A new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll finds that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has widened his lead over Republican Sen. John McCain to six points which is outside the margin of error – -the latest in a series of polls showing McCain increasingly trailing the Illinois Senator:
Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama took a step into rarified air this morning, standing for the first time outside the statistical margin of error in a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby likely voter poll. The survey shows him moving into a statistically significant edge of 6.1 percentage points over Republican John McCain in the latest nationwide sample.
The rolling telephone tracking poll, including a sample of 1,206 likely voters collected over the previous three 24-hour periods spanning four calendar days – approximately 400 per 24-hour period from Oct. 8-11, 2008 – shows Obama’s lead growing from the 3.8 percentage points he enjoyed yesterday.
The biggest development of the last 24 hours in terms of the poll was Obama’s strong move among independent voters, where he now leads McCain by 21 percentage points, roughly doubling his support from just the day before. Among Democrats, Obama wins 85% support, while McCain wins 86% support among Republicans. It is an interesting side note that McCain is winning more support from Democrats (10%) than Obama is winning from Republicans (8%), but the edge is insignificant.
Zogby sees Obama also cutting into McCain’s base:
Obama appears to be making inroads to McCain’s political base in other demographic groups. He has tied McCain among men, while he leads by 12 points among women. Among Catholics, the race is essentially tied – McCain leads by a 47% to 45% edge.
Among those who consider themselves members of the investor class, McCain leads by only a 49% to 44% margin. Among non-investors, Obama leads by a 53% to 38% margin.
Those who say they are liberals support Obama by a 83% to 10% over McCain, while McCain leads among conservatives by a 71% to 19% edge.
Meanwhile, Obama is leading among moderates — a group have we have noted here is not monolithic but would be turned off by some of the McCain campaign’s recent strategy:
Among moderates, 62% support Obama, while 33% support McCain. Among military families, the race is essentially a dead heat – McCain leads, 47% to 44% for Obama.
One poll does not a trend make. But the trends are now indeed running against McCain — and the National Journal’s Charlie Cook sees one key factor that is ominous for McCain: one third of America’s voters are voting early this year:
Heading toward the end of the second week of voting in some states — and with as many as one-third of votes nationwide likely to be cast early — this election is settling into a very bad pattern for McCain and the GOP.
What has happened? Veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart, drawing on his latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey and on a focus group he recently conducted in St. Louis for the Annenberg Public Policy Center, wrote to his clients before Tuesday’s debate. “The reason we have reached an important inflection point in this campaign is that the economy is not just another issue being highlighted, but the issue in voters’ personal lives,” he told them.
The heightened economic and credit crisis has effectively changed the venue of this election to turf that is virtually unwinnable for a Republican presidential candidate. If voters are focused on the economy going into Election Day, the outcome will almost certainly favor Democrats. But Hart also said that if the public’s priority ends up being national security, Republicans not only could, but probably would, win.
“John McCain has lost control of the economic issue, and the debate over the financial crisis has made voters doubt him,” Hart wrote. “The economy is overwhelming all other issues.” He noted that 59 percent of voters cite economic issues as their greatest area of concern and that “these voters who consider economic issues most important are voting for Obama by 15 points. Also, McCain’s handling of the financial crisis has made voters feel less reassured about him — 25 percent more reassured, 38 percent less.”
In other words: If there is some big foreign crisis or a domestic terrorist attack, it could change the outlook and the conventional wisdom. If the government issues terrorism alerts close to the election, however, it might not reverse the situation due to cynicism among some Americans (most progressives, many Democrats and some independent voters) over the timing of such alerts issued close to elections in the past.
But Cook sees another factor: Obama has been helped by the debates because voters could see him stand next to McCain and judge for themselves, versus reading and or watching media coverage, reading politically-anchored weblogs or listen to left and right talk radio:
Another important dynamic in recent weeks is that Obama, through his first debate performance, seems to have cleared a threshold, much as Ronald Reagan did in his October 28, 1980, debate with President Carter. In that encounter, Reagan took advantage of voters’ animosity toward the incumbent and his party. The former California governor went on to ride a wave of change that had eluded him until a sufficient number of voters felt comfortable with the idea of his being president.
Reagan’s background as an actor and his lack of congressional, Cabinet, or national security experience had given voters pause, but the debate allowed him to clear that hurdle. For Obama, his relative youth and lack of national experience, as well as his race, had worked against him until he projected a high level of intelligence and knowledge about issues in the first debate. He was also confident, poised, and sufficiently tough to persuade enough recalcitrant Democratic and independent voters to join ranks behind him. That’s when he began to pull away in the polls.
Here’s a quick look at some other polls (which could change later in the day and are polls released yesterday):
*Gallup Daily tracking has Obama retaining a 9 point lead.
Obama has led McCain by close to 10 points for each of the past six days, and by a statistically significant margin of at least four points for more than two weeks. It has been a full month since McCain held a significant lead over Obama, the last time being from Sept. 8-10 when he led with 48% of the vote, to Obama’s 44%.
*Real Clear Politics has Obama ahead 7.5 percent in its average of polls. Here are some of the individual polls it uses:
–Rasmussen: Obama ahead by 6
–Hotline: Obama ahead by 8
–Newsweek has Obama head by 11
–Fox News has Obama ahead by 7
–GW/Battleground has Obama ahead by 8
–Time has Obama ahead by 6
–NBC/Wall Street Journal has Obama ahead by 6
*The Daily Kos Research 2000 poll has Obama ahead by 13 points.
Pollster.com’s composite poll now has Obama at 50 percent:
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It’s noteworthy that these are all outside the margin of error — but that this campaign has shifted and re-shifted quickly. The McCain campaign is now pulling back from some of its rhetoric that brought widespread condemnations not just from Democrats and independents but from some Republicans as well.
Some reports have suggested McCain is at odds with Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin over negative and what many consider demonizing rhetoric. And Palin remains controversial and got a mix of hearty boos as well as cheers appearing at a Philly hockey game.
But those who suggest the McCain campaign will now return almost exclusively to economic and other policy issues could be judging the fluid situation too hastily: the GOP is now hoping the ACORN issue will prove to be a potent character issue against Obama.
But will it matter this close to the election — when there are no signs that Wall Street will suddenly be booming?
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.