to predict what's going to happen here, national popular vote polls won't tell you anything. First, they're incredibly unreliable; second the elections decided by EV's. The people who are saying this will be close (or that McCain might win) are obviously not looking at the map.
Batman, your prediction of a win is not much of a reach. We are just wondering about the point spread. My big question is, when the Democratic Party takes power, what will they do with it? Will we see another Presidential term that disintegrates with ineptitude or one that shines brightly as the sun in a New Age dawn?
My "prediction" is not of a win but of a landslide. My virtual guarantee is of a win. And I made a guess above as to the point spread. My EV prediction is 307-231. There are so many states too close to call that several of my guesses are strictly gut feelings and some of them are irrational. I tried to balance that by giving McCain the benefit of the doubt everywhere else. The above prediction gives McCain FL and OH, both of which I think he'll win though Obama's outperforming him in OH polls just because, twice bit, I never want to rely on those states again. I'm also giving him MS (where I think he'll definitely win), GA (which I have a funny, optimistic feeling about), MO, IN, NV and ND (which are all dead tied and that seems to favor O, but I'm giving them to McCain to balance some of my leaps of faith below). I'm giving Obama OR, WA, WI, MN, IA, NJ and NH (each of which is still sometimes listed as a battleground though they are all very solidly blue). Those are no-brainers. I'm going out on a limb and giving him MI (a true toss up), AK (I expect this to be very tight and for Barr to make the difference) and NC (this is the one I'm most likely to be wrong about but I just have a feeling). And then I'm giving him some momentum states - not Obama momentum, but changing demo momentum. He's tied in Virginia and Montana right now. I expect him to take both. Thus, 307-231. Totally a guess, but you have my reasoning for it above. It would not surprise me if Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Alaska, Nevada or North Dakota went the other way. Or even if Florida did. I feel very bullish on PA though. This, for a political junkie, is why the race is so exciting. The electoral maps are where all the action's at. You guys should check them out.
HAHAHAHA!!! Cheetah made funny!! I also posited a very unlikely, very positive scenario in which Obama still wins by twenty-some EV's. And there's not a biased pick in that scenario. In fact, the scenario is biased toward McCain (according to all polls) and he still loses. You're one of those guys who keeps mocking the idea of a blowout and keeps insisting it's going to be close but somehow fails to ever say how. Your main reasoning seems to be "just because" and then you act like anyone who doesn't agree that "just because" is a good reason is an idiot. It's boring. Why don't you post in Major's thread and explain how you think this race is going to be close instead of just repeating the same dull, unsupported stuff?
That's not inconsistent with what I've been saying. My main point is that there is not a credible path to victory for McCain barring a major, unforeseen incident, so those who keep saying it's going to be close are just sort of making that up. I've yet to see any of those people actually post a path to victory for McCain, but in case any of them wants to try, it would start like this: McCain wins 3/4 of Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. If anyone believes he will do that he is living in a fantasy world, but okay. If anyone doesn't believe he will do that, they should stop saying it's going to be close.
Anytime I hear anybody declaring an election over or saying that a candidate has no chance, I always think of this:
In other words, every single race for the rest of time will be a close race regardless of anything and everything because one newspaper got the results of one race wrong. Ref: If you think McCain has a chance to win, go to Major's thread and pick the states he could win to do it.
