The 2008 Presidential race is now officially off to its two-ticket start — and it’s now officially potentially as close a race as 2000 and 2004 with the latest Gallup Daily tracking poll now putting Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain three points ahead of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama:
The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update shows John McCain moving ahead of Barack Obama, 48% to 45%, when registered voters are asked for whom they would vote if the presidential election were held today.
These results are based on Sept. 4-6 interviewing, and include two full days of polling after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention last Thursday night. McCain has outpolled Obama on both Friday and Saturday, and is receiving a convention bounce just as Obama did last week.
And it’s a record number for McCain in this poll:
McCain’s 48% share of the vote ties for his largest since Gallup tracking began in early March. He registered the same level of support in early May. This is also McCain’s largest advantage over Obama since early May, when he led by as much as six percentage points. Obama has led McCain for most of the campaign, and for nearly all of the time since clinching the Democratic nomination in early June.
Meanwhile, Rasmussen has the race at a dead heat — with McCain now getting more support from Republicans than Obama is getting from Democrats:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday, September 7, shows the race for the White House is tied.
In the first national polling results based entirely on interviews conducted after Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech, Barack Obama gets 46% of the vote and so does John McCain. When “leaners” are included, it’s all even at 48%.
…McCain earns the vote from 89% of Republicans while Obama is supported by 81% of Democrats. McCain also manages to attract 15% of Democrats while Obama gets 9% of the Republican vote. Voters not affiliated with either major party remain fairly evenly divided between the two men.
Once again: it’s a sharply-divided nation with independent voters (and some displeased Democrats) who’ll be aggressively wooed by both campaigns.
See this earlier post on the changing campaign dynamics.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.