A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows independent voters are now split with Democratic Senator Barack Obama narrowly leading Republican Senator John McCain among that pivotal group in the Presidential race — a sign that more than ever independent or “swing” voters are up for grabs.
The poll reconfirms what we’ve noted many times in posts on this site: independent voters (and moderates) are not a monolithic blockm but they are vital since they can be the key to a close election. The Post reports:
Buoyed by a public mood favoring Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama begins the general-election campaign holding a narrow advantage over Sen. John McCain, with independent voters emerging as a constituency critical to the Republican’s hopes of winning the presidency in November.
In the first Washington Post-ABC News poll since the Democratic nomination contest ended, Obama and McCain are even among political independents, a shift toward the presumptive Republican nominee over the past month. On the issues, independents see McCain as more credible on fighting terrorism and are split evenly on who is the stronger leader and better on the Iraq war. But on other key attributes and issues — including the economy — Obama has advantages among independents.The presumptive Democratic nominee emerged from his primary-season battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with improved personal ratings overall, but with no appreciable gain in the head-to-head competition with McCain. Majorities view both men favorably, but about twice as many said they have a “strongly favorable” impression of Obama as said so of McCain.
But Obama had better get busy, the Post reports. While 9 in 10 Republicans support McCain, a little less than 8 in 10 Democrats suppport Obama — the residue of a heated primary campaign which left some supporters of Hillary Clinton vowing to work for McCain to defeat Obama.
Obama’s problem remains the former Clinton supporters:
Nearly a quarter of those who said they favored Clinton over Obama for the nomination currently prefer McCain for the general election, virtually unchanged from polls taken before Clinton suspended her campaign.
The poll also underscores how tricky an calculations would be to put Clinton on the ticket as Obama’s Veep:
As Obama considers possible vice presidential running mates, Clinton remains atop the list: Unprompted, 46 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents pick her as their top choice, and no other Democrat breaks out of single digits. But it is unclear from the poll whether Clinton would help or hurt Obama’s chances. About two in 10 said her placement on the ticket would make them more apt to support the Democrats, but about the same proportion said it would push them toward the GOP. Most said it would not make much of a difference either way.
The new survey shows Obama running ahead of McCain by 48 percent to 42 percent among all adults. Among registered voters, the margin is essentially the same — 49 percent to 45 percent. At this point four years ago, Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry held identical leads over President Bush among all adults and among registered voters.
The poll also echoes other polls in suggesting that McCain’s biggest problem is someone named B-u-s-h.
The poll reconfirms a key factor about McCain. For all of the denunciations he received from Bush loyalists and conservative Republicans during the primary campaign, McCain has emerged as perhaps the GOP’s strongest Presidential campaign for 2008 because he appeals to many independent voters. Add the independent voters and former Clinton supporters and McCain can conceivably piece together a winning coalition — except that events and economic trends do not play in his favor. And, especially, neither does the continued reminder of the impact of Republican administration under B-u-s-h.
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.