Ouch - McCain hit the 50% mark there with a credible polling organization.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

I agree on the questionable nature of the 16% black for McCain number. I also find it unlikely that Obama will fare worse among women than among men anywhere, which this poll says will happen. However, SUSA is a very good pollster, so it's sort of hard to pick it apart.

This poll is flawed, 16% AA for Mccain? On what freaking planet do they get that BS from? Also the latino vote Obama only by 6%? That seems very shaky given his large lead nationally.

As super noted the party ID breakdown is complete BS given the current political climate. This Poll is just not believable.

Took this straight from Survey USA's breakdown:

Hispanics favor Obama by 60 points.

If that is true then how do they show a 48-42 spread? This poll is dodgy to say the least. I bet they used 04 turnout models as well. Also Mccain will not break 5% AA in any state and I doubt he will be within 10 on Hispanic vote in any state either. Couple that with higher AA turnout and to me this poll at very wrost is dead heat. One last thing maybe I am wrong but I seriously think Republican turnout will be depressed and thus will elevate other groups overall % of the vote. There are no big moral issues this time and Mccain's evangelical bona fides are weak.

Pub nope they are counted as Hispanic. Survey USA like Ras has been following an overall trend of giving Mccain 10% or more of AA vote, this is also evident in their recent Missouri poll that gave Mccain 22%, which is a complete freaking joke.

I wouldn't discount this poll too hastily. Florida has always been a somewhat dubious prospect for Obama for one simple reason: whites over 60 are going to favor the old white guy, period. Remember that these folks were all teenagers or adults under Jim Crow and segregation. Obama is not going to win the majority in this group no matter what he does or what John McCain does. And in the 50 - 60 crowd, he'll probably only manage a draw with Mccain; those folks were teenagers and young adults right after segregation and Jim Crow, and it fucked a lot of them up, too.

In what state do over-60s make up the largest percentage of the population? If Florida isn't #1, it's close to it.

Now, look at who they surveyed. 57% of respondents were over the age of 50. A whopping 62% are over the age of 47. A full 54% of the survey was of people older than John McCain. And that makes sense, because those are the folks who still have landlines. And is anyone really surprised that old white women (remember, they outlive men, so they may have been similarly over-represented in this survey of ancients) are not supporting Obama in a southern state? Where y'all been hiding?

So while the survey grossly oversamples really, really old people, they are the ones who turn out to vote in droves. Hey, they've got nothing better to do. So I don't think you can completely discount it on the basis of oversampling old farts. But really, about the best that can be said for it is that it lacks a lot of really vital information that would make the data they've collected meaningful and of true value as a reliable predictive device.

another crappy Survey USA poll.

first off white voters DO NOT make up 73% of the electorate. they were 70% in '04 and with the growing numbers of hispanics and black registration it will be more like 66%

second off republicans DO NOT outnumber dems by 5%. its the opposite.. dems outnumber republicans by 5%.

that is a 10% swing right there.

Survey USA sucks

It isn't hard to understand when you factor in the type of people you find down here. The Sunshine State, home of the giant Confederate flag, Intelligent Design believers and abstinence advocates. State legislators who propose christian license plates and church leaders who surf porno sites on their computers at church and others who screw members of their own congregation be boy, girl or the deacon's wife.

Sometimes I find it difficult to communicate with people whose answer to the problems "we" face, (We as individuals or we as Americans or we as citizens of the world) is to "leave it in god's hand.

Ok, in answer to your question, no. No, they don't.

To be specific, 31.3% of Florida registered voters are 60 or older. They don't give the number for age 72+, but it's gotta be 25% or less.

This poll oversamples this age group by over 100%.

Lets not discount this poll out of hand, it does reflect a trend.

I remember when the Swift Boat ads first came out in 2004 thinking that there was no way they would stick. But they, combined with all the other things like windsurfing, etc., stuck. Death by a thousand cuts. We are seeing it now, with the Brittney/Paris and Moses ads.

In any event, Obama needs to go on the offensive and do so in a nasty way. Hillary would have done it. I'm sure she would have found a way to answer some question thusly: "I don't know if McCain is too old to be president." Has Obama done anything along those lines?

Another issue: they also undersampled lower income voters.

63% of survey respondents make over $50K per year. Just under 40% of registered Florida voters do. So they've oversampled higher income people by over 50%.

And what was the poll within the last couple of days that showed Obama 10 points ahead of McCain among lower-income voters? It was reported here at TPM but I don't remember the specifics.

This poll is pretty useless.

Did the DNC really think they were going to win FL after their little 1/2 vote fiasco?

Obama was the 4th highest vote getter in the FL primary. Even Romney got more votes. Why is it such a surprise he isn't winning now?

I know, Obama didn't campaign, it wasn't a fair election blah blah. If you say it enough times maybe just maybe it will make it true.

If another poll days ago gave Obama the lead (narrow)and now this one comes up, it means that is too close to call. Just the 16% for McCain in african-american makes this poll an outliar, like the one who gave McCain 10 points ahead in Ohio.

Florida will be too close to call, given the fact that most old voters will probably go republican and most hispanics will go for Obama.

This election, honestly, it's impossible to poll.
The dynamics are so different today that makes hard to measure the real numbers. Once again, the ground game will the defining aspect of this election.

PD: In recent years, more hispanics of other nations are settling in Florida, so the dominance of Cuban Americans is not as strong as it was.

Folks, I'm a huge Obama supporter and have been an optimist in the face of pessimism expressed by my family and friends. But can we stop saying, "Don't pay attention to the polls", and, "This is an outlier", or, "This can't be right", and admit that our candidate, almost inexplicably - unless we admit that gutter campaigning works - is bleeding support? We can't stop denying the reality. And as impressed as I was with Obama defeating the Clinton machine, the GE is a whole different ball game.

He's losing indies left and right and his Dem base support is stagnant. One of the main arguments in the primary was that Obama could win over more indies than Clinton and winning indies is how you win elections. I'm not saying that was an incorrect analysis - Obama would probably still draw more independents than Clinton. But right now, they're flocking to McCain.

Let's not ignore reality. We've got problems. And I'm not just talking Flordia, which I conceded months ago. I'm talking overall trends.

And it's now August 4, not June 6th. Not much time left.

Go ahead and call me a chicken little, but these trends are disturbing. If Obama's rock star tour of Europe didn't give him a big bump, is the Dem convention going to make much of a difference? Is picking Bayh or Kaine or Sebelius going to make indies stand up and say, "hey now!" Is he really going to blow away McCain in the debates.

Obama can't go into October - just two short months away - facing a statistical tie with McCain. That's not going to do it.

Obama cannot play nice with these guys. I applaud his efforts, but he will lose. He needs to hit back hard every time, and the MSM is not his friend, so he will have a much harder time doing so. Where are his counter ads?

As for the old folks, they will not change their minds. They have their social security and anyone that talks about national health care scares the sh*t out of them. (Even though they have national health care, but they don't see it that way.)

McCain has memory problems, he is not talking to the press as much as it has become obvious. Obama should use these constant gaffes, (and that is said kindly, they are much worse than a gaffe) to counter attack all the time. Obama has to toughen up and be an ass because the stupid average voter believes the crap the ads say and they do not do their homework.

Where is the ad where McCain cannot even remember the question, let alone answer it? Rove would have had that in an ad the next day. Link below for those of you who have not seen it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/04/mccain-takes-long-pause-w_n_116699.html

Obama claims that the McCain campaign is using race because it is the sole tool the GOP candidate’s staff has to use against him.
Actually, it’s the reverse. Obama is exploiting the race card because it is all he has in his arsenal. He has no experience, no accomplishments, no special knowledge, no particular gifts aside from reading a teleprompter well. Especially compared to McCain and Clinton. So he has to fall back on trying to “guilt-trip” people into voting for him.
Nobama Never.

Obama has peaked. The guy is a weather vane.

McCain is ascendant. His base is galvanized and the swing voters will gravitate toward his resolve.

Clinton remains the best candidate for president.

Race
Trust
Experience

That is all that will matter in the privacy of the voting booth.

I agreed with Amelie.

McCain's age is a factor. Considering the many, many different times McCain completely reversed positions after which he does another 180 degree turnaround.

If his strength is foreign policy it looks more like a weakness:

references Czechoslovakia

on CBS mentioned Pakistan-Iraq "border"

confuses Sunni and Shiite

declared Iraq was "first" major conflict since 911

called Putin the "President" of "Germany"

mixed up Somalia with Sudan

credited the surge for the Anbar Awakening

stated the troop level in Iraq was below pre-surge levels

so on and so on and so on.....

I understand the pressure a candidate is under, but some of the aforementioned are repeated time after time after time. That is not normal!

McCain criticizes Obama for giving a speech overseas, but apparently forgot the speeches he gave in Canada (@ $100 per person) and elsewhere back in May!

I posted this already... but I want to remind y'all we are only in first week of August.

Obama hit his low point in March and since has enjoyed a 5.5% lead until now. Similar to the 2000 and 2004 elections.

There are 92 or 93 days left until the election:

In 2000 Bush held a 6 point lead over Gore with 107 days to go. Gore moved up to take a 3 point lead with 56 days left. Bush reversed Gore's lead and led with 3 points during the last 3 weeks. Gore won the popular vote by 0.6 points.

In 2004 Kerry slowly built a 2 point lead by this time and held a small lead through-out the summer. With 50 days left Bush took back the lead by 4 points. Although Kerry gained 3 points he lost by a 2.4% margin.

So Obama is not in trouble. This is just the ebb and flow of polling. He'll get his mojo back.

Not to worry.....

Furthermore polls are not predictions; they are simply a snap shot in time.

Polls mean nothing until AFTER both republicans and democrats have held their conventions.

Obama is going to do fine. Not to worry.

LOL

Good one Debra

Too bad!
So sad!
All the little Obabots sticking their tiny members in the leaky dike trying to hold back the flood that is drowning Hussein.
The problem is that Americans are beginning to see Hussein Obama for the vacuous Say Anything but Ain't Done Nothin' fraud that he is.
The problem is that Americans will not turn the Oval Office into just another Affirmative Action job.

Every day Hussein reverses himself on another campaign plank.
Every day Hussein tries the same lies he deployed in the primaries.
And every day Hussein sinks in the polls.
Anybody see the pattern here?

But don't worry Obabots!
Hussein can probably be White House Lawn Jockey and his Shaniqua can always work the pole dance circuit. You know, that's where she really learned to "finally love America".