Posts with the tag 'Polls'
This has just gotta hurt:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday—the day before the Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin—shows Barack Obama ahead of John McCain by three percentage points both with and without leaners. That’s exactly the same edge Obama enjoyed a week ago on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.
Fireworks, Greco-Roman temple, leg-tingling media coverage…and, nothing.
UPDATE, by Matt Margolis:
Now, I’m not one to give much credence to a poll by CNN, since they always skewed in favor of the Democrats, but when a CNN poll shows that Barack Obama got no bounce from the convention, then that is noteworthy.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday night shows the Obama-Biden ticket leading the McCain-Palin ticket by one point, 49 percent to 48 percent, with the statistical margin of error.
The survey was conducted Friday through Sunday, after both the conclusion of the Democratic convention and Sen. John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
A previous CNN poll, taken just one week earlier, suggested the race between McCain, R-Arizona, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, was tied at 47 percent each.
“The convention and particularly Obama’s speech seems to be well-received. And the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP running mate, also seems to be well-received. So why is the race still a virtual tie? Probably because the two events created equal and opposite bounces assuming that either one created a bounce at all,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
In addition to this poll, Zogby, another typically Democrat-skewed poll, shows McCain ahead, albeit slightly and within the margin of error.
Republican John McCain’s surprise announcement Friday of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate - some 16 hours after Democrat Barack Obama’s historic speech accepting his party’s presidential nomination - has possibly stunted any Obama convention bump, the latest Zogby Interactive flash poll of the race shows.
The latest nationwide survey, begun Friday afternoon after the McCain announcement of Palin as running mate and completed mid-afternoon today, shows McCain/Palin at 47%, compared to 45% support for Obama/Biden.
This is seriously bad news for Obama. And we’re starting to see the same thing we see in these polls be reflected in the Gallup Daily Tracking poll, which had Obama up by 8 yesterday, and 6 today.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Polls, Sarah Palin
September 1st, 2008
From Kausfiles:
On the record Time coffee featuring Obama campaign manager David Plouffe: Plouffe argued for paying less attention to the ups and downs of the polls because a) Obama would beat McCain on turnout and b) swing voters would probably break one way or another after the debates. The audience consensus–which in this crowd was almost by definition CW–seemed to be that Plouffe was whistling past the graveyard, relying on turnout machination to make up for a worrisome message problem. … P.S.: Plouffe also said the McCain campaign was “obsessed with news cycles.”
The advantage is still with Obama, but there’s trouble in Obama-land…and the speech tonight with Obamessiah at the Greek Temple might actually be the very worst idea Obama - or his advisors - ever had.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Polls, Unready to Lead
August 28th, 2008
Its sponsored by a conservative group, but still rather fascinating given that the sample was 41% Democrat and 25% GOP:
The contest between Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg and Republican ex-Rep. Dick Zimmer is neck and neck, according to a new poll sponsored by the Club for Growth. It’s no surprise coming out of the Garden State, though, where voters never seem to make up their mind until the very end of an election.
In the good news for the GOP side, only 26% of respondents figure Lautenberg deserved re-election - and its good to keep in mind that Laugtenberg was inserted into the 2002 race after Toricelli was bounced from the Democratic nomination for committing the worst crime of all - being at risk of losing a Democratic seat (all that corruption stuff which got him into trouble was nothing, after all; only the risk of loss motivated the Democrats to take the highly illegal step of switching candidates late in the race). Real Clear politics points out that another poll showed Lautenberg up by 7 percentage points…but tied or +7 for the Democrats, its still good news for the GOP that in very blue NJ in a very tough year for Republicans that we’re within striking distance of a major Senatorial upset.
As I keep saying, this is going to be an interesting year - and throw out all those ideas you had of predicting the outcome. Its really all up in the air, from top of the ticket to bottom.
Tags: Dick Zimmer, Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey, Polls, Senate
August 15th, 2008
Michael Barone thinks it might be:
…there is some evidence that the balance of enthusiasm has shifted and that young people — who seemed to turn out and vote for Obama in unusually high numbers in the primaries and caucuses — are no long so enthusiastic about him.
The first bit of evidence comes from the July 10-13 ABC/Washington Post poll. It asked registered voters if they were “certain” to vote. Only 46 percent of voters under 30 said they were — substantially lower than the 66 percent who said so in the ABC/Washington Post poll taken Feb. 28-March 2, at a time when Obama was enjoying a string of primary and caucus victories and before the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright were circulated on youtube.com on March 13. The 46 percent of young voters saying in July they were certain to vote was far lower than the 79 percent of 65 and over voters who said they were.
The second bit of evidence comes from the Gallup/USAToday poll taken July 25-27. This poll showed that when you narrowed the base of respondents down from registered voters to likely voters, John McCain was ahead 49 percent to 45 percent. That’s a vivid contrast from the contemporaneous Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, and it was the first national poll since May showing McCain ahead.
The declining enthusiasm of younger voters could also be related to the length of the campaign - younger people being notoriously more impatient than older people, and this campaign has dragged on for quite a long time. Meanwhile, when Obama started acting like President-elect right after wrapping up the nomination he also started acting like the campaign was a sprint rather than the most grueling of marathons. A good reason to have been wary of McCain was on the count of whether or not he - at his age - could stand up to the pounding of an exhausting Presidential campaign. Well, he has - while Obama has shown a marked lack of long-term campaign stamina. He’s got youthful energy, but his lack of experience is showing in his assumption that he’s got it in the bag.
As Barone goes on to note, gauging enthusiasm and turn out is always very difficult - you really don’t know who is going to show up until they show up. With that said, I figure there is a shift going on - of course, a shift which can swing back to Obama - in the sense that Obama is wearing out his welcome…his arrogance, self-centeredness and sheer presumptuousness starts to rub people the wrong way. We’ll see in November the final outcome of this, but my prediction still holds - Obama with a shriking advantage, and the race will go down to the wire.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Polls
August 3rd, 2008
From Rasmussen:
Voters who have served in the U.S. military favor John McCain over Barack Obama by a 56% to 37% margin.
This data, from a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, is based upon interviews with 3,000 Likely Voters, including 588 voters who have served in the military. Voters with no military service favor Obama 50% to 43%.
Its simple, really - those of us who served are much better as spotting someone who is shining us on. A lot of illusions about human nature are stripped away when one is serving in close quarters with hundreds or thousands of other human beings for months on end without a break. I think it pretty fair to say that each of us veterans knew one or two people in service who were complete phonies who sounded like they knew what they were doing…
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Polls, veterans
July 26th, 2008
The news story:
The presidential campaigns seemed like they were everywhere but Michigan a few months ago.
Democrats were avoiding the state, and the Republicans had come and gone. An early primary strategy adopted by leaders of both parties had backfired.
What a difference the passing of time makes.
Michigan television stations have aired at least $5.6 million in dueling TV ads in the last 2 1/2 months; the candidates, their wives and surrogates have the state on their itinerary for rallies, town halls and fund-raisers on an almost weekly basis; and the presumptive nominees are firing off waves of e-mail reactions every time Detroit’s automakers hiccup.
Michigan has morphed from political wilderness to campaign battleground central.
Need more proof? While Republican Sen. John McCain headed to Warren on Friday to talk to GM employees, the Democrats responded with no fewer than three countermoves: a letter from Sen. Barack Obama to UAW members, a news conference attacking McCain’s plan and an e-mail questioning the Republican’s record on incentives that might aid the industry.
“Michigan is going to be in play all the way, I think,” said Evan Tracey, the founder of Campaign Media Analysis Group, an Arlington, Va.-based company that tracks political advertising.
Charlie Cook, one of the most respected political analysts in Washington, has Michigan as a toss-up on his latest electoral college map; so does the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato and others.
Rasmussen shows Obama with a good lead in Michigan, but I’m with those who say that Michigan is a swing State…and, I’ll add, it is a State Obama cannot afford to lose. Without those 17 electoral votes, I believe that Obama’s challenge to getting 270 electoral votes becomes - not impossible - but very, very hard. There just aren’t that many Bush 2004 States which Obama really has a shot in…Colorado? Sure, it has 9 electoral votes. New Mexico? Yeah, Obama could win that, it has five electoral votes. See where I’m heading? Kerry got 252 electoral votes in 2004, 18 short of what he needed…Obama already has to take away Bush States in order to win. Lose Michigan and the need to increase by 18 becomes a need to increase by 35…even if McCain were to lose Ohio, Colorado and New Mexico, he’d still win it with an electoral vote to spare if he wins Michigan.
Will McCain win Michigan? I don’t know - we have to rate it a “leans Democrat” based on the fact that it hasn’t gone GOP at the Presidential level in 20 years…but the political gurus rate it a toss up, and that tells us something: forget any talk you might have heard of a coming Democratic blow out. If the GOP were about to get scorched, then McCain would be trying desperately to hold on to places like Georgia and Florida, not making a serious play for Michigan. Obama still has to be rated the favorite to win, but only because the GOP is still unpopular amongst the general voting population. If the GOP brand were just doing as usual in 2008, we’d probably have this thing close to sewed up. But, we’re not - so its off to the battle we go.
Since the start of this campaign season (ie, the day after the 2006 midterms) Democrats have consistently done everything they can to lose in 2008 - from refusing to end the corruption they allegedly ran against to being a defeatist on the war to being unable to pass any meaningful bills since they took over Congress, the Democrats have damaged their own brand…and then they went and nominated a good looking non-entity for President, who turns out to have a lot of skeletons in his closet. If we win this year, we GOPers will have to give a vote of thanks to the Democrats for helping us out along the way.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Michigan, Polls
July 20th, 2008
Pretty stark:
A new Gallup Poll claims to show that registered voters who say religion is important in their lives tend to support presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain by a margin of 50 to 40 percent, while those who say religion is unimportant to their lives tend to support presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama by a margin of 55 to 36 percent.
About two-thirds of the registered voters surveyed by Gallup said that religion is important to them.
According to the Gallup Poll, which surveyed 95,000 registered voters from March through June 2008, the divide in voting preference is not confined to white Protestants but is manifested among non-Hispanic white Catholics as well.
Non-Hispanic white Catholics who say religion is important in their daily lives support McCain over Obama by 53 percent to 37 percent. Those who say religion is not important slightly favor Obama by a margin of 47 percent to 45 percent.
Hispanic Catholics, black non-Catholic Christians, and those who do not have a specific religious identity reportedly tend to support Barack Obama, but their support apparently is little affected by the importance of religion in their lives.
Hispanic Catholics who say religion is important in their lives support Obama over McCain 57 to 31, while those who say religion is not important support Obama by a margin of 63 to 30 percent.
Meanwhile, among the 12% of respondents who have no religious identity, Obama cleans up with 65% to McCain’s 26%. Obama will, of course, try to move some religious voters his way; McCain, meanwhile, will try to expand his appeal to religious voters…and the election may very well turn on just who shows up…believers, or unbelievers.
There is a sad note in this, however - we are, in many ways, a house divided against itself, just as we were in the 1850’s - and just as it was back then, we will not forever remain divided, but will become all one thing, or all the other. Our fervent hope, of course, is that the passions which divide us never lead us to view those who disagree as our enemies.
This election may settle a lot of things, one way or the other - an Obama Presidency would cement ultra-liberal control of the judiciary while the Obama plan to massively increase government may place such a large number of Americans on government dependency (in one form or another) that we’ll have an European style electorate wedded to welfare and unwilling - even at the cost of national destruction - to modify their demands. On the other hand, the election of McCain will cement a conservative majority in the judiciary, while McCain’s proposals to reign in government spending and end pork would get government further out of Americans’ lives, and thus retain in America that sense of independence which is one of the two mainstays of our national strength (the other is our continued strong religious belief, especially as relative to the rest of the western world).
It is a crucial election, and pettifogging complaints that the candidate isn’t pure on ideology are worse than stupid - for each side, to stand aside is to give up the fight, perhaps for good and all.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Polls, religious voters
July 16th, 2008
Not that our readers are the ones to trust Newsweek, but really, don’t worry about that new Newsweek poll that claim Obama has a 15-point lead over McCain… which Newsweek reports under the headline “Barack’s Bounce.”
The only “bounce” in that poll is the number of Democrats sampled.
…and then there’s this point.
Tags: Barack Obama, media bias, Newsweek, Polls
June 20th, 2008
The Washington Post/ABC poll asked the question: If the eleciton were held today, for whom would you vote?
The result was: Kerry 48%, Bush 42%
in June of 2008 the Washington Post/ABC poll asked the question: If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?
The result is: Obama 48%, McCain 42%
Obama is in big trouble - he’s still the inside favorite, but he’s got to do vastly better than Kerry if he hopes to win in November, and so far he isn’t doing it. He’s gotten a “post wrap up” bounce which, at best, has pushed him nationally about 6 or 7 points ahead of McCain, depending on the poll, but that isn’t good enough, not by a long shot. In this year of 2008, with President Bush’s approval ratings below freezing and with the right/wrong track numbers entirely in the dumpster, Obama should be crushing McCain. I mean, seriously, anything less than a 20 point lead is just bizarre, given the overall political dynamics - and this shows that the American people, in spite of leftwing fantasies to the contrary, did not turn left in 2006 and are unwilling to do so in 2008. Obama is the most leftwing candidate ever nominated by a major American political party, and he’s having a very hard time selling himself outside upper class whites and black voters.
America is a center/right political nation, and if Obama wants to be President, he’d better figure out a way to assure the average American that his policies will not be overtly leftist - all the while fighting off McCain and the GOP, who will bring up every scrap of evidence of Obama’s leftism to tear down the moderate wall Obama is building ’round himself.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Polls
June 19th, 2008
Hillary scores big victory Kentucky while Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates.
Clinton won Kentucky by more than 30 points, but Obama’s share of the state’s 51 delegates was enough put him over the threshold, according to CNN estimates.
Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod, said this was an “important milestone,” but not the end of the trail.
A candidate needs 2,026 delegates to win the Democratic nomination. Obama has 1,932 total delegates, while Clinton has 1,753.
After Kentucky’s results came in, Clinton thanked her supporters for handing her a victory “even in the face of some pretty tough odds.”
“Tonight we have achieved an important victory,” Clinton said in Louisville.
“It’s not just Kentucky bluegrass that’s music to my ears. It’s the sound of your overwhelming vote of confidence even in the face of some pretty tough odds.”
Clinton beat Obama across all age groups, income groups and education levels in Kentucky.
Eighty-nine percent of Tuesday’s voters in Kentucky were white, according to the exit polls. Among them, Clinton won 72-22 percent. Nine percent of the voters were African-American and they overwhelmingly broke for Obama, 87-7 percent.
While Camp Obama may be patting themselves on the back for hitting their milestone, there’s some bleak news that may or may not influence superdelegates:
The exit polls from Kentucky also suggest a deep division among Democrats. Video Watch how Clinton’s win could affect the race »
Two-thirds of Clinton’s supporters there said they would vote Republican or not vote at all rather than for Obama, according to the polls.
Forty-one percent of Clinton supporters said they’d cast their vote for John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and 23 percent said they would not vote at all.
I’m looking forward to November.
Tags: Democratic Nomination, Hillary Clinton, Polls, Superdelegates
May 20th, 2008
Which is entirely understandable - the kook left is dissatisfied with the Democrats’ failure to lose the war, while conservatives are dissatisfied with Congress for being, well, Congress:
WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) — The approval rating of the U.S. Congress dropped to near-record levels and is lower than U.S. President George Bush’s mark, a Gallup poll indicates.
The telephone survey of 1,017 U.S. adults indicates 18 percent of those interviewed May 8-11 approve of the current Congress. The score matches record lows from similar Gallup polls in August 2007 and March 1992.
Gallup said Wednesday the reason for the low approval rating is because “rank-and-file Democrats are providing no support cushion for the Democratic-controlled institution.”
How this will play out in November remains to be seen - Democrats are patting themselves on the back for their off-year special election victories, and Republicans are wringing their hands over same…but with Congress this unpopular, what we might be seeing is more of a “throw the bums out” mentality rather than any real desire for more of the same. From my personal observations, people seem in a pretty foul temper about politics - which might result in voter apathy in November, or a surge of voters going to the poll in a bloody minded mood towards anyone who is in any way, shape or form connected in the public mind with business as usual. This would mean that anyone who can position himself as the outsider will do better…and in the McCain/Obama match up, I think that McCain - who is in the public mind as a critic of business as usual - might be able to one-up Obama on this sentiment.
Meanwhile, the nation is actually in good shape and we’re winning the war - so I think that the real source of the anger is the way politics has been conducted, and in this the Democrats are 99.99% at fault…by embracing the hate-filled, anti-American kook left, they allowed leftist political poison to work its way deep into the American body politic, and its got everyone feeling nasty. Hopefully, the long term effects of this will be a generalised rejection of the left - but only time will tell on that.
Tags: Congressional approval rating, Polls
May 15th, 2008
Things aren’t going, perhaps, as well as you planned:
The headline on latest national Gallup tracking poll is that Republican John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama in a hypothetical matchup by six percentage points (48%-42%) and leads Hillary Rodham Clinton by only one (46%-45%).
Gallup writes: Although both Clinton and Obama have lost ground to McCain over the past week, the current results may be particularly troubling for Obama in trying to combat Clinton’s assertion to superdelegates that she would be the more electable of the two candidates in November.
The nomination race between the two Democrats is a statistical tie for the 9th straight day, 48%-46% with Clinton leading.
Usual Poll Disclaimer: Its a poll, people - at best, it is a snapshot of how things are today, but it can’t predict how things will be on November 4th. If you’re going to bet money on the strength of a poll done in May for an event to happen in November, then you’d be better off just saving the time and trouble and putting your cash into a shredder.
Still, it must be said that Democrats cannot be pleased by such poll results. This year the political stars have all alligned in favor of the Democrats - rocky economy (though signs are increasing that talk of recession was overblown); unpopular war; unpopular incombant; attempt at a third consecutive term for the party in power; general dissatisfaction with the way things are. Democrats who were puffing up their chests a couple months ago predicting a blow out election were, even then, fooling themselves - forgetting that a great deal of their victory in 2006 was the result of 3 million or so less GOPers showing up at the polls, rather than a general surge of pro-Democratic voting - but those Democrats who expressed the opinion that 2008 looked good for them were only dealing in cold, hard reality. Or, at least, what appeared to be such.
Its been my opinion all along that the Democrats - at the national level - have a very high hill to climb. Absent a Johnson/Goldwater sort of race (which is highly unlikely), Democrats have a very difficult time getting a majority of electoral votes. A lot of things have to go exactly right for them in order for their to be a Democrat in the White House. In 2008, it looked like everything might fall into place - and then the Democratic race disinitegrated into a battle of the political ciphers. Now, as Hillary and Obama trash each other while John McCain gets to act Presidential, things are changing in the race.
As of now, the Democrats still have the clear advantage - money, enthusiasm and the aforementioned political stars still work well for the Democrats, but not nearly as well as they worked in January. The key for Democrats is to end the primary contest immediately and set about healing the intra-party divisions; the key for we GOPers is to capitalise on Democratic dissaray by both presenting ourselves as the responsible alternative (it helps that we actually are such a thing), as well as hitting both Hillary and Obama essentially with the stuff they’ve been hitting themselves with over the past couple months (can’t blame us for using their own words against them, now can they?).
The GOP can win this race: and that, in and of itself, is a stunning commentary on the utter degeneration of the Democratic party all too enthralled to the political left.
Tags: HillBama, John McCain, Polls
May 3rd, 2008
For the Democrats to win the White House, they will have to pick off two or three States President Bush won in 2004 - without, of course, losing any of the States Kerry won. One State the Democrats have high hopes for is Colorado, which has been one of the most Democrat-friendly Mountain-West States in recent years - unfortunately, things are not going too well for their prospective presidential candidates at this point, from Politico:
Brent Seaborn, late of the Giuliani campaign and now back at his consulting gig, sends over some up-ballot numbers his firm, TargetPoint, took for a third-party effort out in the Colorado Senate race.
Per their polling, McCain would defeat Hillary in Colorado 52-40 and beat Obama 51-39.
It’s one mere poll in April, but given the state’s blue-ward tilt in recent years and the hopes many Dems (especially Obama backers) have to pick it off, the numbers underscore the need for the Dems to not just come together but to also chip away at McCain’s image.
(It was taken from 604 likely general election voters the first week in April)
As the report notes, this is an April poll - and I advise strongly against reading too much into it…but, still, its gotta worry Democratic leaders to see polls like this in a year when they thought they were going to cake-walk into the White House.
Memo to Democrats: You’ve got a fight on your hands; we GOPers concede nothing.
Tags: Colordao, HillBama, John McCain, Polls
April 17th, 2008
Cause this is going to cause a couple heart attacks:
The lengthy Democratic primary contest bodes well for Republican chances of holding the White House, a new poll suggests.
As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters — at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary — aren’t committed to the party’s ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll.
Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee.
On the other hand, this does nothing for we GOPers because we’re not dumb enough to assume that a March poll will hold true in November…Democrats, on the other hand, are dumb enough to believe that a polls taken even a year before the election prove they have already won. Anyways, here is the actual poll (PDF) - its a fairly small sample, but it is just a poll of Pennsylvania, so it probably does a good job of reflecting the view of Pennsylvania Democrats this week…
On a larger level, one does wonder just how the long term slugging match will affect the November results - its just a natural that the longer a fight goes on, the more intensely the strong partisans on each side feel about it, and the more disappointed they’ll be if their candidate doesn’t win. This might not translate so much into McCain votes, but it may very well translate into non-voting. The trick for Hillary and Obama - and its a mighty hard one - is to figure out how to win convincingly (so there’s no question about the legitimacy of the nomination) whie at the same time keeping enough ties to the other side to bridge the gap for November. One of the larger problems in this is the fact that by the time the Democrats finalise their nominee, that person will only have a limited time to heal divisions prior to the need to stretch out to the middle for the general election.
Tags: Democratic Nomination, HillBama, Polls
March 21st, 2008
From Rasmussen:
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of Americans would like to see U.S. troops brought home from Iraq within a year. That number is down four points from two weeks ago and two points from four weeks ago. Over the last twenty-three weeks, the number wanting troops home within a year has ranged from a low of 57% to a high of 64%.
Twenty-three percent (23%) now want the troops brought home immediately. That number is down six points from the last survey.
Those who live by the poll, die by the poll (to paraphrase a bit) - and our lefty friends have been sustained by poll after poll showing President Bush to be unpopular. Well, my view of polls is well known - they can be useful, but all of them are a mere snapshot in time. Still, it can’t be doubted that this poll is going to drive our lefties nuts:
The tiny minority who see President Bush as evil and the war as being for oil/Israel/Likud/Halliburton/Insert Conspiracy Theory Here are that 23% in the poll - the rest of America is ready to see us there for at least another year, or even longer (36% home within a year, 35% to stay indefinitely). Could be that by November, HillBama’s defeatism is an albatross ’round their neck.
Tags: Iraq, Polls
March 19th, 2008
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