by Frank James
Sen. Barack Obama's lead in Gallup's tracking poll has increased a percentage point to 52 percent versus 41 percent for Sen. John McCain.
This is how Gallup reports it:
These results, based on Oct. 5-7 polling, are the best for Obama during the campaign, both in terms of his share of the vote and the size of his lead over McCain. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
Nearly all interviews in today's report were conducted before Tuesday night's town hall style debate in Nashville. Any movement in voter preferences as a result of this debate will be apparent in coming days.
Voter preferences seem to have stabilized for the moment, as Obama has held a double-digit lead over McCain in each of the last three individual nights of polling.
Concern about the economy seems to be playing to Obama's advantage; he overtook McCain when the financial crisis worsened in the middle of September, and his strong showing today coincides with the worst rating of the economy this year (59% of Americans describe current economic conditions as "poor"). -- Jeff Jones
The curves for Obama and McCain are really starting to get a lot of daylight between them which is obviously a growing problem for the McCain camp.
Karl Rove recently wrote this in Newsweek:
But the race is tight, no candidate can get above 50 percent for more than a day or two, and it is likely to stay close right to the end.
If the current trend continues, Rove's statement will no longer be operative.
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Comments
McCain can thank his choice of Palin for most of his loss..Send her home..
Posted by: Randollph | October 8, 2008 2:15 PM
The (Wisconsin Advertising) project ranked 100 percent of McCain's ads last week as "negative," compared to a third of Obama's." When you can't point out anything positive in your own campaign, your only option is to resort to Swift-boating the opposition.
Posted by: Kenneth Janowski | October 8, 2008 2:45 PM
The Zogby poll of LIKELY voters today shows that McCain-Palin have closed the gap to 2 points, 47-45. Gallup is a poll of "registered," voters, about 55 percent of whom never bother to vote. Question: Why doesn't the Swamp report polls not favorable to their sunshine guy? You're only deceiving yourself, not those of us who do look at other media. Perhaps Swamp editors should try that sometime.
Posted by: Andrea | October 8, 2008 3:29 PM
You're only deceiving yourself, not those of us who do look at other media. Perhaps Swamp editors should try that sometime.
Posted by: Andrea | October 8, 2008 3:29 PM
I highly recommend Faux News. There, McBush won both debates 80-20. A great place for you to decieve yourself.
Posted by: bill"Hussein" r. | October 8, 2008 3:48 PM
The Zogby poll of LIKELY voters today shows that McCain-Palin have closed the gap to 2 points, 47-45. Gallup is a poll of "registered," voters, about 55 percent of whom never bother to vote. Question: Why doesn't the Swamp report polls not favorable to their sunshine guy? You're only deceiving yourself, not those of us who do look at other media. Perhaps Swamp editors should try that sometime.
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zogby's polls are also notoriously off the mark. plus, he's a dem pollster the republicans usually demonize.
i cannot imagine that the race is as lopsided as gallup's poll indicates, but rasmussen has had obama at 50-52% and mccain at 44-46% for something like 9 days straight now.
still, it ain't over till it's over and all that.
Posted by: Matthew RM | October 8, 2008 4:00 PM
This isn't even counting that numerous amounts of young people without home land lines which are mostly voting for OBAMA
Posted by: Natalie | October 8, 2008 4:06 PM
Do you think those young people will show up to vote if there isn't a rock band or movie star outside the polls?
Posted by: vla | October 8, 2008 4:32 PM
The youngsters will come out because they don't want to inherit the world the Bush administration has helped to create.
Posted by: steph | October 8, 2008 4:57 PM
Zogby was the ONLY pollster to get the 2004 presidential election right. Notoriously off the mark? That's the laugh of the day.
Posted by: Danforth | October 8, 2008 5:27 PM
McCain has gained in five tracking polls, yet the swamp chooses this outlier to trumpet. Typical.
Posted by: Jeff | October 8, 2008 5:58 PM
Never underestimate the depth and breadth of racism in rural America and the deep South.
However, MCC's repertoire of mudballs has lost most of its zing. Rev. Wright, Rezko, Ayers--that's beginning to be really old news.
Come on John, tell us something bad we don't already know that makes any difference as our assets depreciate and devalue day by day. Something Rev. Wright did when Barack was 6 years old, perhaps?
Posted by: ornery | October 8, 2008 6:11 PM
Bruce also used to routinely post the RCP poll results when they favored his position.
Not so much anymore.
Poor little cherry picker, running out of places to hide.
Posted by: Bubba | October 8, 2008 9:30 PM