The latest Gallup Daily Tracking poll shows Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama opening a 9 point lead over GOP candidate Sen. John McCain:
The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking poll shows registered voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain for president by 51% to 42%.
The nine percentage point lead in Oct. 4-6 tracking matches Obama’s highest to date for the campaign, and the highest for either candidate. Obama led McCain by 49% to 40% near the tail end of his international trip in late July. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
Obama has now held a statistically significant lead since Sept. 24-26 polling and has not trailed McCain since Sept. 13-15, roughly coinciding with the intensification of the financial crisis.
McCain has an opportunity to try to reverse Obama’s momentum at tonight’s town hall style debate in Nashville.
Two things that will be interesting in future polls by Gallup and others:
1. Is the negative campaigning having a negative or positive impact?
2. Are independent voters continuing to break for Obama or is the new McCain offensive attracting them back to McCain? Or are increasing reports about troubling passions being unleashed by McCain and his Vice Presidential running mate (people at their rallies yelling out that Obama is a “terrorist,” calling to “kill” him, yelling “treason” as Palin speaks about him and calling a black soundman “boy”) that are not being defused by Palin or McCain scaring independent voters and more moderate voters away?
All of the above will make tonight’s high-stakes debate more interesting in this volatile election year.
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.