John McCain, Barack Obama and the ever-shifting polls

Let's see: It's June 11, election day is Nov. 4, that's just under five months away.... Yep -- time to start watching the polls!

Not really. There will be more lead changes than in a Lakers-Celtics game before this thing is done, but some numbers have cropped up in recent days that are interesting to ponder. First, there are the dueling tracking polls. Gallup today gives Obama a "statistically significant" six-point lead in the national head-to-head matchup, a lead the pollsters describe as "stabilizing" after holding in that neighborhood for a couple of days.

Over at Rasmussen , the lead for Obama is five points, 46% to 41% -- "a slight decline for Obama who had attracted 48% support for each of the preceding three days. For McCain, the results are little changed. For the past week, his support has stayed between 40% and 42%."

So it looks as if Obama still is getting a bit of a bump -- on the back side of it -- from the attention surrounding his sealing of the nomination, a cycle in which McCain didn't get a whole lot of free media time. Now that they're one on one, expect the coverage to balance out more and those numbers to yo-yo.

More interesting is to look at the polls in some of the battleground states, where things are much tighter. In Michigan, Obama has been holding a slight lead within the margin of error, as he has in Wisconsin and Ohio (note, though, that some of these polls are a week or more old). The Obama campaign has made some noise about maybe being able to put Georgia into play. So far, that's not happening.

In the Western states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico? There hasn't been any polling there in at least three weeks, so it's anybody's guess what's going on. But you can usually get a sense of where the campaigns believe the close contests are by where they're spending time and energy. So far, not a lot of either has been happening in the Western states.

-- Scott Martelle

Comments

[toby]

Let me get this straight....

With an incredibly unpopular war, a terribly weak economy and a amazingly low approval of an incumbent Republican President....

And the Democrat candidate is at 46%?!?!?!?!?!?

And no negative ads has yet to be run....

McCain is going to win in a blow out.

[ozzzi]

let me rephrase. in a year where the dems fought a bitter and sometimes very negative primary campaign with mccain slipping under the radar unchallenged, Obama is still ahead of him. wait till hillary's army rejoins us.
obama will win in blow out

[Barzia Tehrani]

Toby,

You forgot to mention, a democratic primary that was just ended. So wait until some of the anger settles down and those Clinton supporters who only looked and heard negatives about Obama realize that they CAN support Obama.

Historically, immediately after the primary session is over (or the last major candidate drops) match up polls always change in the favor of the nominee. This time looking at the polls few weeks ago and today, we don't see a major change. Just a bit. So we are still in the period of wait.

Also talking about Republican's attack ads. This time is a bit different because of what I like to call "the new voting culture", where Anger plays a more role in Voting turnout that anything else. Attack adds sure will change some minds, but creates larger Anger that will bring more people to the polls.

[matt]

Obama has statistically significant leads, and McCain has hardly been subjected to negative ads (obama and clinton have, by the bucketload).

That signals... a republican blowout? Ingenious...

[Darius]

Yeah and that 46% is higher than McCain's 42%. That same 46% beat the vaunted Clinton machine. Obama will trash McCain even more once they step in the same room and debate in September

[DUNCAN STUART]

If a day is a long time in politics, then 5 months is an eternity - and anything can happen. In my lifetime I've seen clear voter trends upset by crime (Muskee was a shoe-in in beat Nixon at one stage before Watergate) death, (RFK) scandal, (GaryHart et al) , voter mood swings (Bush Snr went from loved to loathed faster than he could move his lips on new taxes) as well a hanging chads (Florida and GWB.) It is a bit premature to make predictions based on polls. I'm in the polling business (here in New Zealand) and as we always tell the media and public: Polls do not predict - they reflect.

Taking my professional hat off, I have much respect for McCain, but I hope Obama wins. To me, that would be a sign that America is growing up and fulfilling its own promises.

[JWilson]

Methinks Toby forgets one consideration. Obama, for the last 5 months has been running against two people, where McCain was running against no one. And you think Obama maintaining a tie is a good omen for McCain? Uh... no.

Let's do some math, shall we? Hillary supporters who "would vote for McCain or not at all" - 35%. We know for a fact that historically this number crashes by 75%, but just for fun, let's use 50%, otay? Otay.

This means that roughly 8% of John McCain's current polled support will go bye-bye within about a month or so. Where? To Obama. Hmmm.... let's look at the ol' numeros again here.. and what do we get?

Oh m'gorsh! An Obama blowout! WTF? 57-43? Huh? Electoral college win of 324-214? The biggest victory since Reagan? Wowie Zowie!!!

[Jb]

Hillary's Army have left the Battle Field. When we come back, you may call us the McClinton Army.

[John Randall]

McCain should be creaming Obama right now because the Dem primary was viscious and lasted forever. The fact that McCain is behind even now doesn't bode well for him at all.

Hillary's supporters will come around. Veteran's groups rate Obama much higher than McCain. Obama's supporters are on fire and McCain's are lukewarm.

Everyone will see Obama is much more Presidential than McCain when they get onstage together. Obama by 10% in 3 months. He wears well. McCain doesn't wear well and is running on Iraq. Yeah, that's a winner.

[Domingo Tavella]

Ultimately, what matters it the behavior in the privacy of the voting both. Nobody is proud about being a racist. However, given the sad fact that the majority of voters are white, that a very large fraction of those voters are uneducated, and that the vast majority of uneducated whites are racists, the math does not look good for Obama. This means that in all likelihood McCain will sail to victory and the Halliburtons of the nation will go on cashing in on no-bid reconstruction contracts, this time, presumably, in Iran...

[Beamer]

I wonder who they are asking. I really believe that most american know that McCain has nothing new to offer, tax cuts for corporation, Continuting the war and squeezing the poor. We can't afford another four years of republican rule. Racist or not, you still have to feed your families, fight high oil prices and beyond high medical cost. We know the republican don't have an answer, may as well give the dems a shot at it.

[Nina]

When America sees the first televised debate between Obama and McCain, the polls will begin to show Obama ahead by double-digits.

It will be reminiscient of the Kennedy/Nixon blow-out.