I have largely ignored blogging the “horse race” to this point, and this post hardly constitutes a full-blown look at all the numbers. Still, I have been watching, and note in particular that the Gallup Daily tracking poll has Obama with a 6-point lead, after two days of 8-point leads. Given the poll’s 2% margin of error, these are important leads for Obama at the moment. The poll is of registered voters, not likely voters, and therefore should be interpreted in that light.
The last three days in particular strikes me as a noteworthy period of time, as it encompasses response to the debates, response to the financial crisis and response to McCain’s suspension/unsuspension of his campaign. At a minimum, the numbers tend to indicate that a) McCain was not able to gain from the debate, b) that Obama has the edge in regards to the financial crisis, and c) that McCain’s suspension maneuver did not work. Granted, one cannot say any of those things with great authority based on the numbers, as one set of numbers does not provide specific responses to specific events. Still, in general, it is a reasonable set of observations to make, especially given that the two candidates were tied in the poll right before the debates and the suspension.
Going beyond Gallup, the RCP average has Obama at +5.1% nationally, with only the Battleground track poll giving him a number lower than +5% (Battleground has it at 2%).
September 30th, 2024 at 8:29 pm
Regarding the Battleground poll, it might be of interest to note that, until today, they had a McCain lead of 2 points in a stark contrast to every single other poll, which had an average of about 5 points leading for Obama.
I’ve been trying to find some information on the sampling used for this poll, but I haven’t found anything yet.