Internals Strong for Obama
I have long suspected that the post-convention McCain bump in the polls would not last since. Now there is strong evidence that virtually the entirely based on a jump upon enthusiasm among hard-core GOPers and that, to paraphrase John McCain, the fundamentals of the Obama campaign are quite strong.
The NYTimes and CBS conducted a poll a few days ago and released its findings today. It shows a noticeable jump in support for McCain, but similar increases for Obama. Much more interestingly, there seem to be a few trends that buck convential thinking on McCain’s supposed inroads.
First, according to the survery McCain did not move at all among women voters after his VP pick. In contrast, Obama was 9 points stronger among women after the conventions than before. (McCain picked up slightly among men, while Obama lost the same 3 points.)
Second, Obama and McCain both saw modest increases in the youngest demographics (under 44), while the Democrat clobbered McCain in the 45-65 group, and the Republican similarly picked up a lot among the older crowd.
Third, independents trended heavily toward Obama versus the previous poll, an indication that McCain is moving toward securing his base, but perhaps not moving beyond that (or even losing ground there).
The last two points are that Obama continues to win suburbanites, and three out of four people overall thought McCain chose his VP choice to win the election rather than to govern effectively.
If you want to follow all of the silly machinations (and I do), you can go to this page, which has every tiny movement in any country. However, the more important picture is always in the internals. And the internals show that Obama should not be panicking.
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Elana responds:
Posted: September 19th, 2008 at 12:19 am →
There are a lot of polls out there that are saying various things about who’s ahead, what demographics everyone’s getting, etc. Just this morning, I read in New York magazine that McCain had gained 20 points of likely women voters. So who knows what polls are accurate? That said, I agree that the star power Palin has incurred will start to gray as she continues to open her mouth about more serious topics and show her ignorance.
Scott responds:
Posted: September 20th, 2008 at 5:10 pm →
It is easy to poll for anything. Obama leads in the world poll, but how many electoral votes does Germany have?
Josh responds:
Posted: September 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm →
@Scott:
I double checked the poll and can confirm that no Germans were included in the sample.
Scott responds:
Posted: September 23rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm →
Josh,
There was more to the comment that was supposed to make the opening remark funny, but I somehow screwed up and it didn’t post. Sorry for my failed attempt at humor.
Scott