Some interesting internals. In their 10/1/08 they showed Obama leading McCain 43% - 38% among independents. The new poll shows the opposite 44% to 39% McCain. This alone tells me that based on their results, McCain is likely ahead.
Additionally, this poll shows that McCain is getting 26% of Clinton voters. Again, this would indicate that Obama might have a bigger uphill climb that some of the other polls might be indicating.
Either way, this poll is good news on a day where most of the news has been bad.
These numbers are more consistent with the weekly Gallup internals (which last had McCain leading by nine points among Independents, with new weekly numbers due tomorrow or Wednesday).
I wonder how much of this had to do with the McCain camp's new emphasis on people like Ayers. Normally, Independents and swing voters hate this type of stuff (ditto for the Boy Genius's "Keating 5" response), but perhaps they focus grouped this issue and made some interesting discoveries.
You’re correct that this poll is better than it looks. In post 31 I posted the data with confirms kesg’s weighted percentages, which means that this poll was about a +9.5 Dem oversampling amongst registered voters.
This is one statistic I believe in that McCain is getting 26% of Hillary voters. I guessed it was somewhere in that range. Based on the Bradley/Wilder effect it could be as high as 30 to 35%.
If I am a working class white Democrat and I saw Obama hijack the Dem Party by demonizing Hillary (his supporters did it even more) and through ACORN tactics at the caucases - you know I would be voting for McCain.
If McCain wins the Clintons will probably grab the Dem Party back. It will be a war but losers usually pay dearly in the Dem party.
I think the polls are BS but I think the Hillary voters going 25 to 30% to McCain is valid. Hussein Obama will have to bag a LOT of independents and Republicans (yeah right) to make that up.
Fight, work hard, donate and volunteer. No whining.