Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll: Obama Expands Lead Over McCain To 12 Points
A new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll finds signs that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s base is “cracking” as his rival Democratic Sen. Barack Obama expands his support to carve out a 12 point lead.
Democrat Barack Obama’s lead over Republican rival John McCain has grown to 12 points in the U.S. presidential race, with crucial independent and women voters increasingly moving to his side, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday.
With less than two weeks before the November 4 election, Obama leads McCain 52 percent to 40 percent among likely voters in the latest three-day tracking poll, which had a margin of error of 2.9 points.
Obama has made steady gains over the last four days and has tripled his lead on McCain in the past week of polling.
UPDATE: A new poll also finds Obama is now leading in the big ten Midwest battleground states.
Obama now has a huge lead among young voters, independents, and Hispanic voters. It’s obviously not over. Frankly, this could tighten up and then loosen up again before Election Day. We saw movement on Election Day in New Hampshire, but at least for now, Obama has a very big lead.
What’s happening? According to Zogby one candidate is connecting and one isn’t. And one candidate has been “cool and confident” in a way that paid big voting dividends for two famous Republicans and Democrats who were elected in transformational elections:
In the absence of news, McCain is not connecting. He seemed to be connecting during and immediately after the last debate, but got lost in issues that are not on people’s minds. At some point, there are some issues that just overwhelm, and McCain has been particularly weak on the economy. He misstated the problem, confused his position, acted in a frantic way, and then looked like he wanted to run away from it. Meanwhile, Obama has been cool and confident, which worked for FDR in 1932 and worked for Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Real Clear Politics’ average of polls now has Obama with a 7.2 percent lead.
Meanwhile, Zogby defends (in advance) his recent findings:
I am very comfortable with our sample, especially given our track record in the last three presidential elections. Look at other polls and ask – Do they have enough college educated respondents? Enough Hispanics? Enough young voters? We do. And we have more Republicans in our sample than anyone else.
But there could be more twists and turns….on both sides. Joe Biden’s recent comments about Obama being tested if he wins gave Republicans lots of campaign material about…Biden’s penchant for questionable comments and Obama’s experience. And NBC isn’t done airing its interview with McCain and Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. Will there be some new gaffes in that to create more woes for the McCain campaign?
Cartoon by RJ Matson, Roll Call
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