Just before Lehman Brothers collapsed and started the Wall Street debacle, McCain held a very slight lead in the polls. Immediately afterwards, the race became more of a referendum on the Bush Administration and Obama moved ahead. The stability of Obama’s advantage in recent weeks suggests that it will be difficult for McCain to change the dynamic before the results are finally set in stone.
For the past eleven days, Obama has been at the 50% or 51% level of support every day in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. During those same eleven days, McCain has been at 45% or 46% every day and the gap between the candidates has stayed between four and six percentage points.
Electoral College projections now show Obama leading 260-163. When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 286-174.
Politco shows Obama leading in all but one swing state, but some of the bigger ones are within 3%.
Election Projection has Obama 364, McCain 174, but shows some slight movement toward McCain since last week:
The 3BlueDudes average of many polls has Obama with 286 ECs to McCain's 166, with 86 toss-up.
Rasmussen uses larger samples, which probably explains why it is more staple than some of the polls we hear on the news. On one national news show this AM, they were talking about an Obama "surge" of late (probably based on the Zogby poll, which shows Obama up by 11%), but Rasmussen is not seeing it.
McCain/Palin only have about a dozen days to turn it around.
Some things which may already be working to narrow the gap:
- Obama's "spread the wealth around" comment.
- Joe's "Obama will be tested within six months" comment.
- Obama's longstanding affiliations with radicals and extremist preachers.
- The fact Obama's tax and spend plans are not feasible
The polls are showing Georgia tightening considerably in October, with one even showing Obama ahead:
The M/P campaign isn't spending any money in GA, but there is significant volunteer effort, of course.
* It's hard to tell from how they spin it on Fox News, but the "spread the wealth around" is just one soundbite extracted from an in-depth, 5-minute long response that Obama gave to "Joe the Plumber". It'd be nice if we could have an actual conversation about that response and Obama's actual tax policy instead of continuing the idiotic argument over whether raising the top tax bracket rate by 3% constitutes socialism.
* Pouring over gaffes and tenuous affiliations is not a good way to decide who to lead our country.
* What exactly do you find to be "not feasible" about Obama's plans? Tell me what about the phrase "tax and spend" you find so repulsive? Do you think McCain is going to find a new way to fund our government's activities outside of taxation? Do you think McCain is going to find a new way to use that money besides spending?
Posted by: JohnRose | October 22, 2008 at 12:45 PM