CBS Poll: Presidential Race Tightens (Obama 48%, McCain 45% LV)

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.

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.

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.

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.

The 2006 differential was 3%, no matter how you slice it. Your data, like much of your reasoning, is flawed. I bet you think Obama really is leading in NC by 6 and in VA by double digits, don't you? After all, there are recent polls to support it!!! :-D

2006, Dems +3

I'm done arguing with you. I don't believe you're a GOP voter, despite your oh-so-clever screen name. I'm quite certain you're simply here to dredge up anything negative you can find. Which is your privilege.

But if you truly are just a simple, worried conservative who wants his country to do the right thing, here's a thought. Instead of [ahem] "hoping" the GOP does well, why don't you help out and "change" your incessant attempts to tear them down?? That's certainly the approach I'd use. Then again, I do my best to look at things objectively.

Look, you make credible points, and I see your logic. It is just basically impossible for me to agree with you that this election is just like the last 2 elections in terms of turnout, how Independents are going to vote, how self-proclaimed party ID is at the moment. This is a toxic year for Republicans, and I am convinced that it is even more toxic than 2006 was. Some of it is buffered by Obambi’s candidacy, which has been a godsend, but I am still resigned to Nov. 4 being a very different day/night than you appear to believe. I strongly believe that not only will Obama win the popular vote, but will walk away with a rather convincing EV victory. It is just one of those years. I am hoping for something, anything, to change the trajectory, and perhaps a major overseas crisis can shake this up. But even with that, people would be way too cynical at this late stage.

You ay want to consider this recent finding, as it pertains to our discussion here:

Yesterday’s ABC/WSJ poll -

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/081006_NBC-WSJ_Full_Release.pdf

Wall Street Journal article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122332442918808789.html

OCTOBER 7, 2008 Independent Voters Move Toward Obama

Independent voters are starting to swing behind Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who continue to benefit from economic turmoil and the public response to their debate performances, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
....
Independent voters are among the most important voting blocs because many of them would consider voting for either candidate. In the Journal/NBC poll two weeks ago, independents favored Sen. McCain by 13 points. The new survey finds Sen. Obama leading by four points.

The game changer, I believe, was the horrific state of the economy. The party of the president gets blamed or gets credit for the state of the economy. I see polls as snapshots of the current status of the race, and, clearly, if voting day was tomorrow, Obama would win and McCain would lose. There is time left, but all of this posturing (not necessarily by you, but others) that all polls showing Obama ahead in states and nationally are complete garbage does not come across as genuine. I don’t tend to believe one poll over another, there is margin of error to consider, polling methodology, one-day samples which could be bad, so I go with the aggregate of all polls. That way you minimize the chance that one errant poll spoils the overall picture. People said “ignore the polls, they are all false” in 2006, and we got a WORSE showing than even the most pessimistic polls showed (not a one had the GOP actually losing the Senate, aside from Zogby, I believe.)

There are many reasons this year is not going to be a GOP year, not the least of which is simply historical. In modern history never has the party occupying the White House for 2 straight terms captured it again right after following an unpopular president. If that was not enough of a historical disadvantage we are dealing with a rotten economy, a general overall slight pushback, if not somewhat strengthening repudiation (hopefully temporary) of many conservative principles, a lukewarm Republican base for the top of the ticket. I am also not detecting many, if any, of the ballot initiatives that have typically served us well to drive many out on election day.

Perhaps the excitement is just building and Nov. 4 will turn out different than most everyone predicts (including most Republican pundits and analysts on the tube,) but I can’t see that quite yet, at least not as of now. The next 2 weeks are pivotal in that respect, obviously.

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