Gallup Daily Tracking: Obama Now Has Leads McCain 52% To 42% Among Likely Voters
A new Gallup Daily tracking poll suggests that perhaps Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s infomercial had some impact: he now leads rival Republican Sen. John McCain by 10 points among likely voters — and has the same lead among “traditional” and “expanded” voters.
Meanwhile, Gallup finds Obama ahead 52% to 41% among registered voters.
But if you think this is definitive, think again: no polls are definitive until the actual Big Poll is cast on election day. And Zogby has a poll saying McCain is gaining. (A Drudge report screaming headline says McCain pulled ahead on Friday, but the link to the Zogby story does not mention that). In the case of Zogby’s findings, the infomercial didn’t work.
Gallup reports:
Barack Obama leads John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviewing conducted Wednesday through Friday by an identical 52% to 42% margin among both traditional likely voters and expanded likely voters. Obama leads by a similar 52% to 41% margin among all registered voters.
This is the first time since Gallup began estimating likely voters in early October that there is no difference between Gallup’s two likely voter models. Obama’s lead of 52% to 42% using Gallup’s traditional estimate of likely voting criteria takes into account past voting as well as current intentions. Obama’s identical lead using the expanded model takes into account only current voting intentions.
Gallup notes:”. The average Obama lead over McCain among traditional likely voters since Oct. 6 has been five points, but that lead has expanded over the last several day’s reports, and Obama’s current 52-42% lead among this group is the largest to date.”
Meanwhile, Zogby contends the trending is now going in the other direction:
Republican John McCain made a small gain against Democrat Barack Obama and has pulled back within the margin of error, now trailing Obama by five points, 49.1% to 44.1%, the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking telephone poll shows.
Almost two days worth of the polling — or about half of the current sample in the three-day rolling poll of likely voters nationwide, was conducted after Obama’s 30-minute commercial aired Wednesday evening. There is no evidence it helped him, as he has dropped 1.1 points in the last two days, while McCain has gained 0.8 points during the same period.
Zogby himself writes:
Is McCain making a move? The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama today, 48% to 47%. He is beginning to cut into Obama’s lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all.
Obama’s lead among women declined, and it looks like it is occurring because McCain is solidifying the support of conservative women, which is something we saw last time McCain picked up in the polls. If McCain has a good day tomorrow, we will eliminate Obama’s good day three days ago, and we could really see some tightening in this rolling average. But for now, hold on.
The only hitch in this kind of analysis is: if a large number of voters are now voting via early voting around the country, doesn’t this make any polling over the next few days incomplete? The impact of last-minute campaigning will be lessened by early voting. Enough Americans may not be voting early for last-minute campaigning to make a difference in the final days, but the efficacy of it should be less than in 2000 or 2004.
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Rambie
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JWeidner
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Rudi
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GlenM2008
