Posted on 10/06/2008 3:51:28 PM PDT by Chet 99
CBS Poll: Presidential Race Tightens
Democrat Barack Obama Retaining Small Lead Over McCain More Than Half Of Americans Polled Disapprove Of Bailout
NEW YORK (CBS) ― In a sign that the race for president has returned to about where it was before the first presidential debate, the Obama-Biden ticket leads the McCain-Palin ticket 47 percent to 43 percent among registered voters in a new CBS News poll.
The Obama-Biden ticket led by a wider margin, nine percentage points, in a CBS News poll released last Wednesday, before Joe Biden and Sarah Palin faced off in the vice presidential debate. Obama-Biden led by five percentage points on Sept. 25.
In the new poll, the Democratic ticket leads by 3 percentage points, 48 percent to 45 percent, among likely voters.
Barack Obama holds a 20 point lead in terms of enthusiasm. Fifty-eight percent of Obama voters say they are very enthusiastic about their candidate, while only 38 percent of John McCain voters say the same about the Arizona senator.
Roughly one in five registered voters have yet to commit to a candidate, though they may lean towards one or the other.
Interest in tomorrow's presidential debate is high. Roughly two in three registered voters say they are "very likely" to watch the debate, about the same percentage who said they were very likely to watch the first presidential debate and the vice presidential debate.
A CBS News poll conducted last week showed that more uncommitted voters thought Obama won the first debate, and nearly half of all voters expect he will win this debate too. Just one in four expect McCain to win.
The Vice Presidential Debate:
Both Biden and Palin appear to have benefited from their performance in the vice presidential debate. Both now have 40 percent approval ratings - an increase of six points for Biden and eight points for Palin from their pre-debate approval ratings.
Palin's unfavorable rating of 32 percent is significantly higher, however, than Biden's 19 percent unfavorable rating. And on the key questions of whether each candidate is ready to be vice president, or, if necessary, president, majorities see only Biden as passing the test.
Seventy-five percent of registered voters say Biden is prepared to be vice president, and 65 percent say he could be an effective president; just 42 percent say Palin is prepared to be vice president and only 37 percent say she could be an effective president. Even Republicans are more likely than not to concede Biden could be an effective president.
As uncommitted voters did in a CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll conducted immediately after the debate, registered voters who watched the debate give the "win" to Biden, 50 percent to 31 percent.
Both Biden and Palin improved their overall images somewhat in the debate, and both are seen by about six in ten voters as sharing their values. About one in three registered voters say the vice presidential candidates will have a lot of influence on their vote in November, the same percentage that said as much before the debate.
The Top Of The Ticket:
Obama continues to lead McCain when it comes to his overall favorable/unfavorable rating: The Democratic nominee has a favorable rating of 46 percent and an unfavorable rating of 34 percent. Registered voters are more closely split on McCain, who holds a favorable rating of 40 percent and an unfavorable rating of 38 percent.
Sixty-two percent of registered voters see both Obama and McCain as having the ability to be an effective president.
McCain has distanced himself somewhat from President George W. Bush, who currently has among the lowest approval ratings of any modern president. In this poll, 38 percent say that if elected president McCain would generally continue Mr. Bush's policies, down from 46 percent last month. This is the lowest percentage to link McCain to the president's policies since last April.
Obama has lost some ground when it comes to perceptions of how he would handle the economy, though he still leads McCain when it comes to the issue.
Twenty-four percent of registered voters are "very confident" that the Democratic nominee would make the right decisions on the economy, down five points from before the presidential debate. Forty-one percent are not confident, up from 34 percent.
Fifteen percent are "very confident" in McCain when it comes to the economy, meanwhile, and 44 percent are not confident.
The race continues to be close among independents. In this poll McCain has a small edge, 44 percent to 39 percent, among the group. At the end of last week it was Obama with a small lead. Independents have swung back and forth between the two candidates for the last few weeks.
Obama is leading among Democrats, liberals, moderates and voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries. He has not improved his support among former Clinton voters in recent weeks, and presently has the support of roughly two in three.
McCain is leading among Republicans, Independents and conservatives. He is also leading among whites, including both white Catholics and white evangelicals, as well as whites making less than $50,000 a year who do not have a college degree.
The Bailout Plan, Congress And The President:
Last week Congress enacted a financial rescue plan on its second try - and while Americans are more negative than ever about the state of the economy, a majority (51 percent) disapprove of the bailout package. Just 31 percent say they approve.
Americans continue to think Wall Street is more likely to benefit from the government's economic bailout than the rest of the country. Sixty-percent say the plan will just benefit Wall Street, while 30 percent say it will help everyone.
A majority of Americans now disapprove of the government providing money to financial institutions. A week ago Americans were evenly split on the question; now just 36 percent approve while 52 percent disapprove.
And even though a majority remains much more accepting of the idea of helping homeowners, even that number is down from last week, with 54 percent now approving and 37 percent disapproving.
Few Americans approve of how either the president or Congress is handling the financial crisis. Both receive identical 21 percent approval ratings on the measure.
Fifty-five percent now say the economy is in very bad shape - the highest number ever recorded in a CBS News Poll. Only 11 percent think the condition of the economy is even somewhat good.
Moreover, Americans remain pessimistic about the economy's future: three in four think the economy is getting worse. Only 3 percent think the economy is getting better, while one in five thinks it is staying the same.
President Bush's overall job approval rating is 22 percent - the same as it was last week and the lowest of his presidency. Congress also receives dismal overall ratings from the public. Only 15 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job, the same as last week. Seventy-two percent now disapprove of Congress' job, including a majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
This poll was conducted among a random sample of 957 adults nationwide, including 875 registered voters, interviewed by telephone October 3-5, 2008. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample and the sample of registered voters could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.
Yup.
Another ugly scenario is a McCain 270 to 268 electoral college win. They’d have over a month to bribe and/or intimidate just one McCain elector to flip and throw it to the Dem controlled House.
McCain/Palin - still with a slight lead in a close race.
I’ve heard that Rasmussen lags behind the trends seen in other polls. Is that true and if so, why?
Caught me. I posted my comment, read it on the board, and it was too late.
Good for you to catch it. You’re the only one so far.
Polls are just another form of deceit designed to herd political livestock. Moo-oo-oo-o-o!
McCain has to do well tomorrow night, otherwise it is over. The third debate won't matter.
Democratic House candidates may have received 5.4% more votes than Republican House candidates, and so on. But I am talking about actual Party ID. In 2006, the breakdown was D37, R34, and I29, and together this mix cast 5.4% more votes for Democratic House candidates than Republican House candidates. It turns out that the Independents voted for Democrats by a 57-39 margin, compared to 49-46 in 2004 -- and that's essentially why the House flipped the way it did.
Incidentally, while retrieving this information, I noticed something else that was very interesting. In 2004, the Independents favored Kerry, but only by a single point: 49-48. In 2000, they favored Dubya 47-45. In the Gallup polling for Sept. 22-28, McCain led this group by nine points. With McCain doing better with Independents than Dubya did and holding his own GOP base, Obama is going to need ridiculously high turnout with his own base (signficantly better than Kerry, who is already the second highest vote-getter in Presidential election history) in order to win the election.
But hey, all the media polls say Obama is going to win in a landslide. Past election history doesn't matter. Actual polling data doesn't matter. What matters is that the media says that Obama will win and resistance from stupid Republicans is futile. Right?
Everyday for over a week you were told the Gallup RV poll was flawed and misleading. You kept posting it anyway, as means of providing a forum in which well meaning FReepers could br battered by trolls.
You knew that and yet, you persisted.
Now, stop it!
Take the pledge, tatown, only LV polls from now on.
I wish Rush would issue orders to the Army that whenever polled to say you are a democrat or independent and that you are voting for Obama. We should all do this. Let’s get the dems so sure of a landslide that half of them don’t bother to show up to vote. This would be a good start in ending these incessant daily polls by rendering them even more obviously meaningless than they already are.
Has anyone seen the Obama network on Dish Television? I can imagine that after Obama is elected he will feature Rev. Wright’s sermons on his network.
So if McCain does badly tomorrow, but in the third debate Obama undresses and runs around the debate stage screaming "ALLAH AKBAR!!!" for the entirety of the 90 minute debate, it will make no difference and the election will still be over and for Obama by a landslide? Interesting.
But, but, but where are CatOwner, steve-b, tatown and ulandsauffhwerwer at? I thought for sure they would post a poll like this in an instant!
The sample in NBC/WSJ is 82% white, this is way too high (76% would be quite good for McCain).
If I had to guess, McCain is down by 6 or 7 right now, and will not get any closer till the Dow stabilizes, and preferably above the 10000 mark, not below it.
The turnout will be much closer to 2004’s model than 2006’s. If you truly believe otherwise, fine. You’re not alone. But you’re also fooling yourself.
The next time it happens will be the first.
There is never going to be a first time.
I saw today on FNC that "young people" are overwhelmingly supporting Obama (more than 60%).
The question that was reasonably posed is whether they'll bother going to the polls. If the latest "US" magazine has just been released, it's JagBomb night at the local bar, and the season finale of "Big Brother" is being televised all on Nov 4th, Obama may have a problem.
Sadly, my greatest hope for defeating Hussein is also my greatest fear.
Seems our youngest are not our brightest.
What were the turnout ratios in 1996?
I don't know. Rasmussen doesn't publish his internals or any "snapshot" polls (polls for a single night rather than a three day rolling average), at least not unless you are willing to pay for them.
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