Posted on 10/22/2008 6:32:21 AM PDT by tatown
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 45%. Obama has now enjoyed a modest lead every day for nearly a month.
It is difficult to overstate the stability of this campaign ever since the events on Wall Street brought a new wave of economic anxiety to the fore. Just before Lehman Brothers collapsed and started the Wall Street debacle, McCain held a very slight lead in the polls. Immediately afterwards, the race became more of a referendum on the Bush Administration and Obama moved ahead. The stability of Obama’s advantage in recent weeks suggests that it will be difficult for McCain to change the dynamic before the results are finally set in stone.
For the past eleven days, Obama has been at the 50% or 51% level of support every day in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. During those same eleven days, McCain has been at 45% or 46% every day and the gap between the candidates has stayed between four and six percentage points.
If you go back a couple of weeks further, the results are pretty much the same. It’s now been 27 days since Obama’s support moved below 50% or above 52%. During that period, the number voting for McCain has stayed in the 44% to 46% range and the gap between the candidates has ranged from four to eight percentage points (see trends).
Rasmussen Markets data shows Obama with an 86.0 % chance of winning in November (see market expectations for key states).
Tracking Poll results are released every day at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and a FREE daily e-mail update is available.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama while 54% say the same about John McCain. Those figures include 41% with a Very Favorable opinion of Obama and 26% who say the same about McCain (see trends).
Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters say the economy is the top issue of Election 2008 while 19% name national security. Eleven percent (11%) say fiscal issues such as taxes and spending are the highest priority while 10% look primarily to domestic issues such as Social Security and health care. Only 7% name cultural issues as most important.
Polling released yesterday for West Virginia and South Carolina show McCain leading in both. New state polling results were released earlier this week for Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. See a video overview of the latest Fox News/Rasmussen Reports Battleground State polls.
Rasmussen Reports data indicates that Obama currently has the edge in every state won by John Kerry four years ago. However, of the states won by George Bush, McCain is trailing in four and five others are considered a toss-up. As a result, Electoral College projections now show Obama leading 260-163. When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 286-174. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House.
Take a moment to predict how many Electoral College votes Obama will win this year.
Recent statewide Presidential polls have been released for Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin Demographic crosstabs for all state polling are available for Premium Members. Learn More.
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 1,000 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 3,000 Likely Voters--is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for the full-week results are available for Premium Members.
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology). Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. During the final two months of Election 2008, party weighting targets are updated each Sunday (see additional information). For polling data released during the week of October 19-25, 2008, the partisan weighting targets used by Rasmussen Reports will be 39.7% Democratic, 33.0% Republican, and 27.3% unaffiliated.
A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls, our Quick Campaign Overview and a 50-State Summary of the Presidential Race.
I don’t know about you guys, but I am ready for the October Surprise to hit.
“Just how it goes people. While disheartened, I’m still not throwing in the towel, and I still plan to vote. “
Same here. We just deal with what we get and pick up the pieces later.
Powell’s past sins don’t matter now. All the voters are going to see is a popular ‘Republican’ General endorsing Obama, and the libs will no longer call him an Uncle Tom.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the voters.
Definitely, McCain is no better off than 10 days ago, and perhaps worse.
The only poll which shows him close is a Battleground poll, which is all over the place this year.
Other trackers:
Gallup Trad O +7 (Expanded +10)
Zogby O +10
IBD/TIPP O +6
Hotline O +6
Battleground O +1
ABC O +9
With ‘Rats being polled almost seven points over Republicans, it’ll never get down to three points.
We’ve been hearing of the pending ‘tighter race’ for a couple of weeks now yet every time it seems to be moving towards McCain, Obama jumps to a new and bigger lead.
I CAN’T believe that the current bump for Obama has anything to do with him getting the endorsement from another black man. Americans can’t be that stupid can they? Very frustrating.
Hang in there. This race is still tantalizingly close, regardless of what the national pollsters say. This is all about depressing turnout and morale.
And, we have critical Senate races to consider, so keep fighting in every state.
Battleground will be between O+4 and O+7 today, meaning all of the polls will be consistent with each other.
If New Hampshire wasn’t still in play McCain wouldn’t be spending time there (like he is today). If Pennsylvania wasn’t in play both he and Palin wouldn’t be spending their time there. The internal polls for both sides must be showing an extremely close race because both campaigns are spending time and money in states the pollsters are telling us are not in play.
“Rasmussen Reports data indicates that Obama currently has the edge in every state won by John Kerry four years ago. However, of the states won by George Bush, McCain is trailing in four and five others are considered a toss-up. As a result, Electoral College projections now show Obama leading 260-163. When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 286-174. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House.”
Don’t be fooled by polls that pretend to show a landslide brewing. THIS RACE IS VERY CLOSE. As both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity said yesterday, the race is razor thin close. Get out and vote. The polling is really poor this year because all pollsters, including Rasmussen are predicting a tremendous democratic turnout. They have totally underestimated the strong Republican turnout occurring. I live in Hillsboro, Oregon, and there are McCain/Palin yard signs all over the place.
Well I can tell you after a lunch with our CEO(A staunch Pubbie)he indicated with an Obama win, pink slips will be going out to “Non Key” employees in anticipation of tax increases. I took that to mean ...um Obama supporters on our staff...hehe. So celebreate on the unemployment line!
“Do people really give a damn about what Powell thinks?”
FWIW, Rasmussen polled a few days ago and found that Powell has 80% popularity, by far the highest approval of any living political figure in the country.
Me, too. However, time is running out.
The polls are cooked to a certain extent, but there’s a definite trend towards 0 here. The media made a huge deal out of Powell, which can give a bit of a bounce. Frankly, were I them, I would rather have had him on the Sunday before election day though.
If this IS Powell related, then we should see the trend reverse itself as word of Biden’s words and the ‘test’ gets into people’s heads.
I do think we can win this, especially with the word coming out of OH and PA.
Stop watching the polls.
Call everyone you know,
talk about the fascist/socialist policies that 0bama has already stated that he’d implement.
Tell them “it’s fine if you hold those values yourself, I’m not out to change your mind on those issues, I just want to make sure you’re aware of them”.
I have to agree. 6% seems about right.
I’m feeling pretty good about a McCain-Palin victory.
Wasn’t Gallup Expanded +2 just a few days ago??? What’s up with that??
Powell opposed Desert Storm in 1991. So much for his judgement.
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