USA Today/Gallup Poll: Debate Boosted Obama, Not McCain
October 09, 2008 12:38 PM

USA Today's 'On Politics' Blog reports: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama convinced many more viewers to think more favorably of him during Tuesday night's presidential debate than did his Republican opponent, John McCain, a new USA Today/Gallup Poll signals.

While 53% of the 735 people surveyed said their opinions of Obama had not changed, 34% said they thought more favorably of him and 12% viewed him less favorably. All 735 said they had watched the debate.

The reactions to McCain were almost mirror The reactions to McCain were almost mirror opposites: 54% said their opinions about him had not changed, 33% felt less favorable and 12% felt more favorable.

The poll also shows that among those surveyed, 56% thought Obama did the "better job" at the debate, to 23% who said that about McCain. Fifteen percent said the candidates' performances were "equal."

The national telephone survey was done last night (Oct. 8). Gallup says the margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/usa-todaygallup.html

Twenty-Four Days

October 11, 2008-Saturday Morning Status Report (10/11)By Mark Blumenthal

Although the pace of new statewide polls slowed a bit yesterday, the latest releases indicate no change in the overall status of the race for President. Obama and Biden continue to hold a strong lead McCain and Palin nationally and within the states necessary to win an electoral college majority.

We logged new surveys from four Southern states (Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama) as well as three from the midwest (Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa). All of these new statewide polls tracked results from September, and 7 of 8 showed net movement to the Democrats.

The impact of the new surveys on our trend estimates in the battleground states was mostly negligible. The new surveys slightly added to Obama's lead in Ohio and Wisconsin, moved it one tenth of a point in McCain's direction in Florida and changed the margin not at all in North Carolina, the state now showing the closest contest in the nation.

Obama's lead on the national trend estimate (+8.2 as of this writing) is as strong as we have seen this year, although roughly the same level logged at about this time last week. The new tracking polls (which we compare, in the first table below, to the previous non-overlapping release from each pollster) also show movement uniformly in the Democratic direction. Since this update captures the Saturday releases from DailyKos, Rasmussen and Reuters/Zogby, but the Friday releases from the rest, the dates are not entirely comparable. However, the data above suggest continued progress for the Obama-Biden ticket following Tuesday night's debate.

Meanwhile, things have shifted a bit in races for the Senate. A series of new surveys released over the last few days confirm a significant narrowing in Georgia, which we now classify as a toss-up. Republican Saxby Chambliss now leads Democratic challenger Jim Martin on our trend estimate by less than two percentage points (45.3% to 43.5%).

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/mark-blumenthal/

Pizza and Polling

On Pizza and Politics By Mark Blumenthal

Politico's Ben Smith forwarded me this email (and the attached graphic) from one of his readers:

I've attached an image from an online poll that is from, of all places, the Domino's Pizza online ordering interface. After you place your order you can track it's progress, but you can also fill out a little political poll as a diversion. Your answers are then added into a national map (pictured) which has the unique crosstab of which sandwich is everyone's favorite. The funny thing is that percentage wise it's not too far off. I guess I should notify pollster.com.

As he did. Obviously, the Pizza Hut "survey" is not projective and intended for entertainment and marketing purposes only, but it certainly shows that Electoral Vote maps are getting pretty ubiquitous these days.

And I should have it, but as I was writing this item -- literally -- an email dropped into my inbox from a public relations firm representing Domino's sharing the latest round of results" from their "Pizza and Politics" poll, "which garnered 82,400 respondents in week two" (I pasted their press release on the jump for your amusement).

Yesterday, I also got FedEx delivery from the 7Eleven chain with 20 Obama and McCain paper cups, part of the 7Election 2008 promotion. These now adorn Eric's cubicle. Not that we could be bought with the gift of some paper cups, but I'm sure Eric would not complain if Pizza Hut wanted to send over some lunch.

No, we don't take any of this seriously. It just makes us smile. It just means that the election is close and interest in what we do is soaring. As the legendary Jimmy Durante often once said, "everybody wants to get in on the act."

By Mark Blumenthal on October 16, 2008 2:59 PM

Morning Status Update for 10/16By Mark Blumenthal

Before the debates (and the quick reaction surveys released late last night), the flood of new surveys continued, as we logged 22 new statewide polls yesterday, plus three new standalone national polls and the latest updates from the (now) seven daily national trackers. The pattern at the state level remained consistent with we have seen since mid-September. Of the 18 new surveys that track previous results from the same pollster, and 13 show net movement to Obama, 3 to McCain and 2 show no change. Only three of the statewide polls represent updates since early October, and all three show net shifts to the Obama-Biden ticket.

Note for rolling-average tracking polls, that the first table lists the previous non-overlapping sample for each pollster, not the release from the previous day.

The new polls affect our statewide trend estimates in two ways. They nudged the estimates in Obama's direction in six states, including a 1.3 point shift in Virginia that increased the Democrats' margin there to just over five percentage points (51.0% to 45.9%), enough to move Virginia and its 13 electoral votes to the light blue "lean Democrat" category on our map.

Although only three states show movement in McCain's direction, those changes helped shift both Colorado and Florida back from dark blue "strong" to light blue "lean" Democrat status.

The current Obama margin on our national trend estimate has fluttered around over the last few days, but has remained somewhere between 7 and 9 points over last week. Keep in mind that while the forward "tail" of the trend line (a funny sounding term, but I'm not sure what else to call it) tends to jump around as we add new polls, but regression trend line smooths out as we move forward. Charles Franklin sent an update of his "national forces" chart late yesterday and it shows continuing movement over the last week to the Democrats on both the national trend and his mash-up of all state polls.

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/mark-blumenthal/

Race and Obama

By Mark Blumenthal

"Our own Charles Franklin makes a prominent appearance in Ben Smith's Politico piece on some "unlikely" supporters of Barack Obama: "white voters with negative views of African-Americans." The key paragraphs:

“What you see is it’s perfectly possible to hold a negative view of at least one aspect of African-Americans and yet simultaneously prefer Obama,” said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Racial feelings are not as cut and dried — not as black and white — as people often say.”

Franklin explored those contradictions in a large, national survey taken in mid-September, when the Illinois Democratic senator's rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), led in many polls and the nation’s economic woes had not yet produced a deep crisis. The poll asked voters whether they agreed with the statement that “African-Americans often use race as an excuse to justify wrongdoing." About a fifth of white voters said they “strongly agreed.” Yet among those who agreed, 23 percent said they’d be supporting Obama.

“This result is reasonable if you believe that race is not as monolithic an effect as we might easily assume,” Franklin said, noting that 22 percent of those who "strongly disagreed" said they'd be supporting McCain."

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/mark-blumenthal/

Ten Point Edge

Obama Opens Double-Digit Lead
New Poll Shows McCain Ceding Ground on Taxes, Values; Palin Loses Shine

By LAURA MECKLER

"Sen. Barack Obama has opened up a double-digit lead in the presidential race, with a growing number of voters saying they're now comfortable with the Democratic nominee's values, background and ability to serve as commander in chief, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

For months, the race has rested largely on the question of whether voters could get comfortable with Sen. Obama, the first African-American to run on a major party ticket, and one who has been on the national political scene for just a few years. The Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, has worked to stoke concerns about Sen. Obama's past and his qualifications, raising questions about his rival's character and his association with 1960s-era radical William Ayers. "Who is the real Barack Obama?" Sen. McCain has asked at rallies. The new poll suggests that these attacks haven't worked.

Though most voters polled said that Sen. McCain is better prepared for the White House than the first-term senator from Illinois, there are increasing concerns about the readiness of Sen. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Overall, the poll found 52% of voters favor Sen. Obama versus 42% for Sen. McCain. That 10-point lead is up from a six-point Obama edge two weeks ago. The survey of registered voters, conducted from Friday to Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

It's the largest lead in the Journal/NBC poll thus far, and represents a steady climb for Sen. Obama since early September, when the political conventions concluded with the candidates in a statistical tie.

"Voters have reached a comfort level with Barack Obama," said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster who conducts the poll with Republican Neil Newhouse.

That comfort is reflected in the ground gained by Sen. Obama among some important voter groups in the weeks since the financial turmoil hit. The poll finds Sen. Obama now holds a 12-percentage-point advantage with independents, a group both sides have fiercely sought. Two weeks ago, Sen. Obama led this group by just four percentage points. In mid-September, independents favored Sen. McCain by 13 points.

Sen. Obama leads suburban voters by 12 percentage points, up from two points two weeks ago. He leads among older voters, those over 65 years old, by nine points, erasing a one-point McCain advantage from the last poll. And in the Midwest, home to a swath of battleground states, he is now favored by 25 points, up from a one-point advantage.

Some daily tracking polls have found a tighter race between Sens. McCain and Obama in recent days. Real Clear Politics, a Web site that averages major polls, shows Sen. Obama up by 7.2 percentage points. Others have found a larger spread, such as one released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, a nonpartisan research group. That poll found a 14-point advantage for Sen. Obama among registered voters. Many polls also show Sen. McCain lagging in key battleground states, which hold the electoral votes that could decide the race.

Sen. Obama has also eaten into traditional Republican advantages, notably on taxes, despite Sen. McCain's attempts to make the issue a central economic theme of the campaign's closing days. In the mid-September Journal poll, Sen. McCain was favored 41% to 37% when voters were asked which candidate would be "better on taxes." This week's poll found Sen. Obama leading on the issue by 48% to 34%.

That may be partly due to Sen. Obama's argument that Sen. McCain would raise taxes on health-insurance benefits. While Sen. McCain's health plan does raise some taxes, the plan overall represents a net tax cut, according to independent estimates.

More Election Data

Electoral Calculator National, State Polls-

Sen. McCain continues to pound Sen. Obama on taxes daily, adopting "Joe the Plumber" as his campaign's new everyman. Ohio voter Joe Wurzelbacher gained fame after challenging Sen. Obama on his tax plans at a campaign appearance earlier this month. Sen. McCain argues that Sen. Obama's willingness to "spread the wealth around" represents a brand of socialism. He suggests that vast numbers of Americans will see higher taxes, despite Sen. Obama's pledge not to raise them for families earning less than $250,000.

So far, voters don't seem to be persuaded by Sen. McCain's argument. A majority now disagree with the statement: "Barack Obama will raise taxes on middle-income people if he becomes president," with just 40% agreeing.

"Everyone knows Obama's only going to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000, and Joe the Plumber does not make more than $250,000," said Jeff Howard, a 20-year-old student from Bell, Ky., who told pollsters he was voting for Sen. Obama, and said he leans Democratic, but not strongly.

The Final Stretch

In the final stretch, Sen. McCain is also pressing his independence from President George W. Bush, whose job approval is at a record low in this poll. At last week's debate, Sen. McCain told Sen. Obama that he should have run four years ago if he wanted to challenge President Bush, a line he repeats on the trail. But the poll finds nearly six in 10 voters believe Sen. McCain's direction, agenda and policies would be mostly the same as President Bush's, down just slightly from those who said so a month ago.

Sen. Barack Obama has gained with independents, suburbanites and older voters to increase his lead on Sen. John McCain in new polling.
It's a tough year to run as a Republican after eight years of Mr. Bush, said David Axelrod, Sen. Obama's chief strategist. "They're just on the wrong side of history," he said in an interview. "In an election that's all about change he simply doesn't represent it."

Sarah Simmons, the McCain campaign's director of strategy, said, "The environment is challenging, no doubt about it," but added that Sen. Obama has yet to take a lead big enough to ensure a win. Ms. Simmons said Sen. McCain is still viewed favorably by most voters. "That's a good sign for us that this race is far from over," she said.

Sen. Obama appears to be clearing some important thresholds with the electorate. Forty-eight percent of voters now say they would have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in Sen. Obama as commander in chief. That's up from 39%, in August, and just two points shy of Sen. McCain's standing.

Similarly, in July, 47% of all voters said that Sen. Obama had a background and set of values that they could identify with. That figure is now 55% -- just two points shy of Sen. McCain.

"At first, I didn't know who he [Obama] was, and I knew who McCain was, and in that respect, I was leaning toward McCain," said Judy Callanan, 58, of Tuscarora, Md., a payroll manager and registered independent, who told the pollsters she was backing Sen. Obama. "But just listening to Obama talk, he was much more down-to-earth and talked more about things I could relate to."

In a Positive Light

Forty-four percent of voters see Sen. McCain in a positive light, about the same as the last poll two weeks ago. But views of Sen. Obama have grown stronger, with 56% now reporting very or somewhat positive feelings about him.

The one candidate whose popularity has fallen is Gov. Palin: 38% see her positively, down from 44% two weeks ago; 47% see her negatively, up 10 points from the last poll. That's the highest negative rating of the four candidates. Fifty-five percent of voters say Gov. Palin is not qualified to be president if the need arises, up from 50% two weeks ago.

For his part, Sen. McCain holds a distinct edge on the question of experience needed to be an effective president. Asked which candidate is better on knowledge and experience needed to handle the job, 49% picked Sen. McCain and just 27% picked Sen. Obama.

The McCain campaign says it plans to continue pressing the experience question. "There is lingering doubt -- is he ready?" Mike DuHaime, the campaign's political director, said Tuesday.

Independent voters still harbor concerns about Sen. Obama's experience and readiness for the job, Mr. Newhouse, the Republican pollster, noted. But he said these voters have reservations about Gov. Palin's readiness, complicating any effort by the McCain campaign to focus on this issue.

"I don't think Palin is ready to take that office," said Lois Peterson, 83, of St. Peter, Minn., an independent who now favors Sen. Obama. "She doesn't seem very professional."

That point was underscored on Sunday when retired Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Obama, citing, in part, his concerns about Gov. Palin's readiness.

Nineteen percent of voters polled on Sunday and Monday -- halfway through the total polling period -- said the Powell endorsement made them more inclined to support Sen. Obama. The results from this question have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122462257051655701.html

Quinnipiac Obama Leads Big Three

October 23, 2008

Quinnipiac: Obama Leads in Big Three
With 12 days to go, a new Quinnipiac poll finds Sen. John McCain is narrowing the gap in Florida, but fading in Ohio and barely denting Sen. Barack Obama's double-digit lead in Pennsylvania.

Florida: Obama 49%, McCain 44%

Ohio: Obama 52%, McCain 38%

Pennsylvania: Obama 53%, McCain 40%

Said pollster Peter Brown: "As we enter the home stretch, Sen. Obama is winning voter groups that no Democrat has carried in more than four decades, and he holds very solid leads in the big swing states. If these numbers hold up, he could win the biggest Democratic landslide since Lyndon Johnson in 1964."

http://politicalwire.com/

Nine Days...

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Today's Polls, 10/25

With fewer than ten days to go until the election, John McCain is another day older and deeper in the polls:

It is hard to find any trend at all at the national level, although Barack Obama's position improved has incrementally in a couple of the national trackers. Indeed, our model now perceives that the popular vote has been flat for roughly the past two weeks. It seems almost as though voters made their collective decision after the second presidential debate on October 7 -- perhaps Obama's clearest win of the series -- and decided on behalf of the Democrat.

Meanwhile, John McCain is running into some further problems at the state level. In Colorado, a Rocky Mountain News poll now has Barack Obama 12 points ahead; McCain had led by 3 in the RMN poll in August. Obama also leads in two polls out of Ohio; PPP has him ahead by 7, and the University of Cincinnati / Ohio Newspapers Poll, which had shown him trailing by 2 earlier this month, now shows him ahead by 3.

Obama, at least, does not look to be competitive in South Dakota or Arkansas. It will be very difficult for Obama to win more than about 397 electoral votes, which is where he'd end up if he wins all the states where we currently have him favored, plus North Dakota, Montana, Georgia, and Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Obama would have to win West Virginia to break the 400 barrier, and I don't see that happening; the other long shot is Arizona, which hasn't been polled in some time.

John McCain's win percentage is now 4.3 percent, down from 5.1 percent yesterday.

-- Nate Silver at 6:18 PM

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/todays-polls-1025.html

AP Battleground State Poll

Method for AP-GfK Battleground State Polls
October 29th, 2008 @ 4:06am
By The Associated Press

(AP) - The Associated Press-GfK Battleground State Polls on the 2008 presidential, Senate and gubernatorial races in eight contested states were conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media from Oct. 22-26. The polls were conducted by landline telephone with statewide representative random samples of approximately 800 adults, including around 600 likely voters in each state.

The states are Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Likely voters completed the entire questionnaire. The balance of the sample completed a shorter questionnaire.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline numbers. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population's makeup by factors such as age, sex, education, and race.

The margin of sampling error for likely voters in each poll was either plus or minus 3.9 percentage points or plus or minus 4 points. That means no more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than about 4 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in each state were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results for this poll are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=157&sid=4651004

http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com/
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/29/method-for-ap-gfk-battlegrou...

Senate Race Tossup

Coleman 37.2%
Franken 39.4%

http://www.pollster.com/polls/mn/08-mn-sen-ge-cvf.php

Rove's Electoral Map

"Final Rove electoral map sees large Obama win over McCain
Well, the final day before the official presidential voting and the final version of Karl Rove's exclusive national electoral map sees a strong victory for Barack Obama, gaining the most electoral votes since Bill Clinton's lopsided win over Bob Dole in 1996.

According to the research of compiled state polls by Karl Rove & Co., the hypothetical electoral college numbers suggest an Obama win over the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin of 338 electoral votes to 200.

For the final report, Rove has allocated each state to the candidate leading there in state polls today.

According to these calculations, Obama takes hard-fought Florida. But McCain edges ahead in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina.

Rove notes that Obama and McCain are in dead heats in North Carolina and Missouri, but the most recent polls over the weekend show a trend toward the Republican ticket. "Florida, too, could end up in McCain’s column," Rove adds, "since he’s benefited from recent movement in the state." But it's not enough for the Arizona senator to capture the necessary 270.

For an explanation of the research methodology and for a chart showing the study's movements week by week since July 1, click on the Read more line below. The Ticket's appreciation to Rove & Co. for its permission to publish these polls simultaneously throughout the recent hotly contested months.

--Andrew Malcolm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/electoral-map-o.html